The Watches Of Master Watchmaker - Roland Murphy

my name is Roland Murphy I'm a watchmaker and these are my watches [Music] Roland thank you very much for sitting down for everybody that's watching they might be familiar with your work but for this discussion I want to show Roland as the watchmaker but also as a watch collector one thing I love about in our discussions is just as much as you love watchmaking you also love collecting watches I do and you have a great Fascination for it I do potentially for those that are not familiar with your work I want to establish your history as a watchmaker your business so could you start this for those that are not familiar just discussing a little bit rgm and just rolling story overall okay I started as a watchmaker I went to school in the uh in the early 80s I went to school at Bowman technical school here in Lancaster Pennsylvania I went to woostep in New Chateau Switzerland when I came back I got a job at Hamilton when they were still here in Lancaster in product development and eventually became the technical manager in between the vice president of product development and me we created all of the uh to watch as I did that for approximately five years and then in 1992 I started our GM watch company and been doing that ever since and you're very humble about it but these I would say I'm sitting next to the greatest watchmaker in America and I think you've been doing what you're doing is unparalleled in terms of what's being done in the United States so I'm sitting next to somebody that really is doing some incredible work here in the States now where do we want to begin with some of your collection and this is just scratching the surface like we were going downstairs and we were just pulling random things I mean it was a just a treasure hunt down there so do we want to potentially start with Hamilton because that's where you started your career and really we're getting uh you know advocated with this industry so what do we have in front of us um I pulled a few pieces out that I thought were of interest to me um you know having worked at Hamilton but I've also had a great history interest in the history of watchmaking especially here in America but also in general um so the Hamilton here is an 18 size uh pocket watch it's in a display case wasn't originally in a display case I don't know know what it was originally in but the dial is beautiful what's nice about this 18 size Hamilton white special to me is it's such a low serial number so this is a three this is a three digit serial number Hamilton number 507. so this is the 500 507th watch Hamilton ever manufactured so this is from the uh very uh early 1890s I think this one was uh 1896 I think I'd have to look it up again there but some somewhere around there and where your company operates is in a small town called Mountain Joy which is in Lancaster County yes and Hamilton founded in 1892 Lancaster is as the place where they called them are producing their watches for decades so that's why that connection and this is still a hotbed for watchmaking in a way you have lilitz it's just close by right and then you have yes we have the watch Tech to come the school up there that Rolex runs we have the uh in in Columbia we have the naw CC the National Association of Washington collectors you know we we're here still so there's still a lot going on in the area so that's part of your connection so another Hamilton in front of you here this is now getting into their military field style watches but this also plays a significant role in your the story with the brand and really what the brand now is known as for this field collection yes this this is the model uh this is one of the like one of those general service models in Hamilton made and this was the model that we used when I worked at Hamilton uh was the inspiration for the first khaki automatic watch and if you look at the first khaki automatic that was ever done it looks very similar to this watch even the shape of the case the general layout of the dial so but this is the original so uh this is a this is a watch that has a very a deep history very collectible piece uh nowadays if you if you look online so and how did that come to be when you were going through and trying to figure out because in product development it's you're going through this old documentation you're going through old watch designs like how did that process look and you're here based in the United States at the time you were not over in Switzerland because at that point Hamilton still had operation offices Corporate Offices here in Lancaster yeah what we were doing in Lancaster at the time in the 80s is we were doing a product development in the assembly so we would look into the history of Hamilton and the watches and and that's kind of how we would find the inspiration of course you know certainly they have all those retro models that came out in the 80s like the like the the Bolton and the Wilshire and the the the the Ventura and others so which are still some of those are part of them yes absolutely still an important model so um I can see the roots of things in in the line there today of things that that we started and of course a lot of that was inspired by things that were done you know back as far as the you know the 40s up into the 60s and early 70s so where do we want to transition next I mean I feel like I want to show off maybe some of your pieces you only have a few of your pieces here but do you want to start with an 801 because that was so important in your history as a watchmaker and for those that are not familiar this was your own first movement that you created well the Hamiltons I have here I mean not the Hamiltons the rgms I have here is I have um first let's start with an early watch which is the jumping hour this is the 102j this is a 18 karat gold watch with a engine turn dial blue steel hand in the jumping hour function manual wine watch so this was really the second model we developed that was a completely different model the first model rgm was the 101m and the 101 which were very similar but this was I wanted to get into something shaped and I wanted and I always like complications and functions so it's a clean simple looking watch but it has the jumping our function so this is probably 1993 is when we first developed this model that it was sold for for a number of years it's been out of production a long time and you did the early work on I mean it was you Rose engine work was you so that was all early early uh rgm and then we get into the uh much later it was the uh in 2007 is when we came out with the 801 movements how long was production again on the 801 it was well we were we were it was about 2000 to 2007 was the development period before because you know it's it's a big jump from um servicing repairing and restoring to actually manufacturing a movement so um you know not being in the center of of that that's being done here today you know that it was a big learning curve but uh and the the watches we make today the movements we make today uh you know we've improved them over the years so we've learned a lot since 2007 in our watches our movements are much nicer than even the first one and those are all being assembled in the location that we're at here manufactured and assembled yeah exactly yeah so this is the corps of engineer model we have several 801 models so this is what we call the 801 Coe it's inspired by the World War One Corps of engineer pocket watches and I have one of those Inspirations right here this is an original Corps of engineer pocket watch and you can see the similarities are great so that's really the inspiration but we wanted something we could wear on the wrist and this also has a real fire glass enamel dial just like the original now we make engine turn dials here and do that but we don't do enamel dots so I had to find someone who could do it because I I don't like faux things so I didn't want a white dial that looked like an a enamel dial it had to be a real enamel dial so uh the the quality of that is really really shows through so this is a a great example of our movement how the watchmaking past has brought those things forward and the corps of engineer look many people will recognize it vacheron made a number of them but narden and Zenith but also Hamilton made the first Corps of engineer pocket watches in World War one Speaking of pocket watches I mean where do you actually want to go next I mean this is your collection what do you think is important why don't we stay in Lancaster here for a moment let's do it yeah I see some things on here I've never seen before so this is a uh Dudley Masonic watch so the bridges on the movement are in the shape of the Masonic symbols so we have like the plumb bob and the trowel we have the level the compass um you know all of these we have the Bible engraved on the on the bridge here the model two and three had an applied one this is the model one this is the most collectible version so this was made in Lancaster uh my all model ones were made in Lancaster some of the other models when the company were not business some of them were assembled in other places to finish some of them up but model ones were all done entirely here in Lancaster uh very collectible watch very interesting so there's a short life span too for this company yeah it was about five years in the in the 1920s and so I like anything associated with watchmaking um in Lancaster County especially you know I mean it's not I don't just limit myself to collecting watches from here but I particularly have a fondness for watches from this area there were a number of companies pre-hamilton and then just a few after uh after Hamilton had started this being one of them so where do you want to shift to next well why don't we uh look at a few Swiss watches here that might find interesting let's look at the Zenith 135 in the pazoo 260 because the reason for that is both of these movements um the Zenith 135 and the pizu 260 were both used in chronometer competitions in Switzerland so these were basically designed for that purpose the 260s weren't really cased in the wrist watches although some people afterwards you'll find a few cased ones but it wasn't really intended for that just for competitions the 135 was was designed for this competition but Zenith also unlike the pazu they also cased them and sold them so you can find some original models that were cased this being a very fine fine example of that so very interesting movement you can look into the history of the 135 or the or the pizu 260. it's it's quite an interesting story there do you recall the general accuracy range that they were trying to achieve at this point at the time I'm I'm not sure what like this this you could probably find a certificate in Switzerland for what this movement actually did but I don't know what the winning movements were at that time but we could certainly find that out we could actually get the certificate for this very movement if we wanted to very cool yeah because it's all documented exactly so we would have a take the number off this and we could probably uh find find that or at least apply to have it sent to us so we have a couple more out there eccentric watches we have one in a box one over here where do you want to start first well why don't we why don't we look at the LA culture here yes this uh the quartermaster it's in the original box it's in very bad condition uh the original certificate is here with the watch um I bought this watch because I like watches that are unusual this watch was only made for the US market it's a true 24-hour timepiece that we have the uh 24-hour dial one rotation a day you're not going to really find other the culture models like that this particular one I believe was available this model and it was a black dial or or this silver dial so really rare only made for the US market I believe there was only like one one run and that was that was it so it's a pretty scarce piece so I like to collect things that are unusual and of course you know if they're scarce or rare that that's even better so that's why I have that as part of my collection very cool and then I have a couple interesting stories here one is the um the Omega flight Master this is a a really nice example and really really good condition I had this watch since the 1980s and this watch I got is a very young watchmaker and fixed it up and have kept it all these years there's always this watches that you that come and go you know there's the ones that you wish you would have kept and um you know this is one that if I would have sold it I I would have uh you know there's others that I wish I would have kept but this one fortunately I held on to um and I was telling you uh previously that you know what was nice about back in the 80s is you could buy watches like this they were very obtainable you know for somebody it was just starting out as a watchmaker and nowadays you're they're really not affordable for someone um that is just starting out so that's that's a little bit sad because you know I think I had the ability to enjoy some really really special pieces back then being into watches early yeah you said 300 for that watch and I'm like oh my goodness what has happened but this was a long time ago the other interesting piece I have here that has a story yes is this vacheron Constantine minute repeater in the 18 karat gold case stunning it has the addition of a little clasp up here that's been soldered to the bow yeah what's going on with that can you tell us yeah this story with this watch was this watch was sent to me a few years back pre-covered so I'm going to say six or seven years by an older lady in Philadelphia and she wanted to have this watch fixed it was her father's watch and she used to wear this watch on a chain around her neck so she said she would jog around Philadelphia where penis watched with this repeater right there but she didn't know it was a repeater she never knew that it wasn't a a repeater but fixing these kind of watches can be expensive complicated watches so um she really wasn't in a position to fix it so I I asked her if she had a family member or somebody that might enjoy this watch because it was quite valuable and and quite complicated we wanted to see it ended up in the right hands but unfortunately she didn't have any children and her husband had passed away and she didn't have any living family so it really we didn't you know so my first thought is what's gonna you know one day what's gonna happen to this so um uh I since she couldn't pay to to fix it I offered to buy the watch from her and that's really what uh what happened so I purchased a watch from her uh I gave her a fair price for it and then uh you fully restored it it is right so this one I actually serviced it in in reappaired it got it working again so why don't we make it straight oh please and hold it closer to the mic so we can hear it somebody hold it up to here um let's get it going here there we go and I think that I think that's the first time in uh probably every year that I've uh I've had this watch strike so um it's usually in a display case in the in the vault but really really nice watch uh beautiful piece and has a great story and I'm glad we could put it in order and and have it uh that's incredible where we can actually see it I can't believe she has to walk just running around with that yeah I just had to imagine her running around you know the city wearing this watch flopping around her neck but uh and you the fact you got it back it was the move it just goes to show how resilient these things are right even a repeater being able to withstand that and uh still sound great it wasn't in bad condition it was really just all dried up and hardened grease and oil and things like that and then there's one more piece that kind of yeah one on your wrist and like I said this is a small sampling of my collection but this is some of these have some stories so this this watch here has a story because it kind of ties um different uh parts of my watch career career together in family too so this watch was a watch that I had put together for my father when I first started rgm the model 101 and 101m were the first models were only in 18 karat gold cases so that they were expensive and I couldn't really afford to give those things away especially for starting out so what I did was I I took a a Hamilton steel case and I put in it our rgm uh die on hands and movements and I put this together for my father and there's only two or three watches like this out there that we had put together for a few family members and actually one of them I saw pictures of recently somebody sent me a picture someone bought one and didn't know what the story was with the watch so I actually told him but so this piece my late father you know I can remember him wearing this watch quite quite often that ties together Hamilton because I used to work there in proactive Valor ties together the beginning of rgm being being done the first one so it has an interesting story and it has a place in my collection and is is down there proudly with uh with uh with my other watches did your dad have a connection to watches at all and how did this all uh through through me I mean he growed to love watches and clocks he actually then learn to repair clocks oh really and I had given him several watches I have them all in the vault down there so he has early rgms he has some when I worked at Hamilton he has some other ones that we liked Speedmaster Submariner Ulysses narden chronometer other other pieces so all pieces that I would never sell obviously because because of the tie the family tie there but so so this sets an interesting story too so this is a small sampling of the the watches I have not not necessarily the most valuable pieces but pieces that have interesting stories yeah and that's what we're looking for and I think for those that are watching if we could probably do a whole other episode so if enough people enjoy it we might come back again and we can there's so many more watches it always says but Ron thank you so much for the time yes always a pleasure to speak with you good night thank you appreciate you coming see everybody

Channel: Teddy Baldassarre

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Keywords: teddy baldassarre, teddy watch collection, watch collecting guide 2023, best new watches 2023, how to buy a rolex, hodinkee, talking watches, watch collection interview, real collectors watches, vacheron, vacheron Constantine, Hamilton, American watches, American made watches, American watch maker, USA made watch, US made watch, usa made watches, master watchmaker collection, RGM, Hilton field watches, patek phillipe, high end watches, high end watch collection, Roland murphy

Id: 8qkzX1tGDCw

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023