THE COMPANY

Located on the shores of the Bieler See with its expansive views, the historic and picturesque city of Twann lies nestled at the foot of steeply terraced hillside vineyards. This scenic area of Switzerland has for centuries not only been home to winemaking, but also various small and highly specialized manufacturers of watches. The solitude and atmosphere of tradition surrounding the village, the natural beauty of waterfalls and forest made it an ideal location for the founding of the Thomas Prescher Haute Horlogerie workshop in 2002. 

Of course, this decision to found an independent Swiss watchmaking atelier was preceded by many years of intensive study and several apprenticeships. Having previously entered the German Navy at the age of 19 and finishing with a 'Kapitän Patent' in 1991, he decided the time had arrived to turn his passionate interest in watchmaking into a tangible reality. Having heard about the existence of a special Swiss watchmaking apprenticeship system, he decided to put away the watch magazines and 'get his hands dirty'. With a sense of discipline and planning, perhaps absorbed during his navy years, he spent more than a year buying up dozens of old broken clocks and watches, taught himself to repair them, and read dozens of technical books and articles in order to be able to compete for the single apprenticeship position that became available each year at IWC. When he finally did apply to IWC he was accepted, and completed the four-year apprenticeship in a span of only three years. Afterwards he worked for Audemars Piguet, where he was to remain for about 1 1/2 years. This was followed with work at the firm of Gübelin in Luzern as a watchmaker where he specialized in the restoration of antique pieces, complicated watches and custom built pieces. This deepened his already existing interest in complicated watches, which had already become a personal passion during his apprenticeship period. His personal sketchbooks from this time are already filled with detailed drawings of tourbillons in single, double and even triple axis versions as well as original designs for perpetual calendar and sidereal time movements. 

By the time his atelier was founded, this predisposition á complication had already made him well known in collector's circles, with complicated antique watches by the likes of A. L Breguet, Thomas Earnshaw, Girard Perregaux, Adolf Lange, John Arnold, Patek Philippe, Urban Jurgensen, LeRoy, Thomas Mudge and Thomas Tompion arriving to Twann for restoration.

Not surprisingly, complications also form the basis for the production of new wristwatches from Thomas Prescher Haute Horlogerie; in fact a regular wristwatch has yet to be produced in the Twann atelier! The first wristwatch creations were of the bras en l'air type; a form of watch first developed in the 18th century having an artistically engraved or enameled scene on the dial, usually containing a centrally placed human or animal figure. When a button on the watchcase is depressed, parts of the scene change, (such as the wing's of a bird, or the arm's of a man) to show continuously the correct hours and minutes. When depressed a second time, the scene returns to its non-temporal state.

In 2003, Thomas Prescher was accepted as a candidate member of the AHCI, and presented his Double Axis Tourbillon pocket watch and a bras en l'air wristwatch under the AHCI flag at Baselworld. The tremendously positive reactions to these works convinced him that the time was ripe to develop the Tourbillon Trilogy for Baselworld 2004. This set is a triple world premiere: the first set containing a Single, Double and Triple Axis Tourbillon built with an in house movement by an independent watchmaker; the first time that such wristwatch tourbillons have been built with a constant force (remontoire) mechanism in the carriage; and the world premiere Triple Axis Tourbillon wristwatch.

The Thomas Prescher Haute Horlogerie atelier plans to continue keeping complicated watchmaking at the core of the company philosophy, with many new and highly technical designs presently in development for the coming years.