Talking Watches With HerzWerk

Welcome to the Limited Edition, your podcast and channel of choice if you, like me, are in love with artisan watchmaking. In the early days, an innate love for mechanics and watchmaking has brought a young watchmaker to form a solid bond with some of the most respected legends of independent watchmaking, such as Paul Gerber, Marco Lang, to name a few. Martin Hohnemann went also through spending some time at Patek Philips to complete his formation and to then be able to express his own art and finally become an independent artisan watchmaker. Martin founded Herzwerk and started applying all the learning and experience onto his very selective Limited Editions that combine a fully in-house manufacturing ethos with a very personal sense of aesthetics. This has pushed him to experiment on movement conception as well as the most interesting finishing techniques. We're going now to discuss all of this with him directly today in this new episode. Hello, ciao from Pietro from the Limited Edition. It's another day and it's another artisan watchmaker today that we present, we illustrate. Obviously, I won't do this on my own, but first of all, thanks a lot if you're watching this. Before I introduce our guest today, I want to say a big, big thank you for helping us reach an amazing milestone, 100,000 viewers, subscribers on YouTube. We just got actually today the award from YouTube. We're not interested in the number, we're interested in the fact that you really seem to appreciate the humbly intelligent content that we try to put out there for you to discover the true stories of the true watchmakers of our time. As I said, today is a big day because we're going to introduce one that has not been seen very much so far. We've been following a little bit in the watchmaking world, but he's actually just started his production. We're going to, I can do this just to prove you, just got our award today. I'll take this as an excuse to celebrate with Martin Honemann, who should be connected from Germany today. Hi, Martin, how are you? Thank you. I'm good. How are you? I'm very, very well. Thank you very much. For those that follow us very closely, you know that we tried already to have Martin with us. There was a technical problem, so we have postponed to today. Today, I've been told that everything will go absolutely fine. Martin, thank you for your patience. I know how busy you are in these days. Yeah, it's crazy before Christmas, but I wish everyone a peaceful time and no stress at all. You've just started really to show to the world your production, your art. What was the first response that you had so far? The first response? If we talk about Herzberg, it all starts with my education. It starts in 2008 when I was joining the watchmaking school in Furtwangen, Germany. It was three years of education for me. In this time of education, I was working with the watch movement. I was finding my love for watchmaking. When we built something like modules for chronographs or pocket watches, so at a very early stage, I found my passion for watchmaking. Why did you choose that particular path in the first place? Why watchmaking? Why watchmaking? I really wanted to go and make something craft. I was not looking for a job being in an office or somewhere else. I wanted to do some craftsmanship. I was just inspired by reading magazines, by the fascinating world of watchmaking. It's really artful. It's more than mechanic. It's art. I was looking for the whole new world. I was going into this rabbit hole and see this lovely world. I was like, okay, I want to do something like this. Then we go back to your story. Did you have in the first place any watches in your family that inspired you? Maybe a watch from your granddad, your dad, or you completely came in a new direction for you? Nothing like this. Not even my parents or my uncle, no one was really interested in high-end watchmaking. Of course, everyone had a watch. My first watch I had was a Lego watch when I was five or six years old. Nothing special, but when I was looking at magazines, there was a whole new world for me. What happened then? Did you meet some inspiring professors, teachers at school? How did you develop then further? School was a really interesting time. We start with table watches or clocks, and we start to repair those watches, try to understand the mechanical side of how a watch works, basically. There was nothing special, so we had a really good time. We start with 10 people. At the end of our education, we were six people, so it was a really small class, but the quality was really good. After school, my first step was in Zurich. Very good. What happened then in Zurich? Because, of course, I've heard that Switzerland is quite good for watchmaking, and they have a good tradition there. It is. I joined the team of Paul Gerber. He's a member of the AHCI. At this time, he was doing small series, unique pieces, and complicated watches. His knowledge was amazing. I guess Paul Gerber was the most important step in my career, because he was so known, and this great master in teaching watchmaking with all his tricks, you can never find in some books. He was really amazing. Paul Gerber is really underground in a way. Only the real passionate, the real aficionados would know about Paul Gerber. We know how influential he's been in actually guiding, inspiring, and teaching to so many young watchmakers. He's kind of winding down a little bit at this present time, but he's still doing that. Last time I saw him, it was at the International Festival of Time in Ireland, and he was with a young watchmaker there, who works with him constantly. For people like me, Martin, Paul Gerber is up here. He's one of the icons, really. You were lucky enough to meet him quite young, so that must have made a big difference. Yeah. School is giving you some basics, of course. As a watchmaker, you have the choice to be a watchmaker in repair and servicing watches, and a real small part of watchmakers are going to build watches or manufacture watches. It's a completely different story. Paul Gerber was one of the rare guys who manufacture complete movements by his own. It was crazy to see all his knowledge and his skills, and to learn from him. Is there one particular lesson you can single out from Paul Gerber, or it was the volume of the different learnings? I think the most important thing he learned me was stay calm. Stay calm, yeah. Stay calm. I like his understatement, so he's not going to show himself very well or too often. He's really calm down and a really lovely person with this character. I guess this was the most important step, because when I was young, I was really pushing forward and tried to explore the whole world of watchmaking. He was like, okay, calm down a little bit. I'll show you this thing and this thing. I'll show you how to do this one. This was great. I guess even more than some other professions, the learning comes a lot from the experience of making the mistakes that you need to make in order to improve in watchmaking. Mistakes are very, very necessary to learn. One time I cracked a dial made out of porcelain. Of course, it was a unique piece and you can't rebuild it this easy. If you crack a dial like this, but it happens. It happens to everyone. Then you moved back to Germany. Was it after this experience at Paul Gerber's? After Paul Gerber, I was going back to the watchmaking school in Furtwangen as a trainer and teacher for one year. It was limited to one year and I was going to teach the next generation of watchmakers. It was a great joy. At that point, you were fully trained by one of the masters, Paul Gerber, but you were not yet producing your own watches yet. You didn't have a side project or something you were developing under the table? Not at this time, no. I think it all starts in Dresden when I worked with Marco Lang at Lang & Heine. It was my next step in my career. It was this time I started working with movements, basic movements like ITER 6497. Everyone knows this movement. It's a really good movement to start if you want to work with your own modules or try to build something for your own because you have a really solid engine and you can build stuff on it. I was creating my first modules on this caliber, mostly for friends of my father or friends of mine. I make really simple watches. It was the start, 2008, when I was going to find my inspiration and find my own joy in building watches. Absolutely. From Marco Lang, again, another very important watchmaker, shall I say. What was the big learning for you at the time at Lang & Heine? I think the whole work with the team in the workshop. We had a really small team of watchmakers. The workshop was amazing. He gave me the chance to switch to his sister company. It was UWD. I worked there doing prototypes and process development. I learned a lot doing prototyping there. More on the construction side as well, whereas with Paul, it was based much more on watchmaking itself, I guess. It was more the construction. We had a master constructor at the UWD. We manufactured the movements. We built the first parts. We put everything together, gave the feedback. If all the components fit, if we have some issues over there, if we can make processes better. Absolutely fantastic. A fairly good journey to learn your trade. When did you feel the urge to come out with your own production, which we are celebrating now, 16 years, 18 years after your days with Paul Gerber and Marco Lang? It was next to my work at Patek Philippe. Patek Philippe gave me a very close insight to the world of complications and the world of high-end watchmaking. Their knowledge is amazing. Every watch Patek is building is just an amazing piece, a mechanical amazing piece. I learned a lot from Patek. I was inspired to build my own first big complication next to my work at Patek. I come with my unique piece with the deadbeat seconds I showed two weeks before. I was really inspired by... I know who you did this for as well, which we're not going to mention, of course, but I know that you made our common friend really, really happy. This piece encapsulates a little bit the Herzwerk philosophy. If we can explain why Herz is a magic word in German and a magic word indeed in what you're trying to achieve. Herzwerk is based on two words. Herz is like the heart and it's reflecting all the passion to the craftsmanship I want to bring. It's not about Herz. Herz in Germany means you do something with a real great passion and joy and you are looking for more than just mechanics. I really want to create art. So I looked for so many hours on the proportions and the dial and I was feeling like, oh, is it good? Is it not good? And it's a huge step on development to build a piece like this. And thanks to Sam for showing us the pictures. If you can go back to the first one, Sam, where we can see the front and the back. Martin, could you take us through the most important features, including the artisan techniques here and the configuration of the movement? All right. I don't know where to start. So if we are looking on the dial side, so let's start at the dial side. We have two separate porcelain dials and they are framed in a white gold cage. So even to build or to manufacture a dial made out of porcelain was a real big step in processing. I guess after what happened with Paul Gerber, it had to happen again, no? You worked with porcelain. Yeah, but this time it all went well. It worked out well, as we can see clearly. And next to the dials, we have this German silver material dial plate and with this hand gear sash made from Bensinger. Maybe some of you know this guy. Of course, of course. He's very kind and a lovely guy and he was doing the hand gear sash on this dial. Which looks absolutely fantastic and it creates a contrast with the porcelain dial and sub-dial. And yeah, talking about the movement, we said we can see a lot going on and a deadbeat as well function that you have managed to present here. Yeah, all right. I was adding the deadbeat complication between the movement and the dial. On this space, there is no space and my challenge was to add the complication on the dial side because you have a really clear and structured view on the movement side. And for me, it was way more artful and harmoniously to see the deadbeat second on the dial side or not to show the deadbeat second complication and to add the overwinding system on the movement side. So, if you look at 12 o'clock, there's a little golden cock and this is my overwinding system. It protects the watch from overwinding and it's a little more complicated than a simple click. Absolutely, and it looks really good as well. I really love how you created contrast here, between the more silver elements that are hammered. What's the decoration you're using here? This one is blasted, so it's like a frosted surface. And I blast this surface with ruby powder. It's very special because it took a long time to find the right technique. So, it's not just that simple as it looks like. Yeah, I can imagine. Can you tell us something about the origin of the movement? How you move it? The movement is close to previous movements I used. It's the ETA 6497. But this movement I made here was fully made by myself. So, I made my solid 22 carat wheel train. I made the components out of German silver. I do a rhodium coating and it gave me this effect like I love seeing and exploring these watches. It was my challenge or my goal to get closer to their design because I really love the art they do. I want to do something similar in the art of watchmaking. Yeah, so this is an in-house developed movement. What about the balance? It looks like obviously a large balance. Was this also an important element you wanted to have? This balance is made by myself. So, it looks close but I was not feeling to change something because it's running well and why not to use the design? Absolutely, absolutely. So, this is a unique piece you developed which is something you're going to carry on doing? Are you going to be focusing on unique pieces and mixing different artisan skills and crafts as you've done here? For 2025, I was going to present a small series of my new model Onyx. So, this one was limited or is limited to five pieces and I'm going to build a small series but my main focus is still on complicated unique pieces in the future. Yeah, so maybe Sam, if you have a picture of the Onyx five-piece limited edition, we can show it. This would be the steel version and wow, here you have worked on a completely different layout and you are showing things very much from the front on the mechanical side rather than from the back like we've seen in the previous timepiece. So, can you explain us where the concept came from and what you wanted to achieve? The design is very similar to my unique piece we have seen before, the green one, because the design of the main dial and the second dial are very similar even from the size. But many people come back to me and ask me if I could do a skeleton version or show the deadbeat second complication and of course everyone wants to see the heartbeat of a mechanical watch and I was thinking about and was inspired to bring the balance on the dial side to see the heartbeat of a watch working and I decided to use two sapphire crystal dials inside the watch to make the movement more visible. Yeah, which works really, really well and this would be in steel. Could you remind us the size of the case, the diameter and the thickness as well? If you have the lug-to-lug it would be amazing as well, but I can see you work on the fairly reduced lug sizes. Yeah, this watch comes in 41 millimeters which is very small for this caliber, for this dimension of the watch and we have a height of only nine millimeters at this watch with the balance on the dial side so this is very flat for this caliber and I was how to say, I want to bring the strap as close to the watch case as possible so and I reduced the lug size enormously so we have a lug size of I guess 48.5 millimeters and this watch looks so small on the wrist so even people with a small wrist this watch even with 41 millimeters fits perfectly. Yeah, so the full lug-to-lug is 48.5 yeah which makes it really wearable absolutely. How did you finish the case back, the main plates on the case back with that lovely black that creates a contrast with the purple screws that we see there? So I was playing around with some details like purple screws, I was trying blue screws or just white polished or black polished screws so I'm very flexible in doing some variations here and the back side is made, the components are still made out of German silver like Lange & Söhne does or Kotel Fosse like I said before and this one is black rhodium coated with this engraving from Herzwerk and this individual serial number. Okay so this limited edition of five pieces if a collector wanted to personalize some of the elements there is the possibility now there is the option from your side? Yeah for sure. Okay so could you list the elements that you would be open at you know customizing eventually? It really depends on the customer's wishes or specific wishes they had so like if we're looking for some different screw colors like polished screws or blue screws this is absolutely no problem for me. Of course if someone wants to have some individual engravings or some different finish techniques I'm very open for small variations so we could we can we can talk about the decoration, the grade of finishing and engravings for example this is no problem. That's very good and to celebrate obviously the beginning of our collaboration at the limited edition we are official retailers for Herzwerk watches and we will launch this Onyx in a series of 10 pieces in titanium as well it's actually been communicated to some of our collectors and so same as you see here this collaboration will have 10 pieces with a case in titanium. The customization will also be available eventually on those on those pieces so keep getting in touch with me in case of interest. What are the production times Martin? How long does it take to turn around the production of a piece at the moment? So I will start with the beginning of 2025 with this version which is limited to five pieces so and it will took me half a year to manufacture these five pieces. I have some other unique projects to finish as well so I guess the titanium version will be delivered and available end of 2025 so middle to end of 2025. Okay and in terms of the delivery time for the any unique piece that a collector may be interested in it really depends on what the commission is about yes? Yeah for sure because it's so complex to to of course many people are asking what is the delivery time how long do I have to wait for a watch and it really depends on the grades of the project so if we're going for a simple watch three hands no complications of course this is way easier for me to build but if someone comes with some great ideas or with some designs or some complications he wants to have I really have to grow my own skills and it could took about a year or more. Of course of course and so tell us where are you based now where is the workshop based? It's next to Munich so it's called Dachau and it's one station far from from Munich so it's pretty close to Munich. Yeah very interesting because you're not in Saxony, you're not in Glashütte, you're not in Dresden, you're not in the places that have been famous you know for the other makers you know Lange & Söhne, Glashütte, Langenhainer, Kudoke as well so you have no ecosystem around you so everything is really off your cuff. Switzerland is not far away so I guess well in today's days or in today's times there's no problem to get everything you want. Where do you see, sorry, no it's totally fine, so with the fact that is if I understand it's you obviously mainly making all the time pieces where do you see Herzberg going in the future in terms of production capacity? The production, it's going, how to say, right now it's just me building these watches and I guess in future in the next three years it will be the same so it will be just me building these watches because I'm the face and the owner of Herzberg Watchmaking and it's my dream and my passion to create all these watches and be the hand who builds these beautiful watch pieces and but of course I need some help and I will have a team which will support me very well in content create, in photos, videos and everything around building watches. So do you see Herzberg producing in your vision 20 pieces, 30 pieces a year in the near future? Now you should be at maybe 10 pieces a year at the moment? Yeah about, I guess in future right now I'm calculating about 15 pieces for 2025, 15-16 pieces and in future I'm not sure if I can if I can gain this number a lot so I guess not so, I guess the production size will be limited to 20 pieces I guess. Yeah so the vision is definitely to stay on bespoke artisan watchmaking for the foreseeable future? Correct. In that respect do you have a watchmaker that you really respect and kind of look up or just your favorite watchmaker for whatever reason? Oh it's hard to say so I have some really good friends at Patek Philippe so they had so experienced watchmakers with a great spirit so thanks to every watchmaker at Patek Philippe who spent the time with me and out there there are many watchmakers I'm looking for their work and I appreciate everything they share, their knowledge and they show their work but I can't name one specific watchmaker, no. No okay I understand and tell me in terms of seeing your work and we obviously organize our collectors events in London so we'll be very happy one day when you have a watch to show to host you but are you planning to attend any of the main exhibitions? Are you applying to be a member of the AHCI one day? What is the future in that respect? I really have to do my homework right now so I don't want to grow too fast and too much I want to build my next prototypes I want to join some events next time but I'm not looking for being a member of the AHCI right now because I guess all the steps would be too fast for me right now yeah so I want to do things slowly and yeah stable. You want to be in your workshop making watches for now so we won't see much of you at I don't know our Watches and Wonders, Geneva Watch Days, are you planning to to attend those events or this year is completely devoted to production? I'm really looking for joining events in 2025 so yeah. Next okay okay so there is there is hope okay so if you're watching this and if you are in our network with the limited edition not only you will have all the updates on the new Onyx Titanium 10 pieces limited edition but get in touch for the events that we may organize in London or if you're coming to Watches and Wonders or Geneva Watch Days we can arrange for you to be able to see one of the pieces you know first first time. There is a third option which is obviously through the kind gentleman that purchased your bespoke timepiece who is often seen at Geneva Watch Days or Watches and Wonders and in that case we do something privately to make sure you can see that incredible incredible piece. Martin it's been an absolute pleasure I feel you need you need time to produce watches so I don't want to take any more of your of your time I'm glad we managed to show what you're doing your vision and your ideas to share with our with our collectors. If you're watching this or if you're listening to this as a podcast feel free to send me via WhatsApp or via message you know on YouTube or on Instagram any comments or any question you may have because we will pass it across to Martin and definitely get back to you. The new Onyx Titanium 10 pieces limited edition will be listed on our website very soon it's not yet because it's we're still in the preview phase but it will be there and again if you're interested in customization reach out to me and you know we love to share so if you also need to speak to Martin we will make sure you can speak to Martin as well directly and we can make it happen for you. So Martin thank you very much congratulations on your work and I wish you so much I wish you plenty of success and we are very happy to be on board with you. Thank you very much Pietro thanks for your time and I wish every one of you a happy Christmas days. Absolutely we shouldn't forget that everyone make time to enjoy your horological passion during the Christmas time sit back and enjoy all those watches that you've been worked so hard to be able to acquire and time sometimes goes so fast that we don't ever have enough time to actually enjoy them properly. So happy Christmas to you Martin happy Christmas to everybody and we'll see you at the at the next live live chat thank you. Thank you very much.