Peter Speake is one of the major names in modern British independent watchmaking (working in Switzerland), starting multiple brands including Speake-Marin where he worked from 2002-2017 and his current project PS Horology, founded in 2022. The goal of PS Horology is to pay tribute to art, history, and culture, which is exactly what the new Tsuba 1720 does. It’s dedicated to the historic watchmaker George Graham.
George Graham (1673–1751) was the protégé of legendary clockmaker Thomas Tompion during a period of significant horological innovation. The hairspring was invented shortly after his birth in 1675, and he would go on to iterate on the design with his cylindrical escapement in 1726. PS Horology have narrowed in on a single year of Graham’s career: 1719-1720. It was in this year that Graham completed a stunning champlevé pocket watch and it’s that timepiece that inspires the display of the Tsuba 1720.
It’s important to state that the Tsuba 1720 is a reinterpretation of the pocket watch’s design rather than a faithful 1-to-1 recreation. Instead of a hand-carved golden dial filled with champlevé enamel, the new dial is laser engraved with a ceramic lacquer and then polished. The angular Roman numeral hour markers are also lacquered by hand with a more intense black tone compared to the dial.
The position of the hour numerals is actually one of the most significant deviations from the original Graham design, which had the hour numerals as the central scale and the minute scale as the outer one. PS Horology has reversed that layout to have minutes central and hours outer. The reason for this makes sense because the angular Roman numerals fill the space of the cushion-shaped dial of the Tsuba better than the rounded Arabic numerals of the minutes.
Swapping the position of the scales also has an impact on the design of the hands. Specifically, the long minute hand is now supposed to point at the inner scale while the short hour hand now has to point at the outer scale. However, PS Horology didn’t want to dramatically alter the signature beetle and poker designs of the original pocket watch hands. Their solution was to add an elongated tip to the hour hand, so it extends to the outer scale and to add a ‘shelf’ to the minute hand that tracks along with the scale.
Housed inside the 38.3mm diameter, steel cushion case of the Tsuba 1720 is the Vaucher Manufacture calibre 5401 automatic with micro-rotor and a 48-hour power reserve. It has a partial exhibition caseback that reveals the micro-rotor while the closed portion of the back shows a map of George Graham’s historic workshop in London. You can also see the underside of the integrated bracelet.
The PS Horology Tsuba 1720 is limited to 28 pieces at a price of CHF 26,000 (approx. £23,675) excl. tax. It’s available direct from PS Horology with delivery expected in February 2027. It’s cool to see one of the major names of modern British horology paying tribute to one of the greats of heritage British horology. Especially reinterpreting a design from 300 years ago into a contemporary timepiece.
Price and Specs:
More details at Oris.
