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- [00:00]
Alon
Foreign watch fans. And welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighborhood jeweler along with Joseph and your friendly neighborhood watchmaker. And he's back in Dresden, Rob Nudds. We today have a very special guest and this is a recording I've been looking forward to quite, quite some time. He's a doctor, he is a myth, but as well as a legend. And you might have seen his name in the title when you saw the download of this recording or when you started play. But you might not know who he is. He used to be a lawyer. He was responsible for innovations at Manufacture La Joupilais, head of innovation at Boat Arnold and Son and Angelus today head of innovation and marketing at Celica Watch company. But why we invited him first and foremost is because he's the founder of Albishorn. I'm talking about Dr. Sebastien Scholmonte. Welcome, Sebastien.
- [01:14]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Oh, thanks so much for this wonderful introduction. I'm glad to be on the show.
- [01:19]
Alon
We're very happy to have you here because you are. When you hit the scene with Albish, Horn blew my mind. I have been always fascinated ever since I'm a kid due to my dad about military watches, Milspec watches, watches for pilots, field watches, trench watches, everything that has to do with military. Now I always owned dirty dozen watches, type 20 watches, field watches and I always wondered why nobody pushed further if we talk about type 20, type 21, type 22. Why do people stop? Why don't we see cool legendary watches like the Dirty Dozen RF watches. So when I discovered Albus Horn and for dear viewers, that or listeners, sorry that have not heard about the brand, check out Albishorn Dash watches CH A L B I S H O R N dash watches CH because if I summarize what you do and I had to wrap my head around it, you guys imagine mil spec watches or vintage watches that have never been. And you beautifully described it as the missing link. Sebastian. I'll shut up. First and foremost question, why are you that crazy to create this brand?
- [02:55]
Sebastien Scholmonte
I think it needs a bit of craziness. Indeed. Yeah, it's a wonderful introduction. You said a lot of very true things about the watch itself. Yeah, the idcam actually because I'm a collector myself and I really wanted to to do watches I could not find on the Sunday flea market and when you would start collecting. And as you. I'm. I'm a big fan of all this military issued watches and I have quite a few as well. I always thought. Yeah, I don't Want to do a reproduction of one of these? I mean I really love the Auricos, the Vixa, of course, the Breguet. But I said it's. It should have been a watch before because the German army had one before the French had the type 20. And I always thought how could have been looking. How could this watch could have looked like. And, and the main idea was to add stuff and not to reproduce existing watches because basically as a collector you always will prefer the original one. And with also with, with, with vintage field watches, they have the advantage of being quite solid. So you can still wear them nowadays, I mean radioactive most of them, but except of that you can really wear them on a daily basis. So there's no much sense of making a reprod. You can basically wear the old ones. They're really, really solid watches. So my idea was to create imaginary ancestors and sometimes I will also create successors. So what you said you could also go up to 23, 24, 25. I will stick to the type 10, 11, 12 and 13 for the time being. But I found it fun to add stuff which shows also that you have a deep love and respect, which have been done. We try to not take ourselves too seriously. So there's also a bit of playfulness involved. But still we do things on a high technical level. Our watches are cost certified. We try to add always little invention, little patented complications to add a bit of fun to the package. But yeah, the idea was really, the main idea was to say why reproduce? Why making RE edition what the rest of the industry is doing all the time and doing very well actually it's very hard to make it any better. But I really wanted to do something I cannot find in the vintage world. So I will never be disappointing having a RE edition of something I could have earned what I would call as a real thing.
- [05:31]
Alon
That begs the question, is Selita co founder of this company?
- [05:36]
Sebastien Scholmonte
No, not at all. It's really a private project. I'm working part time at Sellida, so I always knew I would do that. I will also present in a couple of months a second brand with a good friend watchmaker which is a very, very high end independent where we developed an own escapement on an own movement. So I always knew that I would do watches at Sedita. We don't, we don't mix up things in the sense of we are a movement supplier. So it's very important to us to have no links with any kind of move of watch brands, including myself. It's also why I, I do Most of the stuff, yeah, I. I do my stuff outside of. Of the company actually. I use some Sellita parts, but I don't use Sellita movements as they exist. I modify. I have my own patterns on the thing I use. I produce it in with my own supplier network. So it's really. Yeah. A second activity of mine.
- [06:36]
Alon
Let's go back. Where are you from? What made you switch from law to I guess your doctor in engineering. But walk us through your life path, please.
- [06:46]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah. So I was born and raised in Lausanne. I studied law in. In Freiburg, Switzerland, because there's also a Freiburg in Germany. Then I moved to Zurich where I passed my bike examination and I specialized in corporate law, finance law and some other stuff. I was also doing a lot of competition law, antitrust, and it's actually how I met the owner of La Joux. So I was obviously already developing watches and patenting stuff at the time. So it's a long, long time ago. We're talking 25 years ago. And so I was already making watches. I had a little brand also during my university time called Ultima Watch, where I produced chronographs, obviously, because I am deeply passionate about chronographs and so. But I always pursued my, my law career. Then I started also working at the university, teaching and I did. Did a PhD in law. Actually I should have done an engineering one, but I still stuck to low at the time. And at some point I got an offer from the owners of Les Joux Perret to join and to take care of innovation. They bought all my patents because I had quite some patents at the time already. And then they asked me to take over the innovation. When I arrived there, we had the opportunity to purchase Arnold. So we bought Arnold and Son from Graham. Actually the British Master was the name of the mother company. And later on, as I am a big Angelus collector and it's probably with glc, one of my favorite brands, we had the chance to buy that one. So we bought Angelus and then I was in charge of all of them. So to create both movements for La Joux and also creating watches, complete watches for Angelus and for Arnold and Sohn, which I did for 10 years.
- [08:44]
Alon
Then we arrived at Albisson.
- [08:46]
Sebastien Scholmonte
So Albisson obviously is something all of my own in the sense of both with Arnold and with Angelis, I was, I was shareholder as well, but I was not in the majority shareholder. And so I had also to deal with a lot of when I did the product to convince a lot of people. But Had a great support because we did crazy things with Arnold probably we did a bit over it. I did over 22 calibers. I mean I left seven years ago. I think they haven't launched any new caliber since. So they had enough in stock. But it's always happy to see what they're doing with the brands nowadays. But technically wise we were a bit crazy in how many novelties we launched at the time time. And I always knew I wanted to do something by myself. It's why it took me actually eight years to be where I am now because I all finance myself. It's. I'm. I'm the only owner of, of Albison and so I do it little by little, step by step. I have big plans in a sense of quite crazy movement complicated ones. But it needs a bit of funding and need a bit of sales of the existing products before I can like start new ones, technically speaking. And yeah, what I wanted with Albison is to have the freedom to do it as I see it. Also to keep it small at least when I start. I don't need to have a big brand and I want to do products which are very niche as you see, we don't do three hands, we don't do automatic where we have an automatic chrono, but most of our watches are hand wound chronographs. So everybody who would ask me advice how to start a brand I would say do the opposite. What I am doing with Albison, don't try with chronographs because they're expensive by nature. Make us freehand, try a nice design, try something more on the, on the case and hands and dial design rather than attacking the movement as I did now with Albis horn. So yeah, I really like the fact that I can do the brand exactly how I envisioned it and I'm not accountable to anyone except to myself. So this is a nice position to be in because before I was working for corporations and you need to turn a profit quite quickly and that's not my main goal with, with Albison.
- [10:58]
Rob Nudds
So how's the reception been so far? Have you been out at many events getting in front of people, getting some direct feedback? What about the. The response of major blog titles, magazines and so on? Are people picking up the story and running with it or is it a real tough slog?
- [11:13]
Sebastien Scholmonte
No, it's have been amazingly. I mean I never accept expected to have so much positive feedback especially from the specialized press and having such a coverage because I'm really tiny and I don't do any advertisement or anything. So honestly, I was very positively surprised by the reception. I had a tremendous number of articles. I haven't done any show yet, except last year's Junior Watch Days in September, where I launched the brand. I will probably do it again this year. So I haven't been traveling. I cannot actually. Also because of my job at Sellita and other stuff I'm doing, I'm involved in in other projects as well. But I will start traveling at some point for sure. But now the reception has been crazily positive. I thought it was a bit weird. So I was not expecting so many people adhering to the fact of imaginary because we are in an industry where everybody claims he has invented almost everything. And I don't know how many people think they invented the chronograph. For instance, one thing for sure, it's not Louis Monet, but. But the thing is, in an industry where you claim that you do imaginary when everybody is very sticking to what they call the history. And I thought it would probably not be that popular, but it was actually. And then I think my design is not everybody's taste as well. I mean, it's not extreme, but it's also not trying to please everyone. I try to introduce new chronograph dial layouts, meaning with counters positioned at unusual places, probably. Also the human brain needs to adapt, and it's not that it's pleasing to everyone. I'm not doing just a classical bicompact chronograph. So I thought honestly, it would be much more difficult than it is and that the reception would be by far not that positive. So, no, I have been really positively surprised.
- [13:11]
Rob Nudds
Okay, so tell me this, because that's going to be a controversial statement, that Louis Monet did not invent the chronograph. Who do you think the top contenders are for the invention of a chronograph? Or do you have one person that you're sure or you know did it?
- [13:22]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Well, basically, the chronograph needed a lot of different steps to. I can first explain why Louis Monet is actually not the inventor of the chronograph. First of all, look at the context where they already refer to. In his own book, Louis Moynet said that he sold exactly the same at Arnold in London, and Arnold did one. It's lost, but it's documented that it exists. But also, the Arnold is not the inventor of the chronograph. And first of all, a chronograph is a combination of a stopwatch and a watch capable of Giving the time. That's a big complexity of a chronograph is having both in one having a stopwatch and having a watch giving time. So the moinette doesn't give time, it's a stopwatch, basically. The other very complicated stuff about chronograph is a resetting. It's having a heart. Heart cam that's invented by Vinnell, like an Austrian fellow living in Paris. So the most important contribution to the invention of chronograph is Vinnel. But Vinnel cannot be credited because he didn't do a proper chronograph. He's the inventor of the rat raport and the hardcom, which is probably the most important part of a modern chronograph. And all was put together by Ferro Piguet with Nicole. So Nicole and Ferrol Piguet can be credited as the people who put all the invention necessary together to have a watch showing daytime being able to be a chronograph yet you can reset. Because as you know, as a watchmaker, the big problem is the consumption of energy and having something you can declutch from the main. From the main gear train to start a chrono and to reset it. And the moinet doesn't do that. And to reset the moinet, basically you have to put a pin and wait that the hand comes back to zero. And Vinhl, inventing the hardcore, had a system where you could be hit by a hammer and come to zero. Yeah. So I would say the chronograph is a collective invention by many steps. And the first, who put all that together in the modern day, in the modern sense of a chronograph, where Nicole capped and actually the watchmaker behind it was Ferrol Piguet from the Valet Joux.
- [15:32]
Alon
This took a very interesting spin and we've found a unicorn ruby, both lawyer, so IP rights engineer and a watch nerd. So I am spitting here out loud. I think we should invite Sebastian back and maybe do a series of history lessons, maybe a series on patenting and IP rights. But that was amazing. Thank you, Sebastian.
- [16:00]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Sorry, it was maybe a bit of a. Of a long excursion, but it's a topic dear to my heart. And you probably know I wrote a book about the history of chronographs, so I'm not actually not focusing on the invention. I'm on the. On the modern day part of wristwatch chronograph. But obviously I did some conferences about the history of pocket chronographs as well. So it's a topic which is pretty dear to my heart, I wanted to.
- [16:23]
Rob Nudds
Ask about something you mentioned during the incredible explanation of exactly what you meant by that. And it's fascinating. That is probably some of the most valuable information that we've had on the Real Time show for our listeners to understand that no one person can really be credited with the invention of something that kind of came organically out of many different steps forward. You referred to the dial design or layout of your watch as a bi compact. Now what I love about how you've tied the hands together using colors is that you have very clear demarcation for the chronograph function with the red hands and very clear for the time with the white. So as far as I understand it, only the, should we say 7 and 8 o'clock sub dial that is a 30 minute counter is part of the chronograph. Now do you say therefore that this is a bicompact rather than a comper, for example? Because I believe there's quite some conversation about the definitions and the terminologies of darling.
- [17:21]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, yeah. This terminology actually is stolen from Universal Geneva and. No, no, what I will say is I try not to do bicompacts or tricompacts or how. Listen, but, but in the terminology of Geneva sport, it will be a computer because people always think that bicompacts meaning it's three, three, it's two, two counters, but actually it's three. When Universal Geneve talks about the tri compacts they have an additional date and moon. So mine would be a compute. But what I wanted to say is that people are more used to the, you know, the original nine and three o'clock counter position. And I decided to have mine much lower. And it's where I would say it's not the, the usual layout people are expecting. And I thought by doing that that a few people would be a bit afraid in a sense of they're not used to it. And the, the traditional vertical layout of counters like let's, let's play without our counter at six, let's just talk about two, two counters like I do but positioned at nine and three with a classical layout is probably for most people more pleasing to the eye, let's put it that way.
- [18:37]
Rob Nudds
I absolutely love this. And the chronograph is my favorite complication. So having some variety within the chronographs, within my watch box is something that I covet greatly. I think I've only, I can only think of the top of my head of one other brand that has counters in this layout and correct Me, if I'm wrong, it's maybe not exactly the same position, but the Bremont code breaker I think used to have these slightly lower down.
- [19:01]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, they had. And it's. I developed the movement at Les Ruffles imvas. I thought that might have been the reason. Yeah, yeah.
- [19:10]
Alon
And do I refer to a Lange Cern as well? Although it's not a chrono maybe.
- [19:17]
Sebastien Scholmonte
No, no, no, you're right, but. But I mean the Dato graph has them but not as low. I mean there are very few. Patek has it on the split. The refere. It just escaped my mind. But they have it on the last split. They really have the counters very low. They have it on the usual chronograph also just underneath the Strian clock, but they're even going lower on the split. You have of course the datograph who was the first to introduce two counters which were not at 3 and 9, but just a little bit lower. And then you have another one who had the counters very low. It's the Eberat Chrono 4 where they have four counters, hour, minutes, seconds and 24 hour indication in a row with four counters. It's a module on a database. Quite a funny watch where they have also the counters more or less a bit higher than I do have them, but as low as I do. You are right. The only one I know of is the code breaker from Bremel. I solved it. Technically different here than on the codebreaker because the code breaker was also a gmt. So it's a bit different. But yeah, that too. I'm very impressed that you know that watch, Rob, because it was a limited edition. It's not that it was particularly noticed.
- [20:34]
Rob Nudds
Well, you know, I do have a slight inside track. I was a watchmaker for Bremont for.
- [20:38]
Alon
Oh, okay.
- [20:39]
Rob Nudds
My favorite one actually. I really loved the layout and the case finish and there weren't many that passed through my hands or over my bench. But yeah, it stuck in my mind. So I can't claim to be that well researched. I was there up close okay with it. But yeah, great watch.
- [20:54]
Sebastien Scholmonte
So. And yeah, the difference what I did fundamentally on the movement I use in at Albizon is a sinus, which is probably on the. On the top of my list when I started the project was to say how can I in a given also price range get a movement which is as thin or even thinner than the Vajra 23 which is the absolute reference or the Vajra 72 is a bit thicker because it has an hour counter. So I took the 23 as a reference which is roughly 6 millimeters and I wanted to be under that. And I managed to be a 5.7 on the type 10 which allows me to have a case with a real height of 12 millimeters on top of the sapphire. Because there's a new fashion. I don't know where it comes from to give height without the crystal, but the crystal is obviously a part of a watch case. So it sounds a bit weird to give a height without. You can say that the perceived height is less because you don't have the crystal. Is probably doesn't add that much of visual height, but it's still around. So my type 10 is 12 millimeters and I still have 100 meter of water resistance and the digital display for that. The start, stop, reset, which is also on top of the movement and it's included in the 5.7. That took me quite a while to get everything that thin based on the Valju gear trend. Of course I redid the axis. I redid quite a few stuff to be there. But that was also one of the main target. If you go vintage, you cannot offer a watch which is 15 millimeters high. It doesn't fit on the wrist, it doesn't wear well and it's not true to the spirit of these years. So I would say starting with a thin movement is probably the. The only way to go if you want to do something which could be taken seriously as. As. As something vintage.
- [22:47]
Alon
That was an amazing sidestep. So we flew very high and we're going back to the waters because the first watch you guys launched with Albus Horn was with my dear friend William Asina, which took me actually a few minutes to sit down. I enjoyed it and had to wrap my head around what you guys actually have created. So let's talk about your inception piece, please. You did Water Collection. Second chapter is Air collection. I assume the next one is Land.
- [23:20]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Absolutely. Will be launched tomorrow.
- [23:25]
Alon
So when you hear this episode that has been launched. So you're free to talk about all three collections. Dear Sebastian.
- [23:31]
Sebastien Scholmonte
I will, I will. Yeah. So yeah, we started with water. So my idea was quite a simple one. I like regattas and the first famous for the fourth Swiss for. It's a very Swiss thing. Obviously it's a boulder. It's on the Geneva lake. So probably only Swiss people know about it. But it's quite an ancient race. It started 1939 and it was won by a quite famous guy from Geneva, obviously quite a wealthy person. Who ordered an incredible boat in Sweden. And I was thinking of these guys sitting in Geneva having this extremely expensive boat like Formula one for the lake at the time. And I said, okay, he's close to some quite prestigious manufacturers. You probably saw in the newspaper articles about the Lindbergh chronograph and all these chronographs done for aviation weems and all that stuff. And especially all the ones for Lindbergh. And I'm a big fan of Longines at the time. I have a beautiful steelograph sitting on my desk and I thought, yeah, this guy had this perfect boat, wants to win this race. But at the time there was no regatta chronograph for the wrist. So the regattas existed already as pocket watches, even with the dots. Everybody thinks they're from the 60s, but there are pocket watches from the 90s, around 1900 with exactly that kind of display already. You have a nimble dial and you have dots. It's. That's pretty crazy. But there have been no wrist chronograph for regatta. And actually technically everything was invented. So waterproofness existed, you had shock resistant everything. Basically in the mid-30s you had the modern days chronograph available also with some bit of anti magnetic even at the time. So it was just that there was no market because nobody was except super rich people were not doing any regatta. So there was not a mass demand for sport waterproof chronographs for regattas. But I imagine that guy having this extremely expensive boat going to some Geneva manufacturer saying I want the same Lindbergh for the air, but I want to have that for the lake. Well, and it's how the idea of the maxi graph was born was to add a non existing, I would say ancient basic regatta chronograph. So we adapted the sector dial kind of look. Also the hands are quite typical of chronograph from the time you can find these designs at Patek on very few steel models. But also on the middle multicenter chronograph has exactly that kind of hands. So we played a lot with a dial inspired by the studio graph from Longines. And of course it had to have a regatta countdown. So I also wanted to introduce a bit something different there. So it's a 10 minute which stops or declutch itself after 10 minutes. Because I don't like this chronograph who restart by themselves the countdown. Because the countdown happens once, there's no reason to restart it permanently. So it's how it was born. We discussed it a lot with William obviously, as he's a big fan of this race and everything and he was very supportive of the idea of Albison in general and he said I'm more the product guy and he has much more bigger following and also marketing wise, he's much more, I would say connected than I am. So it's how we decided to actually do one model together to start the brand, which might seem a bit unusual, but I'm very happy because it really helped me a lot to have press and to have presence and this whole. The maxigraph was born.
- [27:16]
Alon
Congrats on that. Awesome piece. Are you working with the brand in chapters? So you make something either limited edition or produce the next amount and then you close that chapter, move on. Or will these models make it to the core collection?
- [27:37]
Sebastien Scholmonte
That's a very, very interesting question. Well, by nature I produce very, very little. So my target is roughly to produce 150 to 200 watches a year for the time being. It's also what I can handle personally. So my idea is I'm not that much into limited edition, but it's a criticism I heard a lot, especially from collectors who wants to have an assurance that I will not produce more than that and that. And I always saw the brand as trying to make classics. So I think the type 10 might look good, maybe with some tweaks, but still look good in 10 years. It's not that we don't see any possible evolution, but my aim would be to make classics. So to not limit it artificially. Something. Well, they're limited by nature, but there's no need to. But my idea is I would probably limit it then because it would make some people happy. But I also don't want to just come with exactly the same, just changing one color of any hand and saying, look, it's limited, but the first theory had a green hand and though you can upload the red and the next hundred will we have a blue. And you all think that you have something limited, but at the end of the day I made a thousand of them. So I have to find right line if I do limit it that it's a true limitation in the sense of you don't see something which pretty much looks the same afterwards, but to come back to it, no, I don't want to close chapters. Maybe the maxi graph, as it's a collaboration, might be closed, but this is more in the hand of William because basically it's his model, even if we designed it, but it's actually based also on we worked really together on that one. So I consider it more being his baby. But to talk about the type 10, I hope to keep it alive for quite some years, even if my aim is to produce roughly maybe 30 a year. But to keep it alive, there will be different diets coming out as well and there might be a type 11 in a few years. But. But yeah. So the idea is to create something more classic and to give them time to establish. I see it. Most people don't have never heard of Albison. I would think that in the next 10 years most people will never have heard of it. So it's also a bit sad somehow if someone discovers a brand in five years and still want the Type 10 and I tell them, oh, you know, I had a time frame of 24 hours to order it. I mean, it's how the industry works now. It's also how the online sales works. Basically you have to push people to pay and buy immediately and to put some pressure because otherwise the thing is gone. I hope I can manage it a bit differently because again, I produce by batches of 25 watches. So you know, it's not like. So I hope to keep it in the catalog if it sells or continue selling because for the time being had been selling quite well. So yeah, my idea is to create some classics, hopefully. But it's not me to decide, it's the collectors, the buyers who decide if your watch is a classic or not. But I mean, I will not artificially stop producing it. What I will do now is probably introduce certain dials which are clearly limited because it's really something I was asked for, but it's not something I would be naturally drawn to. To limit stuff, especially when it's artificial.
- [31:07]
Rob Nudds
Somehow is very strange. What you created is a platform that obviously looks like it's been around for decades and decades and decades. And so if somebody did encounter the brand in five years time, when it's a little bit more established as a brand that has existed for five years, six years, seven years, but it would seem to them almost like, I don't know, you've created a strange sort of middle ground where it's a heritage watch that isn't a heritage watch, but eventually it will have its own heritage and then people will want to buy into the brand. And I think you've created such a beautiful platform with the Type 10, especially when it comes to like colors that you can play with or surface finishes. It must have been difficult to decide what surface finishes and what color schemes to go for in the initial release. Because green, I would imagine was not very common back in the past, but nowadays people love a green dial. There's so much scope. Do you have ideas of exactly what colors or what surface finishes you might like to apply to the dial to provide that more modern diversity?
- [32:09]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, it's a long discussion we had also with Fabien, which whom I designed the watches. And we had a lot back and forth. I would say the first type trend were much more vintage with classical flat dials. We tried different kind of bezels. We tried quite a lot of stuff. And then we finally settled for something. I agree with you. Which couldn't have existed like that really at the time. Because this kind of texturing and it's something more contemporary. Yeah, the green was. We have other colors to come. Not many other colors, but we will bring two other colors and then for the time being we will call it a day with the type 10. But yeah, we still try to be contemporary, fresh. Actually. The green is not that we are the analyze of saying, yeah, green is in fashion. Or Patek had the green chrono. It's honestly, we went into military colors and then we found it too military somehow. Because the tone of green we have is not a military green actually. And so we moved to more British green somehow. And honestly, we ended up by many trials. And at some point we tried to free ourselves to do a reproduction of something old because the first one were really that. So it was almost faking a die from the 30s, except that they were not. That they were not radioactive. But then we ended up on saying, no, let's use stamping, which we have now for dyes, which they hadn't at the time. Let's add some depth to it. The green actually is also fume, which is also not. Well, you can have dyes fume, but from the 30s. It's not natural, it's an aging process.
- [33:51]
Alon
So.
- [33:52]
Sebastien Scholmonte
No, you're absolutely right. I would say the black version with the white hands and the steel crown is the most fitting in a sense of historically correctness. The green is a bit of a modern take. I would say we will come end of the year with a model we call the officer, which is also period correct, I would say with a bit of tweaks on the hands. But the main idea of an officer, as you know, when you look at all the lemanias and all that they had lighter dials because officer were not as much as risk getting a bullet. So they could have bright watches compared to the poor guys in the mud who probably didn't want to have something too shiny and we have one which probably would be the most accurate from the time maybe next year or even later. But what you said quite rightfully about the platform is I think someone can see that we have a master plan in the sense of we know what we want to launch. It's not that that we have. It's not that we had one watch in mind and then we had to sit down and said okay, what do we do next? And hurry it. I mean I have, I am wearing the watches I will launch. The next two to three years are existing and I'm testing them and they are. So I think also the platform, what you said, where you offer creativity, there's also the concept of the brand which probably I'm very excited to show more but it needs time in a sense of also to peer Pipel to digest with Arnold. I really did the mistake. Also for one of the anniversary we presented at Baselworld 5 calibers. I mean if you are not Rolex, Patek and a huge PR machine, you have no chance to show it to the world. You have no chance to people to understand what you did, what you invested. Also Albison have to refrain from showing everything I have because I really need also the product as a marketing tool because people talk about Albison only when I launch something. So if I would launch everything now, I would have probably a bit of press, but you would not hear about me for the next 10 years. But I'm very happy if at some point, maybe in two or three years people will see the entire picture and understand what we are doing or trying to do. So the next chapter which I'm proud to introduce is now the Earth Collection.
- [36:14]
Rob Nudds
I think it's fantastic that you have a multi year plan, many products in the pipeline and you're absolutely right not to rush the releases in terms of coverage and giving people time to adjust to a new brand presence and to understand exactly what it is you're doing. But you must also be under no personal pressure to rush these things out considering how busy you are. You mentioned earlier that you have a concept of another brand, a higher end brand. Yes, from my personal perspective, this is a brilliant way to go about satisfying your desires or one's desires to create multiple products at different price points. I think many brands, especially newer brands, make the mistake of trying to lever every idea they have into the same label when it doesn't fit and it doesn't tell the same story. Now Albason is in a very competitive price Bracket as it is. Did you feel like, oh, I want to take the gloves off and you know, utilize all of that incredible experience that you've got with movement, production and design and go for, you know, the very high echelon when it comes to price point. I guess we're talking five figures plus for a, you correct me if I'm wrong for like a higher, more expansive concept. What do you think about the sense of splitting your ideas and your concepts across multiple brand stories rather than trying to force them all into one? Is that the same thing that you feel as well?
- [37:40]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, there's. For me it's. I mean first of all, the other one is done with a close friend with a genius watchmaker, honestly, and I wouldn't use this word lightly. So we really wanted to. To innovate in escapements doing a quite crazy chronometer with double barrel something and also with people will probably love. Absolutely not vintage in the sense of very contemporary watchmaking. So also very different aesthetic, much more purist. And as you said, the price point will be incomparably higher than. And we are working actually in the movement for almost nine years, but the thing is running for quite a while. But now we have to produce it, make all parts. Most are done by hand. So it's also a very different approach. I mean with the other brand we want to do maybe five watches a year and the concept is very, very, very different, very modern. The idea we had is to say let's build an experimental chronometer in a modern day aesthetic without doing a racing machine for the wrist. So it looks like a watch but it's not trying to mimicking some kind of all the Bertu or the Breguet or Arnold. So I did it. I did that kind of style watches for many years. I liked it doing it. But I don't want to do a rose gold plated kind of movement nowadays anymore. I paid that I did it. But yeah, so no, there's no way I could both do on the same level. And it's also not the same team and not the same. So there would be no way if you want to put everything under one umbrella, even if it would be probably easier for a lot of other perspective from the Internet side up to the visuals and everything. But there's no way I want to go up with Albison as well in the sense of complicated movements. But nothing will ever be over 10k ever. That's the limit I see for the brand. And if you do direct sale, you can offer crazy stuff for 10k. But that's the absolute limit. Where I see Albison and I will stick to the vintage aesthetic, of course, from different periods. No, we started in the end of the 30s. We will go up to mid-70s at some point. So we are going up. And you will also, just as a side note, see, the logo will evolve over the years depending on the periods we are in. Because we really play the game of imaginary pretty. We go pretty far in a sense of. At some point Albison had the need to revamp the logo. So in the mid-60s we changed logo at Albisson. So the version before will always have the historical logo. Of course, because we will bring back watches from the 40s, but all the watches start in mid-60s will have the modern days Ibisson logo. But to come back to your main question, I have too many ideas. I cannot put them all into one brand. And I think it's very, very important when you do also handmade watches, you cannot confuse that with something which is industrially made. And so it's different ideas. And to be very honest, the first project I started much earlier than Albison and at some point I thought I would never see the other one. It was so immensely complicated doing it all in our basement, from the conception to production. It's crazy when you attack, especially when you attack fundamental aspects of a watch, like a new escapement. And you are just two guys in a garage. People cannot imagine what it means if you don't have a factory behind you doing and helping you. So I thought I would never see that thing alive. And during COVID the idea came of Albison because I saw all this RE edition and I was always betting with friends that this type of RE edition will stop at some point. And it has been going on for 20 years. So I was proved wrong. And a friend told me, yeah, but why do you always complain about reedition? I said, yeah, because I'm always seeking for the original. And it's how the idea came in. The guy, my friend, told me, yeah, but what would you do? I said, yeah, by doing all the vintage we wish they would and they never made. So adding paintings to your favorite painter instead of buying a copy, a printed copy of a famous painting. And it's how actually Albis Horn started. But it started also a bit out of the idea that the very complex project would never go to the end. And it's, it's. It's how I end up with having two brands. Well, once one is not launched yet, but. But it Will. Yeah, at some point.
- [42:15]
Rob Nudds
I think it's absolutely brilliant. I, I love this idea of creating a false heritage, but openly like this alternate history almost of how things planned out just slightly differently. Years ago, I, because I'm a big sports fan, I made a series of sweatshirts for my friends that had the Olympic host cities from certain years, but not the ones that had actually won and hosted the games.
- [42:37]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Oh, that's crazy. Cool.
- [42:39]
Rob Nudds
Yeah, you know, we, I had Toronto sticks that was the most popular one. People were like, what is this? The people assumed that it was like a, a jersey that somebody produced in anticipation of Toronto winning the games and then it never having happened. And I thought it's just, this is so great. You know, you've done it with watches and created products which. Yeah, I think it's, it, it's just so beautiful to watch it develop and to see like how people perceive it over time. A lot of people have been very frustrated with major brands like say, let's take Breitling for example, constantly reissuing stuff from the past, but executed with modern manufacturing techniques and, you know, better materials and more refined printing process and so on and so forth. I kind of love it because I think there are great designs that never really went out of style that deserve that second window. But to have something completely new that, that taps into that desire for this sort of familiar, the fresh and familiar look of Albus 1 is just absolutely, absolutely stunning to me. I think it's a great concept and beautifully well executed and very well communicated, which is absolutely essential to pull it off. But talking about price points, just from a more macro perspective, when you look at the industry now, what do you see as the gaps in the market, as it were? As I said, Albason's operating in around the US$5,000 mark, that is saturated. It is full of many heritage brands that you have to compete against. Do you think that that's the toughest place to be and you feel like when you do finally launch the ultra high end concept, you'll have a little bit of an easier time to create some noise and separation around what you're doing because there's fewer but maybe more active customers, or do you look even lower and think, oh, there's a opportunity to do something using your experience and your connections that is maybe 500 to 1500 dollars and really fly with that?
- [44:31]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, that's a very, very interesting question. Yes, the expensive, the high end, the handmade watches. I'm very close to Raoul Pages and his brand and I advise him on Some aspects. So I'm pretty involved in what he does. And the demand for handmade and that kind of watches is immense still, even though everything is going down, I would say it's an easier place to be. It's. It's the high end because you do small volumes, you have very dedicated collectors. And if you. If you do a great product, if you're really true to values, if you really do the stuff you say you do by hand, and if you really take six months to do a watch which has a lasting value, I think there's still a very good market. I wouldn't say that every now you have the impression every watchmaker student leaving a school in France becomes an independent watchmaker and wants to become juron. But. Except that. Which is probably a bit excessive. If you are good at what you do, like Raoul, with 30 years of experience, or not exactly 25 years of restoring and making crazy watches and you have this heritage and you have this now how he has. You have really, I think a very strong position in this market. In the price point where I am, as you said, is very, very crowded. It's probably the most difficult one. I see it even with my non existing high end brand. I have pre orders of people who haven't seen the product. That's the crazy thing. People wanting to order stuff without having seen it and you would never or barely. I don't expect that to be with a 5K watch. Maybe a few had it during COVID times where people were crazy about all these brands. But I think it's a very difficult marketplace. 5K. But that's where you end up. If you do quality and you do Swiss made and you do cost and you do movement modification, it's unfortunately I would have loved to be more accessible. I hoped to be under that. I couldn't. But it's not that I aim to be at five, I aim to be lower. But the reality of the thing I wanted to use, the quality I wanted to achieve, there were no way going down without doing shortcuts. But then again, it depends what you want to want. I really wanted to have a watch I want to wear myself. I don't do watches. And I think hopefully someone else will like it because I would never wear it. I wear my watches. I do them primarily because I want to have one myself on my wrist. So when you want to go down in price, that probably says a huge market obviously and you see a lot of brands doing a crazy good job. But when you see the people who succeed in this job. These are really people very well connected in distribution, very good at marketing and it's almost drop shipping. Basically they never touch the watch they're selling. They are made in some factories, depending where. And these people have no knowledge and a savoir faire, which I don't. It's basically to give you an example, I do ship all my watches. I know could write about a PhD about the FedEx problems, but I could not imagine how these guys managed to ship 10,000 watches out of Hong Kong and everybody is happy and everything goes well. You need a huge manpower behind it to handle all the after sales issues, all those shipping and the emails and everything. With Albison you really have to. If you are emailing to info at Albison, the only person who will ever answer is me because I'm handling it. So my point is to go down in price. You really need infrastructure, you need from day one, huge volumes. And it's a different business because I would say if you are in the enterprise, you are not a watchmaker, you are someone specialist in selling a distribution, which is not a critic buyer by any means. I admire these people, how they handle it and how they manage to produce watches to these prizes. But it's not something I would say I have no qualification to go in and I also have no interest, personal interest in doing so. But I am admiring people who are successful in that price range and I admire the way they're organized as well as I admire somehow Amazon. But personally I'm not a client of Amazon, but I'm mesmerized by how they manage to do their business and how it's organized. But it's more people coming from logistics, people coming from companies of mass consumer goods who I would say who are very well performing when they start such kind of brands.
- [49:10]
Alon
You gave me the perfect segue to talk about retail distribution and sales of watches. You actually answered the majority of my question. So I wonder where do you see yourself? You're obviously a philosopher, you think a lot and you execute perfect combination. Where do you see yourself as a inventor, entrepreneur and your watch friends? Where will you be in 5, 10, 20 years if you daydream since you do that with Albus on your day?
- [49:46]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Yeah, it's very hard to project. I mean the most important thing for me is that I keep the passion for what I do. I think the most important thing is that Albison started as a fun project and I'm fighting that it stays like that. It was really, it was born out of joy. I Never sought to make it my main activity. That also answers part of your question. A sense of. It's thrilling working at Sellita. It might maybe not look from the outside, but we do crazy stuff even if we're not always allowed to talk about it because we do a lot of manufacturing movement for other brands which well, are confidential of course. But heading innovation at Seida is very interesting because I joined at the moment where we were switching from pure generic ATAR products eight years ago to start developing our own calibers, our own technologies, our own everything. So to be part of that big big team because Solitaire is a very, very big, big big ship was really quite a wonderful years of what we could create. There are quite some few things coming out. As for action wonders in big brands which are. I'm really proud that we managed to do them. So I would not want to miss that part of my. Of this highly industrial. But I also like as I'm working part time, having my days where I can do my Albison or other projects. So honest about watchmaking is this diversity of doing mass movement in the morning, thinking a bit of a during lunchtime and having dinner with Raoul and thinking if you might produce more than five or six watches this year and what it would take. And so if you want this diversity of watchmaking, we call it a watch actually. But it's such a different word. It's what Rob said about the different price points. At some point it's not the same business you are not talking about. Well, it gives time somehow, but it's probably the only common aspect to this product. Something free, done by hand by one watchmaker. It cannot be compared with something done fully industrial for under 100 francs, probably never touched by a human hand and something around 5k which is probably something a bit in between in a sense. It has seen a human being at some point in the production process but. But it's. So in five years I probably will still be at Sellida. I guess I hope that I will have some recognition in the sense of Albison that I could easily do my 200 watches without worrying too much if I will sell them. And because it's what I need to be sustainable. I hope with Albison that I could bring all the movements I want to make in that price bracket because I honestly have a few funny ideas. I just patented one recently and I really hope to have it on the wrist at some point and yeah, and I hope that I will have launched my high end brand and that it will be recognized for what it is and that we will have a little workshop where we can produce that. Because no, we will not continue doing everything ourselves. It's just impossible. But yeah, I strongly hope that these two little brands will have found their. I have no dreams of making volumes in none of them actually. Well, 200 is still a volume, but. But for me it's more having something sustainable in a way of even if you have ups and downs in the market. And the watchmaking, as you know better than I, is known for its ups and downs. And I think we are in a quite terrible down as the industry right now. And I've known, I've experienced that for many years because I've been in this industry for over 20 something years. So I think if you, as an independent, and it's very interesting if you have a brand where you can say whatever happens, 200 people in the world will be happy to wear the watch I've developed and I'm focusing on these. I'm not trying to make just 250 to when I have a bad year, I have 50 watches I cannot sell. I prefer by far having a good year where I could sell four hundreds and saying, guys, I'm just fine and happy with my two hundreds. I don't need this growth. Everybody talks about growth. Everything is about growth. I think the most important thing when you are a privately owned or a one person, so to speak, company is to find the right size. I think most people in life struggle or companies because they are not uncomfortable in the size they have. Everybody wants to grow, Everybody wants to. And I think when you look at very successful stories like Johan, not that I have anything comparable with Johan, don't get me wrong. But what I admire about his business is that he was very focused on the number of watches he wanted to make. He never said that he wanted to become Patek Philippe or he never said he would do 10,000 watches a year at some point and he never did. And I think he did great by limiting to under a thousand and maybe more expensive watches. But not playing with the numbers. I would rather do 200 rattrapoint or foudroyant chronographs than doing 400 of my exits. I would prefer doing more added value, more specific, even more crazy, but obviously more expensive. But rather than doubling the volume, you.
- [55:16]
Alon
Triggered two things within me. So maybe final philosophical discussion, but to quickly close the chapter on FP Jour, you're way too modest. Because while I've been listening to you the last hour, I've actually thinking a lot about efficient, which I've been admiring from day one and his Latin phrase that he engraves on his dials, which is in veni FSC is very much so your personal slogan because it means invented and made. So that's what you do, you execute. You're an inventor and you execute. So please don't be so modest and please keep on pumping out out this crazy ideas that you have now. I've been having this idea in my mind because I love tech as well. I've been always working in the tech industry since the early 2000s, even the end of the 90s, while simultaneously loving the mechanical world. I have been studying AI, very much so since 2016 even in and I've been racking my brain the last few years about the battle of closed ecosystems versus open source. Mark Zuckerberg goes open source with Llama, their AI and LLMs whereas obviously ChatGPT and etc are closing the systems. The question I have for you on a closing note of this episode, and maybe we'll need a whole episode for the answer is you've been mentioning patent, patent, patent many times during this interview. Do you think that one day we'll see an open source watchmaking collaborative?
- [57:00]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Well, the only person ever offering that is because they knew that the system wasn't working. I will not name the brand, but I remember when they said they would not patent and we all knew they it didn't because it was not functioning. Yeah, I agree. I mean it's a very interesting point actually you're raising is we have an immense, we have an immense number of patents in the watchmaking industry. Mechanical one. And it's pretty funny because actually we are a dead technology, right? So it's very fun to have something which have been surpassed by so many other technologies in precision of timekeeping. Not even going into atomic clocks, but just start with quartz watches would basically just wear a bullet in our heads as mechanical watch fans. So also with my engineers, I like to make jokes from time to time. Don't invent too much because you will just invent an electronic device. Because basically we try to improve mechanical watches but basically we could just switch the technology and having something much better in a way of precision. I mean timekeeping, not visually, not mechanically, but. But the reason I mentioned patents or the reason why I do patents actually is not really to prevent anyone to do it because I'm much too small to even try to start to attack people. The problem you have in this industry that people do really, you do have to Patent nowadays because otherwise someone can block you from producing your watches. The problem is if you don't in the development phase before you publicly show your movement. If you don't, you can be blocked. I have a very good example actually of something which happened to me. I had developed for Albison a phase of the Earth seen from the moon. And you can imagine my shock when I saw this watch, the Moonswatch coming out. I have to buy one because it's fantastic. And I was always looking at these NASA pictures taken from the moon, seeing the Earth. And then I made some research a few years back from what does it take to make phases of the Earth seen from the moon. Which I found very unnecessary but very, very romantic. And then you realize that it's not that complicated. Pretty much a reverse of a moon phase. So it also allows you gear transformation some having something very fun connected to the moon phase. One corrector, something easy to do, but you can present it visually quite beautifully. So we did one, we had the movement ready. I thought it's honestly that simple. I not even sort of patented the thing. And a few months ago you had the Swatch coming out with a phase of exactly what I wanted to do. My presentation would have been a bit different my visual. And they claim they patented it. I haven't found the patent yet, but I'm looking on a weekly basis. So basically my mechanical version of it, which is not a chronograph actually it was a freehand with other calendar functions. So it was not based on a chronograph. It would have been an Albison non chronograph. At some point I can just throw it away. And I remember when I got the news and yeah, wasn't a good day because all the work I did on that and I didn't patent it because I thought it was not that revolutionary. And patenting is something quite expensive. Even I write the patents myself, but with all the taxes and I still use a specialized lawyer to review my thing and to dip and to bring it to the office. So we have a good deal because I write it, but still it cost me a few thousand Swiss francs if I put everything together. So I cannot afford to make hundreds a year. Yeah. And so when you're a small company, you actually really patent stuff just to prevent someone to. Because I don't mind Swatch group making a phase of the Earth, but they will mind if I do one as well mechanically. So for my product is dead. Because if you have the Swatch group against you, probably it's straight to hell. So that so to go on to your open source, if you're in an industry which is very aggressively non open source and you are small, small, let me say small like a tiny inexisting player. What I am you honestly, you don't patent because you want to challenge someone. You just patent because you don't want to be challenged by the big ones. And the big ones, believe me, even if you're super small challenge you on any levels, you don't even think that these people would know that you exist. But believe me, they do. And even if you sell 30 watches, you can get a letter one of the lawyers because they still find that one of your model name is too close of one of them. So with patents, especially in the technical field, as you cannot just show it to the world because you know once it's shown, you cannot patent it anymore. The problem you have is during you have the idea and you make the product, you would, let's say you take three years. If in the meantime someone produce or patent the same idea, you can, you can throw away all the development. So I had to really scrap my entire face off the earth mechanical watch because it's patented. And so I'm dead.
- [62:32]
Rob Nudds
Well on that slightly terrifying and mortally depressing note, imagining the Swatch group coming for us in the middle of the night with a black bag and a hammer. Let's wrap up the show. Sebastian. It was was an incredibly illuminating hour and as Alon intimated earlier, I would love to have you back on the show because I think there's so many more things that we could discuss and you have so many irons in so many fires. We need to hear how they're all progressing as time goes on. So thank you for your time and.
- [62:59]
Sebastien Scholmonte
Thanks for having me and was a real pleasure to have the opportunity to explain the thoughts behind the brand. So thanks so much for having me, both of you.
- [63:09]
Rob Nudds
It really was our pleasure and I'm sure that our listeners are going to enjoy this episode. And I can already imagine that our mailbox bag will be bursting with new questions for you and about the concepts that you discussed today. So if you do want to get in touch, you can ask us these questions either via our dedicated Instagram handle at the realtime show by emailing either Alon David or me at Alon at David or Rob herealtime show and contact Scarlett via her Instagram handle at S C A R L I N T H E S H I R E that's Skull in the Shire or you can get in touch with us via the contact form@www.therealtime show. And for any of you listening on your favorite podcast player, there's a new function now, fan Mail. You can actually contact us directly through the app. So just look for that link at the top of every episode and drop us a quick text. We'll be back soon with more top quality watch content from the industry's finest. Until then, stay safe and keep on ticking.