For three years, he went to the Erzgebirge to expand his horological knowledge. He had been occupied by an almost lost case for some time: a sterling silver pocket watch with an extra-large eccentric second display and a sturdy movement of high quality. During his long repair job, Dornblüth became so fond of this pocket watch that he was rather sad when its owner came to pick it up on that fateful November day. That same evening,

Dornblüth sat down and started designing a sturdy wristwatch movement in the image of the pocket watch he just had to give away, without giving too much consideration to its height and diameter. He had just finished his plans, and the first wheels sat in place on the plate already, when the freshly appointed master watchmaker was called to Kalbe, Saxony-Anhalt, to take over the abandoned watchmaker business of Elsa and Paul Beckmann. The dream of his own Dornblüth caliber vanished in one of the drawers of a workbench. Daily routine work and the success of the repair shop that soon grew to eight employees made it impossible for Dieter Dornblüth to follow up on the plan of creating his own movement.

Until October 1st, 1999, when Dieter Dornblüth celebrated his 60th birthday. Dieter’s son, Dirk Dornblüth, already master watchmaker himself, presented a stainless steel wristwatch that he had created all by himself, with its movement based on the legendary Glashütte caliber 60.3. So great was the pleasure, that the father revealed the story about his long-forgotten plans of an own movement, which he had kept to himself for the last 40 years. That same evening father and son started to sketch out the design of a possible base caliber on a paper napkin. This is how the father’s
vision from 1959 was brought back to life again. With the Dornblüth calibers, father and son proved that their own ideas in the art of watchmaking do not necessarily need sophisticated CNC technique. Even today, passionate and dedicated watchmakers can create handcrafted precision watches using only traditional tools and machines.

In the tradition of the old masters, we wanted to prove that the fine German watchmaking of our antecedents is still possible by our craftsmanship without any computer-controlled machines even in the internet age. The components of our movements are almost completely crafted and finished by hand, before the watch’s heart starts to beat, out of the sum of the components. Every single watch manufactured at our house is unique. Experience our traditional craftsmanship of fine German watchmaking as it used to be hundred years ago.