A friend of mine lives on the Isle of Man,which is an island in the Irish Sea, north west of Liverpool.He was driving when his car suddenly broke down & not having his mobile phone with him, he walked a short distance to a nearby cottage.
It turned out that this cottage was the factory of Roger W. Smith who makes about 10 hand-made watches a year with a team of 3 or 4 other watch makers. These watches are virtually 100% hand-made & the basic model will cost you £85,000 ( $135,000)with a two year waiting list. Roger had worked with watches from leaving school & eventually was invited to a 3 year apprenticeship with George Daniels.
Mr. Daniels, who died in 2011, was probably the 20th. century`s greatest watchmaker who among other things invented the co-axial escapement which was adopted by Omega.
There is a large amount of information on `You Tube` featuring Roger Smith.
( All the info above is from a newspaper cutting my friend sent me)
It just demonstrates that even in these hard economic times there a people ( very rich people )who are prepared to wait a couple of years & pay a fortune for a hand made timepiece.
If any members have a "R W Smith" watch could they please post some pictures for us all to see.

These use George Daniels' exquisite Co-Axial Escapement which is recently been so heavily advertised by Omega (be sure to scroll down to the video and watch it all);

http://www.omegawatches.com/pl...o-axial/how-it-works

The R W Smith pieces are at the pinnacle of watchmaking! See the details at;

http://www.rwsmithwatches.com/unique-pieces/

Small world! I have seen many of Roger Smith's videos on youtube and he did in fact learn from the best. He's a great young talent and is continuing the tradition of watchmaking at the very highest level.

A few things worth a look.

William

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAD7VJ09wSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZPnmJpRSkY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_XK2sR30Kw

This was really fun to watch the Daniels videos and the R Smith ones. I can't imagine ever owning one, but, I can see how Bill Gates, or Phil Sanchez would.

LOL