RGM

RGM Watch Co. is born in 1992 on the initiative of Roland G. Murphy, an American watchmaker trained at the Bowman Technical School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and later refined at the renowned WOSTEP program in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Before founding his own brand, Murphy worked as Technical Director for the historic Hamilton Watch Company, at the time still tied to the manufacturing tradition of Lancaster County. It is from this dual training, American and Swiss, that RGM's ambition is born: to prove that high-level mechanical watchmaking could still be born and thrive in the United States.

The most significant moment in the brand's history arrives in 2007, with the introduction of the Caliber 801: the first high-end mechanical movement produced in series on American soil since 1969, the year Hamilton had halted mechanical watch production in Lancaster to move the business to Switzerland. The Caliber 801 becomes the heart of the Pennsylvania Series, the catalogue's most identity-defining segment. Years later the brand also creates the Pennsylvania Tourbillon, presented as the first tourbillon produced in series in the United States and in North America.

RGM does not, however, claim an entirely American production across every one of its lines: while models such as the Pennsylvania Series are born from calibers and cases made in-house in Mount Joy, other collections — such as the Model 222-RR, built on fully reconditioned vintage Hamilton pocket-watch movements — draw on historic mechanical bases rather than newly produced components, while some more accessible lines use ébauches of Swiss origin assembled and decorated in-house. It is a declaredly hybrid craftsmanship, which the brand presents as combining "modern computer-controlled machines" with vintage hand tools.