Steinhart

Steinhart is founded in 2001 by Günter Steinhart, who according to several consistent sources had a background in architecture and engineering and a personal passion for mechanical watches, rather than a professional watchmaking career. The company is based in Stadtbergen, a town on the outskirts of Augsburg, in Bavaria, where model development is handled; the movements, of Swiss base (ETA, Sellita, Soprod), are supplied from the Swiss Jura region and assembled/regulated in Germany.

The business model that has characterized Steinhart from the beginning is direct online sales, without going through third-party retailers: a choice the brand presents as the reason it can offer watches with technical specifications (steel case, sapphire crystal, Swiss automatic movements) close to those of far more expensive brands, at a significantly lower price.

From a design standpoint, Steinhart has built an identity based on the faithful reinterpretation of historic categories of instrument watchmaking: German Luftwaffe military observation watches (Nav B-Uhr line), onboard chronometers for maritime navigation (Marine Chronometer line), and the language of the most celebrated 20th-century Swiss diving watches (Ocean One line). The catalog, which according to an interview with the founder numbers over a hundred models spread across about eleven collections, remains almost entirely aimed at a male audience.