Paul Gerber

Paul Gerber is one of the most original and underappreciated figures in the history of independent watchmaking — a Zurich-based Swiss watchmaker born in Bern in 1950, who has spent over five decades quietly accumulating a body of work studded with genuine firsts, two Guinness World Records, a Prix Gaïa, and a reputation among fellow watchmakers as both a technical genius and an extraordinarily generous mentor. He completed his watchmaking diploma and established his shop in Zurich in 1976, beginning with watch sales and restoration while developing his own creative ambitions in parallel. He was an early adopter of CAD for movement design — using it from the beginning of his independent work at a time when the practice was almost unheard of among small independents. His first independent creation, in 1989, was not a watch but a clock: the Kuhschwanz-Augenwender ('cow-tail eye-mover', named for the pendulum shape and the fact that the figure's eyeballs move) — a miniature working clock made from boxwood, with a movement just 2.2cm high. It earned him his first Guinness World Record for the smallest clock made of wood, and served a more strategic purpose: it was his calling card to be invited to join the AHCI, where he has been a member since 1988, making him one of the founding generation of the organisation. When he began adding complications to his miniature clocks — moon phases, equation of time — he quickly discovered that buyers valued their 'cuteness' but did not comprehend the technical achievement, making the remuneration inadequate.

This realisation redirected his energy toward the watch industry, where his CAD skills and movement engineering ability quickly attracted commissions from brands who preferred to keep his involvement confidential; only a few allowed him to be named publicly, among them Fortis, for whom he integrated an alarm mechanism into a Valjoux 7750 in 1996 to help the brand reestablish itself in the mechanical complications space. He also collaborated with Ludwig Oechslin — then curator of the Musée International d'Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds — to create the official MIH Watch: a chronograph with annual calendar and day/night indication built on a Valjoux 7750 base, packaged with deliberate no-frills aesthetic restraint in the spirit of Oechslin's design philosophy, which was housed at and sold through the museum. He also contributed to the earliest Ochs & Jr models.

Gerber's own wristwatch range began in 1997 with the Retrograde — a retrograde seconds display on a Peseux 7001 base, which SJX has noted was 'the first ever in a wristwatch' when it arrived on the market that year, a historical first that is rarely credited to him.

He then developed what became his most recognised signature: the multi-rotor automatic winding system. The Retro Twin, launched in 1999–2001, paired the retrograde seconds display with his patented double-rotor winding mechanism (Patent EP1136891): two platinum rotors mounted on their own modular plate and bridge, a central coupling wheel preventing collision, their dance visible through the sapphire caseback. The dial is guilloché on a hand-operated rose engine in Gerber's signature pattern, with applied numerals and hands in blued steel; the white gold case measures just 36mm despite the mechanical complexity within. The Modell 33 advanced his ambitions further: an entirely in-house form movement (tonneau-shaped calibre), housing his own proprietary 'Paul Gerber Escapement' (Patent EP1517197) — a double co-axial escape wheel interacting with a lever carrying three pallets, designed to avoid compressing forces during the locking and impulse phases for more consistent energy delivery — and the world's first three-dimensional moon phase in a wristwatch: a 6mm diameter sphere rotating accurately for 128 years without correction.

Gerber has noted that the Modell 33 cases tend to make their owners cautious — stored rather than worn, a quality that saddens him because he designs his watches to be used daily. The Modell 41 is his preferred child for precisely the opposite reason: it is worn. A fully in-house manufacture automatic movement at 21,600 A/h with two barrels for 100 hours of power reserve, three gold rotors (the triple-rotor concept patented as EP1136891 expanded), a large quick-set date, and a proprietary switching seconds display that alternates between sweeping and jumping (Patent EP2098921) — all in a 42mm stainless steel or 18k rose gold case with detachable lugs secured by dovetail joints, designed for serviceability. The Modell 42 carries the triple-rotor system on a modified ETA 2824 base with a large date complication in a sporty titanium case, broadening access without compromising Gerber's mechanical philosophy.

Gerber's magnum opus — and his second Guinness World Record — is the Superbia Humanitatis: a watch whose history is as extraordinary as its mechanism. The base was a pocket watch movement made by Louis-Elysée Piguet in the early 20th century. A Swiss entrepreneur, Willi Sturzenegger (known on forums as 'Lord Arran'), commissioned Franck Muller to expand the movement; Muller added complications and converted it to a wristwatch form. Then in 1992 Sturzenegger brought in Paul Gerber, who spent eleven years adding further complications and engineering refinements until the movement reached 1,116 components — certified by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005 as the most complicated wristwatch in the world by component count. It was presented at the MIH in 2003 to considerable attention. Sturzenegger subsequently sold the watch; the new owner Ralph Graf commissioned Gerber to continue the watch's documentation and refinement, and it was Graf who gave it the name Superbia Humanitatis ('the pride of humanity') and commissioned Magnus Bosse to write the watch's biography in book form.

The Prix Gaïa — the prestigious award for technical and artistic contributions to horology presented by the MIH in La Chaux-de-Fonds, often considered the highest honour in Swiss watchmaking culture — was awarded to Gerber in 2007, recognising a career of continuous innovation and generosity.

Today, having passed official Swiss retirement age, Gerber takes the freedom to choose which projects satisfy him, devoting increasing time to fostering watchmaking knowledge through his immersive three-day hands-on courses for collectors in his Zurich workshop — intensive sessions during which participants actually make watch components under his guidance, including heat-bluing screws. The courses are conducted in German (translation available for international participants). He is completing the final 30 Modell 42s and 4 Modell 41s of his production, which will close out his commercial watch programme. Every component is documented from sketch to final screw — a methodical archive he describes as a gift to future generations.