A story, not a fact sheet. The details are at the bottom.
For my 10th birthday, my parents got me a smartwatch. They thought it would be good to have because it tracked progress on the mountain and doubled as a safety device, and could be used every day for a variety of other reasons. But I just never wore it. It sat at my charging station for three years until my dad decided to make it his own. I didn't care that he took it back then and I still don't.
I didn't know why I wasn't wearing it at the time, but it was because it was another device. People are so connected these days. Laptops, phones, tablets, earbuds, all of it everywhere around us. Thinking back, I just didn't want another device to carry around, or to look at, or to simply have in my life.
Four years later.
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 said yes to 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 every card by hand before it ships. That's the founder you get.
The watches.
The first edition is 300 total. 250 American cherry and 50 ebony. No two dials look the same when the light hits them.
American cherry is the wood American families passed down: Shaker chests, hope chests, grandfather clocks. It is prized because it changes, going from pale pink to a deep reddish brown, most of it inside the first year. $339.
There are 250 of them and there will not be a second run. An American wood, an American brand, and the American flag turns 250 in June 2027. The number felt right, so that is where the cherry stops.
Ebony is dense enough that the ancient Egyptians put it in Tutankhamun's tomb. There are only 50, and unlike the cherry it is not a one-time wood. $339.
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 CHERRY 001 / 250 or EBONY 042 / 050 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.