At Baselworld 2004, I was visiting the A.H.C.I. stand, where I tended to spend most of my time in those days, and noticed a name on a nearby booth I hadn’t seen before: Greubel Forsey.

Even a cursory glance at the timepieces in the display cases outside revealed both the complexity of the movement − what on earth was a Double Tourbillon 30°? − and absolutely superlative fine finishing. But I had other appointments and had to move on.

The timepiece that started it all for Greubel Forsey: the Double Tourbillon 30°

When I say other appointments, I mean meeting with friends, collectors, and any independent watchmaker who deigned to give me the time of day. At this time I was a fairly regular contributor to the Independent forum on ThePuristS, but I was certainly no journalist and watch blogs didn’t exist.

However, a few months later I was very fortunate to have a long article I had written for ThePuristS, about Mr. Daniel Roth and his Jean Daniel Nicolas 2-Minute Tourbillon, published in iW magazine (be gentle, it’s old). That JDN tourbillon is one of my all-time favorite watches, and there are two more in this article.

That article prompted a visit to Switzerland by the moderator of ThePuristS Independent forum, Curtis Thompson, and I jumped at the opportunity to accompany him for a week visiting as many independent watchmakers and small brands as we could possibly fit in.

Stephen Forsey (left) and Robert Greubel

One of those brands was Greubel Forsey, which was recommended to us by Andreas Strehler, who used to work with Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey at Renand & Papi (now Audemars Piguet Renand & Papi).

As Curtis had been commissioned by iW magazine to write an article about the nascent Greubel Forsey, he spent hours in deep watchmaker-to-watchmaker conversation with Stephen Forsey, which sounded to my neophyte ears like they were conversing in a mix of Klingon and Basque.

So I took a few photos, relaxed and enjoyed the tour.

Then, on the way home, Curtis dropped a small bombshell. “Ian, as I plan to implement some of the hand-finishing techniques I’ve learned while here, would you mind writing the Greubel Forsey article for iW?”

Now I’d understood very little of what Stephen Forsey and Curtis discussed and had taken no notes. Despite one published article to my name I did not consider myself a watch journalist. But I did have the press pack along with insufferable confidence in myself. So naturally I said sure, no problem.

Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1

And while I didn’t know it at the time, I then proceeded to indulge in what passes for journalism for many by basically rewriting the press release in my own words.

Unfortunately, when I showed Curtis (a man who calls a spade a spade) what I’d hoped would be my second article in print, he basically said, (and I do not paraphrase much), “That’s crap; it looks like you’ve just rewritten the press release.”

Which was perhaps the best thing he could have said because I knew it was true. I also knew what I had to do to make amends and should have done at the start: return to Greubel Forsey and ask Stephen Forsey to explain what Robert and he were doing in a language that an idiot like myself could understand.

And I did.

And Stephen did.

And I ended up writing something fit (or at least fit enough) to print, and it was one of the first serious articles about Greubel Forsey ever published. The article was the beginning of a relationship between the brand, its people and myself that has lasted until today.

Here is a report from that first visit in 2004 ThePuristS pay a visit to Greubel Forsey

For the first five years or so, every time I visited Greubel Forsey there seemed to be twice as many people working in twice as many rooms, ateliers and buildings spread across La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Greubel Forsey CEO Emmanuel Vuille

As the company grew, Robert and Stephen made the decision to appoint a CEO, Emmanuel Vuille, to take charge of the day-to-day running of the company to allow them more time to do what they loved best: creating superlative timepieces.