A story, not a fact sheet. The details are at the bottom.
The store is on a side street in Milan. I'm 14. I've saved 310 euros of my own money for the trip. I walk in, try on a few things, and walk out wearing a blue automatic Seiko SRPE53.
That afternoon changed how I think about time. Not in a philosophical way, in a real way. I could feel the second hand sweeping under the crystal. It was the first thing I ever owned that felt like it would outlast the moment.
When I got home to Colorado, I looked for another one. Something a kid my age could actually wear. Not a plastic toy, not a $5,000 luxury piece meant for someone twice my age. Something that felt like it belonged at a graduation, or in a father's letter tucked into a box on a 16th birthday.
There wasn't one.
So I started making it.
I cold-emailed watch manufacturers in five countries. Most didn't reply. A few said no. One in Japan, a small workshop, agreed to build 300 watches for a kid he had never met.
The parts are manufactured in China. Final assembly, inspection, and quality control happen in Japan by a Japanese watchmaker. The Seiko VH31 movement inside each watch is Japanese. That's what I mean when I say the watches are assembled in Japan. I want you to know exactly what that means, because a lot of watch companies use the phrase without telling you.
I'm writing this from a desk in Morocco. I won a scholarship for three months of intensive Arabic study, and I'm using the evenings to keep building. Every reservation gets a card, handwritten and signed by me before it ships from Colorado to wherever the watch is going.
You will not see me on camera. I don't post on social. I write, I make things, and I sign what leaves the workshop. That's the founder you get.
The watches.
The first edition is 300 total. 100 of each of three woods, chosen because none of them ever look the same when the light hits them.
Hinoki is Japanese cypress, pale gold, the same wood used to build Japanese temples. $299.
Black ebony is dense enough that the ancient Egyptians put it in Tutankhamun's tomb. $339.
African padauk starts a fiery orange and deepens to burgundy over years. The watch ages with the owner. $375.
Every watch sits inside a 39mm 316L stainless steel case, under a sapphire crystal, on a butterfly clasp, with 5 ATM water resistance. The caseback carries a chemical-etched raven above the wordmark and the watch's own edition number, engraved as HINOKI 001 / 100 or PADAUK 042 / 100 or wherever in the run it lands.
Samples are in progress. Kickstarter launches early 2027. The first 300 are being placed personally, one reservation at a time, in the months between.
If you got this far.
If you want one, reserve here. If you want to follow along day to day, the founder journal is at gebauerwatches.substack.com.
Thanks for reading this far.
- Liam Gebauer
Gebauer Watches is based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It is not affiliated with Marc Gebauer, a Swiss-based watch reviewer and retailer who is a separate person and business.