Reacting to the 2025 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève Results

I posted my predictions and picks for the 2025 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) just before the jury announced the winners. My picks did not do as well as I hoped, and I have some questions on some. But as always the awards gave me the opportunity to examine and consider many fabulous new watches. Let’s consider the results!

Breguet took home the top prize for their Classique Souscription 2025

2025 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève Results

Well that was fun! As always, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève ceremony was a joy to watch. It’s incredible seeing this concentration of talent and fame in one place, and to see everyone come together to celebrate this industry, the crafts-people behind it, and these marvelous products.

Now that the results are in, I admit that my predictions flew far from the mark. Of the 14 fixed categories in which I made a pick, I was able to predict 4. Neither of my picks won the Aiguille d’Or Grand Prix, and my “definite” pick for the Audacity Prize did not win.

The following table includes my picks, my predicted winners, the final winner, and the total number of wins for each brand. That last bit is quite interesting when evaluating the results! I bolded the few that I was able to predict.

My PickMy PredictionGPHG WinnerTotal
WinsLadies’ WatchTiffany & Co. Bird on a Rock Legacy TanzaniteAudemars Piguet Royal Oak Mini Frosted Gold QuartzGérald Genta Gentissima Oursin Fire Opal1Ladies’ Complication WatchAudemars Piguet Code 11.59 Selfwinding Flying TourbillonFranck Muller Round Triple MysteryChopard Imperiale Four Seasons12Jewellery WatchBulgari Serpenti AeternaBulgari Serpenti AeternaDior Montres La D de Dior Buisson Couture2Artistic Crafts WatchPiaget Altiplano SkeletonPiaget Altiplano SkeletonVoutilainen 28GML SOUYOU12Time Only WatchMing Project 21Ming Project 21Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold2Men’s WatchGrand Seiko Spring Drive U.F.A.Zenith G.F.J. Calibre 135Urban Jürgensen UJ-2: Double wheel natural escapement2Iconic WatchAndersen Genève Communication 45Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual CalendarAudemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar17Sports WatchRessence GMT Sport-Chic Watch Type 7Tokyo Lion TentagraphChopard Alpine Eagle 41 SL Cadence 8HF12ChronographH. Moser & Cie Streamliner Alpine Drivers EditionH. Moser & Cie Streamliner Alpine Drivers EditionAngelus Chronographe Télémètre Yellow Gold1Men’s Complication WatchChopard L.U.C Lunar OneAudemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar “150th Anniversary” OpenworkedBovet 1822 Récital 306TourbillonBulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra TourbillonBulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra TourbillonBulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon11Mechanical ExceptionArmin Strom Dual Time GMT Resonance Manufacture EditionGreubel Forsey Nano FoudroyanteGreubel Forsey Nano Foudroyante8Challenge WatchAtelier Wen Millésime 2024 睦 (MÙ)Christopher Ward C1 Celestial Moonphase x Mr JonesDennison Natural Stone Tiger Eye In Gold1“Petite Aiguille” WatchH. Moser & Cie Streamliner Alpine Mechanics EditionM.A.D.2 GreenM.A.D.2 Green2Aiguille d’Or Grand PrixBulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra TourbillonAudemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual CalendarBreguet Classique Souscription 20257Audacity PrizeBvlgari x MB&F SerpentiBvlgari x MB&F SerpentiFam Al Hut Möbius1Horological Revelation PrizeNoneNoneAnton Suhanov St. Petersburg Easter Egg Tourbillon Clock1Eco-Innovation PrizeNoneNoneNoneChronometry PrizeArmin Strom Dual Time GMT ResonanceNoneZenith G.F.J. Calibre 1359Mechanical Clock PrizeN/AN/AAlbatross L’Epée 1839 X MB&F2

Bragging Rights

Before I dive in too deep, it’s worth taking a victory lap about the wins I was able to predict.

Although I felt that the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar or Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon would take the Aiguille d’Or Grand Prix, that prize went to the Breguet Classique Souscription 2025. But those watches did hold their respective categories, the Iconic Watch and Tourbillon prizes. I gave the Breguet some love in my predictions but didn’t have it taking the top prize. Although I didn’t nail the top prize, I’ll take a bow for picking the winners in these two categories. It’s worth noting that these three brands are among the most-frequent winners at the GPHG ceremony, with Breguet winning 7 times, Bulgary 11 times, and Audemars Piguet taking home a whopping 17 trophies, the most of any brand.

Another prize I predicted was the Greubel Forsey Nano Foudroyante, winner of the Mechanical Exception award. Greubel Forsey is another frequent winner at the awards, with this being their eighth trophy. With 15 watches reaching the final vote over the last two decades, they’ve won more often than lost! And I dare say that every one of these prizes was well-deserved. That’s how good Greubel Forsey is.

My final victory was the selection of the M.A.D.2 Green for the Petite Aiguille prize. I said they were “clear favorites” to win this prize, and don’t you know I was right? I do wonder what the jury thought of the Moser Mechanics Edition, and am somewhat sad that brand didn’t deliver a one-two punch with this pair of watches, but the M.A.D. watches are a special thing in the industry and they deserve the win.

First-Time Winners

There were lots of first-time winners this year, and this is always a revelation. It’s shocking that Gérald Genta took home their first trophy, Angelus finally made the cut, and we’ve got a few newcomers who have earned notice.

Gérald Genta won the Ladies’ Watch prize on only their second qualifying watch; the only other was way back in 2008 with the Arena Perpetual Calendar GMT. It’s astonishing that this celebrated brand (and famous name) hasn’t appeared more often at the GPHG, but these are the facts. This is a quirk of the ceremony: Brands need to enter (and pay a fee) to be considered, and Gérald Genta simply did not compete very often. This year’s winner, the Gentissima Oursin Fire Opal, was certainly eye-catching and deserving of the award. But I stand by my choice of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.

The re-born Angelus took home their first trophy on their third time reaching the final vote. This is an excellent watch, but I overlooked it in favor of my crush from H. Moser & Cie. Now that it took the Chronograph prize I’ve looked closer and come away impressed: It’s remarkably compact (which I prefer), and uses a new in-house monopusher movement that recalls the brand’s history in design. It’s a gorgeous watch, too, with the right combination of historic design cues without clutter. I’m pleased to see Angelus take this award.

Newcomer Dennison takes the Challenge prize with their Tiger Eye. I really didn’t even consider Dennison in this category, with excellent offerings from Christopher Ward and Atelier Wen catching my eye instead. I will have to look closer at this brand. At a glance, this is a retro 1970s Swiss design with an incongruous classic American-Anglo name. While certainly a good value at 660 CHF, I just don’t see the appeal of this trendy gold-plated quartz watch. And the history on the website leaves much to be desired, skimping Dennison’s place as the originator of watch manufacturing in America in favor of some dubious claims about the importance of the company as a case manufacturer. I would have liked the Tiger Eye with any other brand name, though I still would not have picked it for the win.

I’m thrilled to see Fam Al Hut‘s Möbius take home the Audacity Prize. It’s a fabulous watch with a great story, and really stands out in the market. It really reminds me of the fabulous innovation in haute horology in the early 2000s, and I’m happy to see these incredible artisans and designers rewarded by the jury. I certainly considered it when making my predictions, but I still would have voted for the incredible Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti. It’s one of the most audacious watches I’ve seen, and I’m sure the jury agreed that it was also worth a prize.

Big Surprises

As always, some of the jury’s picks confound me. Let’s take a look at some of the watches the jury picked, and think about why I didn’t.

I love Chopard, but I’m still puzzled that the Imperiale Four Seasons won the Ladies’ Complication Watch prize. It’s beautiful and the annual display of leaves is stunning, but it’s not much of a complication: It’s simply an annual disc that rotates to expose differently-colored segments throughout the year. Contrast this with my pick, the Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon, or my prediction, Franck Muller’s Round Triple Mystery, and maybe you’ll see why I didn’t pick the lovely Chopard.

The Montres La D de Dior Buisson Couture is an incredible expression of the Jewellery Watch theme, but it’s surprising to see it win for a simple reason: Dior is usually overlooked by the jury. They’re not exactly Chaumet (who have never won despite making the vote 16 times), but Chopard, Piaget, Van Cleef & Arpels, and especially Bulgari offered strong competition. I do love the Bulgari Serpenti Aeterna, but if the jury says Dior deserves the win, who am I to object? Perhaps it looks better in person!

I love what’s happening at the resurgent Urban Jürgensen. Now back in Danish hands, the company is working to honor this incredibly innovative and important watchmaker. And the UJ-2 with its double-wheel natural escapement is an awesome modern expression of this desire. The watch is great looking too! But this is the Men’s Watch prize, and I expected the award to go to something a little less exotic. I suppose that the promotion of my prediction, Zenith’s G.F.J. Calibre 135, to the Chronometry category this was a natural next-choice here.

I love world time watches, as they celebrate so much of what makes timekeeping interesting in terms of design, mechanical innovation, and the politics of selecting each location. And the Bovet 1822 Récital 30, which adjusts to daylight saving time in the various locations around the globe, is truly innovative. But the watch itself just looks goofy to me. Contrast it with the Chopard L.U.C Lunar One, not to mention Audemars Piguet’s “last blast” Cal. 5135 Royal Oak, and I don’t see this as the Men’s Complication Watch winner. Again, maybe it looks nicer in person.

Did I really think the Tokyo Lion Tentagraph (which I described as “weird and ugly”) would win the Sports Watch prize? No. I thought Ressence would bring home only their second trophy after the first-ever “horological revelation” in 2013. But the jury had their eyes on the excellent Chopard Alpine Eagle 41 SL Cadence 8HF. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised: Chopard is a perennial favorite of the jury and the Alpine Eagle is a fantastic watch. If I was going to buy a luxury sports watch, the Alpine Eagle would be high on my list. But I don’t love the “murdered out” look of this beast.

This leaves one more surprise I want to discuss: The jury gave the TIme Only Watch prize to the Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold. This is a really lovely watch, and the exclusive movement (with free-sprung balance) is very nice. But it doesn’t really stand out like my pick, the Ming Project 21 with its classic Frédéric Piguet movement. I’ve got two Ming watches and love the way they combine modern design with novelty and mechanical excellence in the Project line. This Daniel Roth looks like something from another era to me. But I still wouldn’t have given it the Iconic prize.

What the GPHG Means to Me

Personally, the annual nomination and award process helps me keep up with the latest developments. The jury helps me to recognize important brands and products I overlooked. And my annual process of picking my favorites and predicting the results is an opportunity to look deeper into all of the entries, finalists (90 this year!), and winners.

In retrospect, I’m happy with most of the winners this year. Breguet deserves a win for the Classique Souscription 2025, Zenith’s G.F.J. Calibre 135 deserves the Chronometry win, it’s great seeing Fam Al Hut and Angelus take home an award, and I really should have given Urban Jürgensen a chance. But I am less satisfied with the awards to Daniel Roth, Chopard (though I love them!), and especially Dennison. I definitely need to re-think my positions on these watches.

I’m also a bit of a data geek, so I’ve been tracking all of this in a spreadsheet for many years. Although my data set is incomplete, it has helped me to see patterns in the industry and with the award itself. For example, Richemont not only has the most GPHG trophies (61) but also the highest rate of winning when pre-selected or nominated by the Jury (31%). Conversely, Chaumet and Andersen Genève are the most-snubbed brands at the ceremony, never taking home an award despite making the final vote a dozen or more times. I’ll be writing more detail on this analysis in a future post.

#aaronDennison #audemarsPiguet #bovet #breguet #bulgari #chopard #danielRoth #dennison #dior #famAlHut #geraldGenta2 #gphg #urbanJurgensen #zenith

Pacotille and Counterfeits: Swiss Junk Watches of the 19th Century

It was a difficult time for buyers and dealers of watches: Cheap imports were flooding the market, built by unskilled peasants and even children working in substandard conditions, with little care for functionality or longevity. And making matters worse, many were designed with the appearance and even the name of famous and respected companies. How could respectable companies fight back? How could consumers protect themselves?

Incredibly, I am not describing the current state of the Amazon-Temu world, or even the so-called quartz crisis. This is a description of the flood of Swiss watches on the American market in the middle of the 19th century, a period of chaos that nearly wrecked the Swiss watchmaking industry before it truly began. Ill-finished and semi-functional watch movements were sold abroad in bulk containers, and Swiss companies specialized in counterfeit watches in the Glashütte, English, and American style. The situation was so bad that one 1868 commentator lamented that the Swiss were “imposters and cheats” who had ruined the reputation of their country’s products!

How did it come to this and why has this been forgotten? It was the rise of mechanical production colliding with international conflicts and the loose control of international trade. Once these issues were resolved, Switzerland rose to dominate watchmaking in the 20th century by abandoning the ideals of Daniel JeanRichard and taking mass production further and faster than its originators in England and America.

Daniel JeanRichard’s Accidental Legacy

It may seem cruel to begin this story by recalling Daniel JeanRichard, but his legacy of hand-made piece-work by rural farmers in the Swiss Jura was a blessing and a curse. We tend to romanticize it today, but there is no doubt that the etablissage tradition flooded the market of poor-quality watch components. It was only the crushing success of industrial watchmaking in Switzerland that gave the nation its current reputation for precision and quality. And this came despite vigorous opposition from the watchmaking establishment.

JeanRichard could never have foreseen any of this. As I recently described, he was a gifted craftsman who applied existing techniques in gunsmithing, metalworking, and clockmaking to build the first Swiss watches. When he and his apprentices were active, in the early 18th century, this was the only means of production. And their incredible skill established the remote Swiss Jura mountains as a credible competitor to the hand-made watches of Geneva, Paris, and London. But perhaps the craft of watchmaking was too-broadly adopted in the region.

Japy and Fontainemelon began producing plates and bridges in volume, standardizing on a few simple component sets, even though true interchangeability was a century away. So demand rose for the components needed to turn these ebauches into watch movements.

Between 1750 and 1850, thousands of craftsmen in the Swiss Jura began producing watch components at home. Each specialized in wheels, springs, pinions, or other components, producing sacks of rough parts. It’s not that the Swiss Jura craftsmen were unskilled: The story of the farmer and his family making watches through the winter has largely been debunked. But these metalworkers were paid based on the volume of their production and they were not involved in final assembly. So it is no surprise that these wheels and springs weren’t ready for use.

These were collected and brought to centers like Le Locle, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Fleurier, and Neuchâtel. The best components were painstakingly re-finished and fitted at the shops of the etablisseurs to create functional watches. The jobs were numerous, fueling the growth of these cities: Demonteurs disassembled the watches, planteurs re-drilled the pinions, repasseurs adjusted the timing, and remonteurs re-assembled the movement. This in addition to the expected graveurs, guillochers, doreurs, and acheveurs needed to finish the watches.

The opportunity brought by the etablissage system flooded the market with watch components, many of which were of dubious quality. Although the Swiss Jura produced many excellent movements, the bulk of the output was barely functional and required serious re-work before it could be sold.

Barrels of Worthless Trash

The worst of the worst was literally tossed in a chest or barrel to be exported in volume as pacotille. This word simply means “junk” in French, but it has important historic connotations. The barrels of beads and trinkets that were traded around the world by conquerers, profiteers, and swindlers for native furs, metals, and other commodities were also called “pacotille.” In the same way, the bulk of Swiss watchmaking output was shipped to other countries for local watchmakers to try to piece together. And even in Switzerland these questionable watch movements were called by the same name.

The resulting watches were “worthless trash”, according to William Keith, apprentice to pioneering American watchmaker Luther Goddard. They “exhausted the pockets and patience of the owners, and in a ten-fold greater degree, the patience of the watch repairer,” reported Keith. “Impatient under the torment,” Luther Goddard would regularly groan and set aside his work, telling his apprentice that “Job was not a watch maker.” Keith merrily reported that frustrated buyers would eventually pass these watches on to peddlers, who would melt them down for the scarce gold and silver they contained.

As poor as these watch components were, they served to stifle local production in America. Numerous English, French, and German clock and watch makers migrated to America before the Revolution in 1776, but very few ever attempted to build their own watches. Instead, they assembled watches from widely-available components, mostly in the bulky English verge and fusee style. The surviving examples mainly use high-quality parts imported from England rather than anything made in the colonies or Switzerland.

American Industry Rises to the Challenge

Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 and the following War of 1812 changed everything. With foreign imports restricted, Luther Goddard seized the opportunity to produce watches at his workshop in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. In just 5 years, the Goddards were able to produce over 500 watches, with many of the components produced in the forge and tools of their own shop. This was America’s first watch factory. Production stopped in 1817, when the Treaty of Ghent ended the war and the embargo, but Goddard inspired a generation of American watchmakers.

This 1807 cartoon shows how the embargo turned around to hurt everyone, just as the word is reversed as “ograbme”!

American industrial watchmaking rose to become the best in the world in just a single generation. Goddard’s first apprentice, Jubal Howe, witnessed this first-hand, graduating to become the leading watchmaker in Boston. Howe saw the potential in a young man from Maine, Aaron Dennison, his own apprentice in Boston who traveled to England to learn from the best watchmakers there. Dennison was inspired by the Springfield Armory in central Massachusetts, which began producing muskets on an industrial scale based on common machine-made parts.

Dennison’s dream of mass-produced watches came to fruition thanks to his partnership with Boston clockmaker Edward Howard and watchmaker and entrepreneur William Keith, the Goddard apprentice mentioned above. Together they founded the great watch factory in Waltham, halfway between Shrewsbury and Boston, which applied the principles of mass production to watchmaking. The American Civil War drove massive demand for rifles and watches, and the Springfield Armory and Waltham Watch Company rapidly scaled production in the 1860s.

The Waltham factory was the first in the world to apply industrial techniques to the production of watches

The Swiss delegation to the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia was astonished to see what the Waltham factory was capable of. Théodore Gribi and Jacques David of Longines issued urgent warnings to their counterparts at home, and factories there rapidly adopted the techniques of mass production. But the Swiss were not as foolish as this story suggests: The Waltham factory was barely 20 years old by this point, and only the factories in Elgin and Springfield were operational, according to David’s report. Back in Switzerland, the ebauche factories in Corgémont, Sonceboz, Cortaillod, Grenchen, and Madretsch were already producing movements using machinery, drawing the ire of traditional etablisseurs.

Swiss Clones and Counterfeits

Industrial-produced American watches were so good and so cheap that demand for hand-made imports quickly dried up. Machine tool technology advanced quickly near the end of the 19th century, spurring entrepreneurs to open new watch factories across the United States. Waltham and Elgin dominated the market by 1890, but Keystone, Waterbury, Dueber, Rockford, and others were also producing watches in volume.

The same process of industrialization was happening in Switzerland, despite vigorous opposition by the “old guard” etablisseurs. Bienne and Grenchen welcomed these new factories, as did smaller towns along the French/Swiss border. But Americans still preferred the heavy and rugged English-style watches produced by domestic factories to the more-refined products of Switzerland. And they were less familiar with Swiss watchmakers and brands. Switzerland quickly faced a new crisis of over-production, falling prices, and failing factories.

Charles Hahn’s new factory in Le Landeron produced watch movements in various styles for English, American, and German consumers, as seen in this 1895 advertisement

Seeking to better compete abroad, Swiss factories began producing watches more suited to the demands of local consumers. Along with fine Swiss crown-winding movements, they offered Glashütte three-quarter plate movements, English key-winding movements, and heavy calibers in American sizes. These were exported to be cased, finished, and sold by watchmakers and jewelers in America, Europe, and Asia.

Although some vendors proudly advertised these Swiss movements, many were sold in a less-honest manner. By 1885, the American publication Jewelers Circular wrote that “it has been known for some time that imitation American watches were being sold in Europe, in South America and some of the British Colonies.” It continued to point out that “the watches were made in Switzerland, and bore the name of the American Watch Company, Waltham.” Unsurprisingly, many of these found their way to American dealers as well. These journals published frequent stories of the discovery of counterfeit American watches at pawnbrokers, often discovered when local jewelers informed the factory representatives of cheaper suppliers.

“Imitation” American watches are common even today and are approached in a matter-of-fact manner at swap meets and by local collectors. An excellent 1960 article by Wesley R. Hauptman in the NAWCC Bulletin details a dozen such counterfeits spanning 19th century products from Goddard to Elgin, and a similar article by Jerzy Ganczarczyk appeared in 2003. The widespread acceptance of these fakes and forgeries speaks to just how common they were.

The issue of Swiss imitations and counterfeits was well-known even while it was happening. In the 1871 3rd edition of his book, “The Watch”, Henry-F. Piaget wrote of the “great mistake” made by Swiss watchmakers who put “English and fictitious names upon their watches, instead of their own.” This lead to their being unknown in America and “stigmatised as imposters and cheats, so that their watches, or at least many of them, were looked upon as disreputable pieces of workmanship, and the Swiss very nearly lost their American trade, and the reputation of being an upright nation.” Piaget recommended that Swiss companies proudly put their name on their best watches and develop real demand in export markets. And this is exactly what companies like Omega, Longines, Zenith, Vacheron & Constantin and many others did!

You would probably also enjoy my article, “The Curious Case of the “Pateck” Counterfeiter“

From Imitation to Imitated

This 1955 article from Europa Star discusses the growing concern about Asian counterfeiting of Swiss watches

We all know what happened next: The Swiss makers embraced precision manufacturing and industrial production as well as their own branding. Swiss cartels like Ebauches SA and ASUAG fought over-production and dumping of components overseas. Two world wars interrupted production in Germany, France, and America. American firms lost their advantage in manufacturing and the industry consolidated.

By the 1970s, once-proud American factories had closed, with most companies now focused on electronic watches. This too proved short-lived, as Japan, Hong Kong, and mainland China rose to conquer the mainstream watch market. By the 1980s, it was clear that branding was the most successful way to market watches, and the Swiss names were dominant. Today, a fight is underway over provenance of these once-proud brands, with the biggest consolidated into luxury groups and most of the rest being little more than a name. Who would have guessed that Hamilton would become a Swiss company while Movado and Invicta would be American brands? And the fight against junk and counterfeits remains just as pertinent today as it was in Luther Goddard’s time!

The Swiss government and industry has been focused on crushing counterfeits for over a century. As Europa Star discussed in this 1984 article, this was sometimes taken very literally!

#AaronDennison #counterfeit #DanielJeanRichard #etablisseur #EuropaStar #HenryFPiaget #Landeron #LutherGoddard #LuxuryBrands #NAWCC #UniversalExposition #Waltham #WilliamKeith