Review: Lyrique Etude No1

Expensive. This is a word used more in the context of life now than ever before. Everything is more expensive. It’s crazy to even think it, but even the high-end luxury watch market is feeling the pinch. Bless. The cheapest quartz F.P. Journe you can buy today costs the better part of $20,000. The cheapest mechanical F.P. Journe more like $40,000. You can imagine this spiralling cost has rather put a fly in the ointment of many a collector. So 51 of them got together and decided to do something about it. Something pretty drastic.

Background

This honestly has to be one of my favourite stories to come out of the watch industry in the last decade. It starts around the time François-Paul Journe taught collectors that there was more to life than Rolex and Patek Philippe. His elegant watches and grumpy demeanour charmed the industry into accepting that not all great watch brands needed centuries of history.

From there the floodgates really opened. Voutilainen, Laurent Ferrier, Krayon, Rexhep Rexhepi, number after number of expert watchmakers who were able to make an incredibly successful business out of low volume, high-end watchmaking. Popularity however, drives up demand and therefore cost, not to mention increasing price of parts. It’s estimated that materials alone have jumped up 40% in the last few years.

That’s where Bill Sanders of YouTube channel WatchArtSci decided he’d had enough. Now, there are many reasons why the price of a watch—or indeed anything—goes up. Limited run watches are made in small numbers so they need more margin to make it worth the bother. Then there’s distribution, retail, marketing, aftersales, warranty etcetera, etcetera. It’s not just design, development, manufacturing and materials cost.

But what If you got rid of all that extra stuff? Okay, so you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about, and to be honest, I was wondering the same thing when I first heard about the Lyrique Etude No1. Well, here’s the game plan. A lot of watch manufacturers, even the very high-end ones who claim to produce their watches in-house, source parts from suppliers. There are businesses like Fiedler who supply hands to the biggest in the game—looking at you, Rolex—Metalem who make dials, Agenhor who make movements. You see where I’m going with this. What if you simply buy all those parts yourself and make your own watch?

That’s crazy talk, isn’t it? Yes, it is. A watch, even an affordable, openly outsourced one, isn’t just a collection of off-the-shelf parts thrown together by some hopefuls on the internet. And besides, Bill didn’t want some generic, copycat watch. He wanted something unique. Something special.

Honestly, these guys had no idea where to begin. They knew they wanted a special movement at least, so with a little research, the name Agenhor came up. Now, if you’ve not heard of Agenhor, it’s not because you’ve never seen their work. You almost certainly have. The AgenGraphe, found in horological treats like the Singer Reimagined watch and the H. Moser Streamliner Flyback Chrono, is one of the greatest chronograph movements out there. Agenhor has created custom, high-end movements for the likes of Faberge and Van Cleef & Arpels. They’re so good, Moser bought shares.

Asking Agenhor to make you, a rando off the internet, a movement, is a bit like asking the BBC to make you your own TV show. No, you can sit with everyone else and watch what’s already being made, thank you very much. Except, Agenhor said yes. They offered to take the basic time-telling part of a very complex movement they’d made elsewhere and produce that for them. That’s a new reference made just for fifty-odd blokes on the internet.

That was all very well and good, but they still needed hands, a dial, a case, a strap and a buckle, not to mention someone to put it all together. Oh, and another huge oversight: those parts aren’t like Lego. They don’t just all fit together. It has to be designed to fit. The peeps at Agenhor tentatively asked Bill if he had a designer. “Erm, no… do I need one?” Was Bill’s response.

He did need one, and so Agenhor recommended Mr Matthieu Allégre. Poor Matthieu. I don’t think he really understood what he was getting himself into. Let me set the scene. Fifty-one guys. Not just 51 guys, but 51 internet watch enthusiasts. Literally the most particular and discerning people in the world. There are forensic crime scene investigators who pay less attention than these guys. And it was Matthieu’s task to come up with a watch that all 51 of these people agreed to.

Rather impressively, through a diplomatic system corralled by Bill, they actually got there. Agenhor then put the gang in touch with suppliers for the case, dial, hands, strap and buckle and the deed was complete. Once all was said and done, there were 51 people with a watch that would comfortably retail at £25,000—for £7,500. But was it any good?

Review

Now, I know what many of you are probably thinking. £7,500 is not cheap. Well, let me put my pedant hat on for a second and give you the dictionary definition. “Low in price, especially in relation to similar items or services.” The key there is “relative”. The watch should be £25,000 but instead it’s less than a third that. Look at this way: a private jet for a hundred thousand is cheap. A private island for a million is cheap.

And you’d better believe that Bill and the gang thought the Lyrique Etude No1 was cheap. They were used to paying double and were annoyed at the thought of paying triple or more. But did cheaping out mean a bad buy? Is the watch a hideous mess of 51 ideas all congealed into one?

I can’t tell you what to think, but I believe two things are clear. One, the watch is not a pig ugly, designed-by-committee mess. Two, it’s not a boring, derivative Submariner clone either. To get to this point after that journey feels like it should be commended. Congratulations guys, you didn’t do what we all expected and massively cock it up.

Let’s start with the 39mm case, produced by Voutilainen & Cattin. Yes, same Voutilainen, who’s big on teardrop lugs. The Etude is inspired by 1930s streamliners and that in turn has sculpted the lugs into a blended teardrop that’s different enough from what Voutilainen usually produces that they needed to buy a new machine to make it. It’s a four-piece case with the lugs set into the middle band and I think you’ll agree, it looks pretty smart.

Dial is by a company called Metalem. It’s plain but lacquered, taking inspiration from the Philippe Dufour Simplicity for its, well, simplicity. The font choice matches the 30s vibe and you’ll notice the sub-dial is asymmetric, which is a subtle pain in the butt detail to achieve. You’ll also notice it devours almost all of the number eight, leaving only a crumb left. I might have made this up, but I seem to recall someone saying it was done just to wind you up. Personally.

The hands come from Fiedler and are in the observatory style. The recently launched Rolex 1908 also uses this style. As if that weren’t different enough, they’re also coloured a fetching purple hue, matched by the leather strap. Could’ve gone with blue but that would’ve been a bit, perhaps, obvious.

Flip the watch over and you’re greeted by the Agenhor AGH-6801, and it looks absolutely nothing like a standard manually wound movement. Which is pretty much because it’s not. Aside from the general structure, there’s two crown wheels for a smoother wind, the AgenPit regulator that allows two separate kinds of adjustment to the 21,600vph balance with just a screwdriver. Not that you’d want to fiddle at home.

Especially clever is the AgenEse gear, which includes a tiny spring on every single tooth to smooth out the hesitations you might typically see in a second hand. It’s an incredible piece of micro engineering, and you’ll notice it even has a motif of a girl flying a kite, which might just give you a clue as to the movement’s origin.

The whole watch is incredibly nicely executed and well finished. Is it perfect? The hands are a touch untidy and the stripes on the movement don’t quite match up, but let’s just call that character. This watch marks such a high bar of achievement for Bill and his band of plucky enthusiasts that to throw any criticism at it just feels mean. It’s not like you can buy it anyway. They made it for themselves, and that’s it.

I saw a film on Netflix recently, Munich – The Edge War. The film was pretty good, not amazing, but there was a line in it that stuck with me: “Hope is waiting for someone else to do it.” Bill was done with hoping someone would make a high-quality watch at a more reasonable price, and so he took it upon himself to do it. And you know what? He achieved it. Remarkable.

It’s a pretty bold move. It’s a watch with no aftersales, no warranty, nothing. You can’t drop it off at your local watchmaker and hope they can get parts, because they can’t. Each watch, in fact, comes with a spare pair of hands because otherwise the owner could end up stuck. Would you take a chance on it for the price?