‘Vintage-Inspired?’ Nah, This American Watchmaker Offers the Real Deal

The features, designs and clockwork of modern mechanical timepieces are part of a lineage that stretches back hundreds of years. But most wristwatches today are a mere echo of an idealized past, a chorus of “inspired by.”

Adam Cruft

For the Vortic Watch Company, however, the connection to this heritage is more direct. Based in Colorado, Vortic aims to put actual historical artifacts on your wrist.

They deal not in vintage watches a few decades old, but rather in pocket watches that often date back a century or more. The ornate dials and equally ornate mechanical movements are remnants of a mentality and craftsmanship that’s all but lost today. (But not totally lost: Check out the new season of Jack Ryan, where you can spot John Krasinski sporting a Vortic Military Edition.)

“[Most people] have absolutely no clue that we [the United States] were the Switzerland of the world 100 years ago,” says R.T. Custer, cofounder of Vortic. In his words, the company furnishes “antique American pocket watches turned into wristwatches.” Classmates at Penn State University, Custer and his business partner Tyler Wolfe launched the brand in 2014 with Kickstarter funding. Today, they have over 8,000 square feet of office and production space in downtown Fort Collins.

Vortic Watch Co.

Vortic isn’t the first company to restore vintage movements for use in modern wristwatches, but they’re unusual in their commitment to the exercise. That’s because, in addition to preserving historical items, Vortic aspires to create American-made watches from start to finish. But the challenge and expense of producing the many tiny, specialized components found in mechanical watches impeded the attempts of young and historic American watch companies alike.

Vortic’s solution? Using components made by American companies over a century ago. By combining restored movements, dials and hands with cases and other components produced in its own facilities, Vortic’s American-made package is complete. “We do everything under one roof here,” Custer explains.

Storied American watch companies like Hamilton, Waltham, Elgin, Ball and others made some of the highest quality watches of their time, but watch movement manufacturing mostly disappeared from the United States around the middle of the 20th century. Even if these beautiful and impressive pocket watches survive today in functioning order, they simply haven’t reached the same heights of popular enthusiasm as wristwatches. More often than not, they end up unrepaired and in scrap bins.

Custer acknowledges that there’s a delicate balance to strike between preserving authenticity and offering something new — not to mention wearable. “We’re not altering the movement,” he says. “We’re not modernizing what’s inside. That’s art, you know. We call our wristwatch cases ‘preservation systems.’ It’s an engineering system designed to preserve [and display] that movement [and dial].”

Vortic Watch Co.

The result is about as distinct from a typical modern watch as you can get, both aesthetically and conceptually. “A lot of our customers don’t fit the collector mold,” Custer says. “Most have a Vortic instead of a Rolex, for example. They don’t have a bunch of really expensive watches.” Vortic watch prices start around $2,500.

“It takes a certain type of person to love this kind of watch,” he happily acknowledges. “You have to love American history.”

And you have to love big watches. Pocket watches were traditionally much larger than the modern wristwatch, and Vortic’s mostly 46mm-wide watch cases reflect those large dials and movements.

“When we did a survey in 2019, over 60 percent of our customers were American small business owners or entrepreneurs, and so I feel like they’re investing in the American spirit and industrialization and, you know, all the stories from the old pocket watches,” Custer explains with pride. “Even a lot of people who love watches have no idea about these old watch companies. The coolest part is that it’s kind of like, if you know, you know.”

Courtesy

Vortic Springfield

• $3,300.00 at

Courtesy

Vortic Military Edition

• $8,000.00 at

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Vortic Comparing Watch

• $7,500.00 at

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