FutureGrail

Call Directions Website Contact the business

FutureGrail Trust | Authenticity | Equality | Innovation

The hammers strike the time, and the same strokes move the bull and the matador.Paul-Henri Stauffer of Les Ponts-de-Mart...
13/10/2026

The hammers strike the time, and the same strokes move the bull and the matador.

Paul-Henri Stauffer of Les Ponts-de-Martel patented the idea in Switzerland on 5 March 1889, under No. 691: an automaton driven by the minute repeater itself rather than by a separate mechanism. The hammer counting the hours moves the bull’s head. The other hammer moves the matador’s arm. Push the slide at 6 o’clock, and as the hours, quarters and minutes ring out on two steel gongs, the scene plays out in step with the sound.

The subject belonged to its moment. That same year, the Paris Universal Exhibition built a 14,000-seat arena on the Champ-de-Mars, and these watches appear to have been made mainly for Spanish and Latin American buyers. The mechanism travelled under several names, with recorded examples signed by Hauser Zivy & Cie of Mexico City, Sandoz Frères and Girard-Perregaux. Only five are known today. This is the fifth.

This one is unsigned, in an 18-carat pink gold hunting case, 56.2mm across. A white enamel chapter ring with Roman numerals and pink gold Poire Stuart hands leaves the centre open for the scene. Inside, a gold-and-glass inner cuvette shows the nickel-plated movement: manual-wound, 29 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, with the repeater work set under the dial. Circa 1890 to 1900. Accompanied by a copy of the invention patent.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

Two watches in one case, and one of them keeps the time of the stars.A sidereal day is measured against the stars rather...
13/10/2026

Two watches in one case, and one of them keeps the time of the stars.

A sidereal day is measured against the stars rather than the sun, and it is shorter: 23 hours, 56 minutes and about 4 seconds. Against an ordinary watch, a sidereal one gains nearly four minutes a day, and astronomers relied on that difference to time each star’s crossing of the meridian. This watch most probably runs both standards at once, mean solar time on one subdial and sidereal time on the other, driven by two complete and independent movements.

Each has its own barrel, gear train and balance. They don’t even share an escapement type: one runs a straight-line lever, the other a pivoted detent, the escapement traditionally reserved for precision chronometers. A differential winding system lets a single crown wind both barrels, and push-pieces either side of the pendant set each display on its own. At 6 o’clock, a metallic thermometer reads in degrees centigrade.

The white enamel dial shows where it was going. Roman numerals sit on the subdial at 9 and Ottoman Turkish numerals on the subdial at 3, with blued Breguet hands on both. It was made in Switzerland around 1890 to 1900 for the Ottoman, Egyptian or Persian markets. The case is 0.800 silver, 53.9mm, with bezel rim, hinge, pendant and bow in 18-carat pink gold.

There is no Western signature, only a word engraved in Arabic script at the centre of the movement, most likely read as “Lattes.” That points to Lattes Frères & Cie of Geneva and Cairo, known for complicated watches built for the Middle East, several of them in this same solar-and-sidereal configuration. A watch this involved was probably made for a dignitary of the Ottoman Empire or Egypt.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

13/10/2026

A Story Through Time | Episode 3 | Connection and Collection

How does a passion for watch collecting begin and how does it evolve over a lifetime?
In Episode 3 of FutureGrail’s five-part series exploring horology and watch collecting, Ali Nael shares the story of how FutureGrail became a home for some of the world’s finest timepieces and describes the passion, relationships and experiences that shape a collector’s journey.

For many collectors, the fascination with watches begins at a young age. What starts as an appreciation for a particular design, movement or brand can develop into a lifelong pursuit of exceptional timepieces, with tastes, interests and knowledge continually evolving along the way.

Ali reflects on how collecting is rarely a journey with a fixed destination. As collectors discover new references, explore different eras of watchmaking and refine their personal preferences, auctions play an important role in helping them buy and sell exceptional watches, while opening the door to new discoveries and opportunities.
As FutureGrail continues its global expansion, Ali also explores the importance of connection, quality and community in building a destination that brings together collectors and enthusiasts who share a passion for horology.

Whether you are an established collector or just beginning your journey into the world of fine watches, this episode offers a personal perspective on watch collecting and the relationships that make it so rewarding.

This is Episode 3: A Story Through Time.

Subscribe to FutureGrail for the next chapter in the series and more stories from the world of rare and collectible watches.

Discover FutureGrail: www.futuregrail.com

A date hand that sweeps three-quarters of the dial, then flies back to 1.Retrograde perpetual calendars were made in ver...
12/10/2026

A date hand that sweeps three-quarters of the dial, then flies back to 1.

Retrograde perpetual calendars were made in very small numbers in the nineteenth century, and the difficulty is in the return. A central hand travels an arc from 1 to 31 while a spring builds tension behind it, and the calendar program decides when to release it: after the 31st, the 30th, or the 28th or 29th in February. The hand then has to snap back with enough force to arrive, but without rebounding or shocking the movement. The construction points to Geneva and to Eugène and Marius Lecoultre, the father and son behind the most characteristic retrograde perpetual calendars of the period.

The calendar is only part of it. Day and month appear in German through apertures at 9 and 3, with the moon at 12. A slide in the caseband at 4 sets off a quarter repeater, two hammers striking hours and quarters on two steel gongs. All of it sits beneath a white enamel dial with Roman numerals and blued Poire Stuart hands, the calendar work under the dial and the repeating train packed around it.

The inner cuvette names the house that sold it: Carl Suchy & Söhne, k.u.k. court watch manufacturers to the Habsburg monarchy. Founded in Prague in 1822, the firm grew to a Vienna branch on Rotenturmstrasse and its own factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds, sourcing complications from Swiss specialists for clients in Bohemia and the Imperial capital. This watch follows that route, from a Geneva movement to a Central European client.

Circa 1880, in an open-face 18-carat yellow gold case, 55.3mm, with an engine-turned case-back. A second inner cuvette of gold and glass shows the movement.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

Three central hands, and only one of them tells the time.Chronographs with a central minute recorder were exceptionally ...
12/10/2026

Three central hands, and only one of them tells the time.

Chronographs with a central minute recorder were exceptionally rare in the late nineteenth century. Patek Philippe went further here and combined one with a regulator dial, a layout borrowed from precision clocks that separates each indication. The hours move to a subdial at 3, running seconds to 9. At the centre, three hands share the dial: the timekeeping minutes, the chronograph seconds, and a dragging 60-minute counter that advances steadily around the outer scale. Start, stop and reset all come from a single push in the crown. White three-piece enamel, Roman numerals, blued Poire Stuart hands, and a track divided to a fifth of a second.

The cuvette records who it was built for: made to order for M. Scooler, 105 Canal Street, New Orleans. Maurice Scooler, Bavarian-born, ran one of the best-known jewellery houses in the American South. He supplied badges and favours to the Mardi Gras krewes, and in 1883 he commissioned public clocks for the city’s Produce and Sugar Exchanges, the latter with a dial inscribed “Scooler’s Time.” This is among the earliest documented records of his relationship with Patek Philippe.

The movement is No. 65,215, circa 1882: keyless, nickel-plated, with a straight-line lever escapement, compensated balance and swan-neck micrometric regulator. It sits in an 18-carat pink gold hunting case, 51.9mm across. Inside the case-back is engraved “Presented by friends, Dec. 25, ‘95.”

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

A watch that tells the time without being opened, looked at or heard.The montre à tact is generally credited to Abraham-...
11/10/2026

A watch that tells the time without being opened, looked at or heard.

The montre à tact is generally credited to Abraham-Louis Breguet in the late 1790s, and the idea is as simple as it is clever. A hand on the outside of the case is turned with a fingertip until it meets a stop set by the hour hand within, and its position is read by touch against raised markers around the case, the pendant standing for twelve. It served in darkness, before a candle could be lit. It served in company, where consulting a watch read as impatience. And it served the blind, which is how Patek Philippe showed its own examples at London’s Great Exhibition in 1851.

This is one of them. Movement and case No. 12,212, made in 1856 and sold on 24 June 1857 through Tiede of Berlin, the house of the Prussian court’s astronomical clockmaker. An 18-carat yellow gold hunting case, 48.1mm, engine-turned on both covers, the tact hand on the back engraved with foliage. Inside, a white enamel dial with Roman numerals, blued Breguet hands and subsidiary seconds at 6.

It is also an early keyless Patek Philippe: wound by the crown, set by a push-pin on the caseband at 2 o’clock, with a straight-line lever escapement and compensated balance beneath.

Then the inscription. Engraved in Cyrillic inside the case-back, partly rubbed: “To Prince N. N. Troubetzkoy,” probably either Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Troubetzkoy or his namesake son, the future Governor of Minsk. Made in Geneva, retailed in Berlin, destined for Russia.

Accompanied by its Extract from the Archives.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

By the eighteenth century the snuffbox had become more than a container. Offering a pinch, accepting one, the way the li...
11/10/2026

By the eighteenth century the snuffbox had become more than a container. Offering a pinch, accepting one, the way the lid was opened and the box presented: all of it was a codified social gesture, and the box itself a statement of rank, wealth and taste. Making them was one of the most inventive branches of small-scale goldsmithing, and Geneva became a leading centre for it for the same reason it led in watches: goldsmiths, enamellers, miniature painters and watchmakers worked side by side, often on the same objects.

This example, circa 1820, was made in Geneva for the Ottoman market. Oval, in 18-carat yellow gold, 75.8 x 52.3mm, with scalloped edges to both lid and base. The cover and the underside each centre a bouquet of flowers painted in polychrome enamel against a royal-blue flinqué ground, the translucent enamel laid over engine-turning so the pattern shows through the colour. Around them run borders of champlevé enamel on peach, and the rims carry champlevé friezes in green, blue and white over guilloché.

Unsigned, as much of this work was. The techniques are the signature: flinqué, champlevé, guilloché and painted enamel, the same vocabulary Geneva was applying to its watch cases in the same years, here given a larger canvas.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

One commission, one constructor, one watch.Exception was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1980s by Christian Claude, ...
10/10/2026

One commission, one constructor, one watch.

Exception was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1980s by Christian Claude, an antique dealer and specialist in historical horology, and worked the way a collector would: define the watch first, then hand its mechanics to an independent constructor capable of building it. For this one, Claude went to Valérien Jaquet of Concepto Watch Factory and asked for two of watchmaking’s hardest mechanisms in a single tonneau-shaped movement.

The first is a flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock. Where Breguet’s original design holds its carriage under an upper bridge, the flying construction Alfred Helwig developed in Glashütte around 1920 supports it from beneath only, leaving the regulating organ with nothing across it, turning once a minute as if suspended above the movement.

The second is a minute repeater, set off by a slide in the caseband at 9. Two hammers on two steel gongs: the low note counts the hours, both notes in alternation mark the quarters, the high note finishes the minutes.

The case holds both without ornament. Curved tonneau, 51.6 x 41.3mm and 11.2mm thick, 18-carat pink gold against grey titanium, a double-stepped two-tone bezel running straight into the lugs. Matt silver dial, applied pink gold indexes and hands, a black minute track, and little else to distract from the aperture below. Through the sapphire back, the manual-wound movement follows the shape of the case exactly, 32 jewels, partly skeletonized and engraved.

Piece unique, numbered 01/01, circa 2010. From the original owner, with original fitted box, outer box and Certificate of Origin.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

A minute repeater and a perpetual calendar, in a movement 5.1mm thick.Ellicott 1738 unveiled the Master Complication RS ...
10/10/2026

A minute repeater and a perpetual calendar, in a movement 5.1mm thick.

Ellicott 1738 unveiled the Master Complication RS 38 at Baselworld 2012, and the figure that mattered was the height. Calibre E.RS.38 stacks a striking mechanism on a full perpetual calendar with leap-year indication and moon phases, 388 components in all, and Ellicott presented it at the time as the thinnest mechanical movement in the world to combine them. Manual-wound, visible through a sapphire case-back, finished with bevelled bridges, perlage and polished screws.

The repeater answers to a slender slide in the caseband at 9 o’clock: hours, quarters and minutes struck on demand by two hammers on two steel gongs of different pitch. The calendar accounts for every month length and the four-year leap cycle on its own, needing no correction until 2100.

None of it crowds the dial. Silver and anthracite, a guilloché centre, three subdials at 12, 3 and 9 for month and leap year, date and day, blued hands marking each against pink gold Alpha hands for the time. At 6, a mother-of-pearl moon crosses an aventurine sky.

The case stays understated for what it carries: 18-carat pink gold, 41mm, 11.2mm thick, a black sapphire cabochon in the crown. The name points to John Ellicott, the English clockmaker elected to the Royal Society in 1738, the “RS 38” of the title.

Piece unique, numbered 01/01. From the original owner, with original fitted box, outer box, Certificate of Origin and setting pin.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

Two rotors, neither of them where a rotor normally sits.Ellicott 1738 introduced the Tourbillon Springfield ECW 1 in 200...
10/10/2026

Two rotors, neither of them where a rotor normally sits.

Ellicott 1738 introduced the Tourbillon Springfield ECW 1 in 2008 as its first Concept Watch, and built it around a winding system nobody else was using. In place of a single central oscillating weight, two peripheral rotors in 18-carat pink gold sit symmetrically on either side of the movement, swinging like a pair of wings. Ellicott named it the Butterfly Winding System, and it leaves the rest of the mechanism in open view.

The calibre itself, ECW 1, was developed with Christophe Claret in Le Locle: 343 components, 39 jewels, 21,600 vibrations per hour, adjusted to five positions and holding roughly 85 hours of reserve. At 6 o’clock a one-minute tourbillon turns in the open, a small hand on its carriage marking the seconds.

The case is built to show all of it. Cushion-shaped, 45mm across and 16.5mm thick, in 18-carat white gold and tantalum, the dense blue-grey metal few manufactures attempt to machine. Three sapphire windows cut into the caseband give views of the movement from the side, a fourth opens the back. The anthracite dial is partly skeletonized, pink gold indexes and Ellicott’s “Full Moon” hands floating over the mechanism beneath, a black sapphire cabochon set into the crown.

The name honours John Ellicott, the English clockmaker elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1738.

Limited to 18 pieces. This is number 01, movement SW 1, from the original owner, complete with original fitted box, outer box and Certificate of Origin dated 15 July 2008.

Bidding is live: Four Centuries of Watchmaking - Part 1.
📅 9 to 15 October

Address

100E Pasir Panjang Road, #03-01/02 B&D Building
West Region
118521

Opening Hours

Monday 12:00 - 18:00
Tuesday 12:00 - 18:00
Wednesday 12:00 - 18:00
Thursday 12:00 - 18:00
Friday 12:00 - 18:00

Telephone

+6588032217

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when FutureGrail posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to FutureGrail:

Shortcuts

Share

Category