Craftsmanship
From raw brass
to living mechanism.
Every Aurum Tempus calibre follows the same eight-stage process established by Édouard Vallat in 1891. The materials and tools have evolved. The discipline has not.
Design & Computation
Each calibre begins with hand-drawn architectural sketches by our head of complications, then translated to 3D CAD toleranced to ±0.001mm. Simulations run for 800 hours of continuous virtual operation before a single component is machined.
Alloy Selection & Sourcing
Main plates are milled from specialist German brass alloys. Gear trains use a proprietary copper-beryllium composition developed by Luc Vallat in 1988 for maximum fatigue resistance. Gold chatons are cast on-site from conflict-free sources.
CNC & Finishing
Roughed components emerge from our 5-axis CNC lathes, then pass to finisseurs who remove every machining trace by hand. Côtes de Genève stripes, perlage circles, and anglage bevels are applied by eye — each stroke under 40× magnification.
Escapement Construction
Our silicon pallet fork and escape wheel are grown in our own clean-room by deep reactive ion etching. The lever geometry is calculated to maximise impulse efficiency — our current escapements achieve 92.4% energy transfer, against the industry average of 86%.
First Assembly
A single watchmaker assembles the rough movement from first component to first tick. This takes between three days (Perpetuelle) and fourteen weeks (Grande Complication). No component passes between hands until the movement runs for the first time.
Regulation & Chronometry
Movements are tested across six positions over sixteen days. Master regulator Adrien Châtelain adjusts the balance wheel hairspring by fractions of a micron until the movement achieves the Geneva Seal's ±2 seconds per day in all positions. Our current average: ±1.4 seconds.
Case Construction
Cases are machined from solid bar stock — never cast. A Perpetuelle case passes through twenty-six individual operations; a Grande Complication case requires eighty-one. Polishing alternates between Zapon lacquer-brushed and mirror surfaces, each transition hand-executed.
Final Casing & Certification
The completed movement is cased, timed again for three further days, then presented to the Vallat family's personal quality review — a practice unchanged since 1889. Each piece exits the manufacture with a signed certificate, a movement extract, and a photograph taken the day of completion.
The Engines
of Aurum Tempus.
Manual Wind, Classic
Flyback Chronograph
Grande Complication
Guilloché — the Engine Turner's Art
Our dials are engraved by hand on a 1920s rose engine lathe — one of only a handful still in regular horological use. Master artisan Claude Morin spends up to forty hours on a single Grande Complication dial, cutting the crosshatch pattern in a single continuous session — any interruption destroys the rhythm of the cuts.
No two dials are identical. The pattern shifts imperceptibly with each rotation of the lathe, meaning your Aurum Tempus is, quite literally, a unique object.
Commission a Bespoke PieceAnglage — the Art of the Chamfer
Every metal angle within an Aurum Tempus movement — from the main plate to the finest lever — receives a hand-applied chamfer, polished to a mirror finish under magnification. This is anglage, and it is performed entirely with a pegwood stick charged with diamantine powder.
A Grande Complication movement contains over 1,400 individual chamfered edges. Each one takes between 30 seconds and 8 minutes depending on accessibility. The total anglage time for a Grande Complication: approximately 120 hours.
Explore the CollectionsSee the Work
Before You Own It.
We welcome qualified guests to tour the Rue du Rhône manufacture — to watch, to learn, and to choose their piece in person. Visits are arranged by appointment only.