A steel watch with three centuries in view
A modern bracelet watch usually signals modernity through its case. The PS Horology Tsuba 1720 places a different argument inside that familiar format: the graphic language of an early eighteenth-century English pocket watch. Its cushion-shaped steel exterior carries a dark, gold-toned display whose unusual proportions come from rearranging a historical design rather than simply reproducing its decoration.
Limited to 28 pieces, the Tsuba 1720 is priced at CHF 26,000 before taxes and shipping, with first deliveries expected in February 2027. The question at that level is whether the historical reference has changed the watch in a meaningful way. Here, it has altered the relationship between the scales and the hands—the very elements through which the owner reads time.
The original was more than a handsome dial
The starting point is George Graham’s pair-case pocket watch dated 1719–20, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its inner and outer gold cases carry different date marks, which explains the two-year dating more precisely than treating “1720” as an arbitrary vintage label. The museum identifies the watch as a quarter repeater, a mechanism that could sound the time when looking at the dial was impractical.
That complication does not migrate into the modern Tsuba. The new watch displays hours and minutes. Its connection to Graham is visual and historical, not a claim to recreate the old movement. Distinguishing those layers makes the tribute more intelligible: the manufacturer has selected a particular design problem from a much more mechanically complex object.
Reverse the scales, redesign the hands
On Graham’s dial, the minutes occupy the outer ring. The Tsuba places the Roman hours outside and the minutes inside. Retaining a conventional short hour hand and long minute hand would therefore make their apparent destinations confusing.
The redesigned “beetle” hour hand keeps its historical character but adds a slender extension towards the outer hours. The “poker” minute hand acquires a small shelf that relates it to the inner minute ring. This is the most persuasive part of the project: the reference changes how the display must be engineered, rather than stopping at an old-fashioned typeface. Whether the arrangement becomes immediately intuitive is a question for personal use; photographs and design explanations cannot substitute for that experience.
Two authors and a deliberate change of technique
The watch marks the first collaborative watch design by Peter Speake and PS Horology’s creative director, Farhana Safa. Speake founded the brand in 2022 after a career that included antique-watch restoration in London. Safa brings a background spanning ophthalmic surgery and automotive design. Those biographies help explain the partnership without proving, by themselves, the quality of its result.
The material distinction is more concrete. Graham’s gold dial uses champlevé enamel. The Tsuba’s hand-finished 18-carat gold dial uses laser engraving, ceramic lacquering and polishing, with Roman numerals lacquered by hand. Similar depth and contrast are pursued through different processes. Describing the new dial as traditional fired enamel would erase a consequential difference in how the object is made.
Swiss mechanics beneath a London map
The automatic movement comes from Vaucher Manufacture in Fleurier: calibre 5401, with a micro-rotor and a stated 48-hour reserve. Its 2.6mm thickness helps explain the complete watch’s 8.91mm profile. This is a supplied calibre, not a movement developed entirely in-house by PS Horology; the distinction leaves room to evaluate the watchmaker’s design work on its own merits.
The back combines a movement window with an engraved map and coordinates for Graham’s former Fleet Street workshop. History thus appears on both sides, as display architecture and as a location. The 38.3mm steel case and revised bracelet construction offer contemporary proportions, but the three-atmosphere water-resistance rating calls for a more measured reading of its sporting appearance.
What 28 pieces can—and cannot—explain
A small edition establishes a production limit. It cannot establish future demand, liquidity or a resale premium. Nor should a steel case automatically imply an accessible price: the commercial proposition includes a gold dial, a specialised design, supplied Swiss mechanics and the economics of a very small run. Without production-cost data, those elements cannot be turned into a verified margin calculation.
The Tsuba 1720 is strongest where its story becomes a physical decision. Reversed scales require different hands; a remembered workshop becomes an engraving; an old dial is translated through a new manufacturing process. A collector who finds those decisions compelling has a clearer reason to consider it than the number 28 alone. The historical reference supplies the question. The modern watch must provide its own answer.
Specifications and price
| Case | 316L steel; 38.3mm across excluding crown; 8.91mm thick |
|---|---|
| Crystal and water resistance | Sapphire front and back; 3 atmospheres |
| Dial | 18-carat gold; laser engraving, ceramic lacquer and hand finishing |
| Functions | Hours and minutes; no repeating mechanism |
| Movement | Vaucher Manufacture 5401 automatic with tungsten micro-rotor |
| Calibre details | 30mm diameter; 2.6mm thick; 176 components; 29 jewels; 3Hz |
| Power reserve | Stated 48 hours |
| Bracelet | Integrated steel; articulated first links; concealed link adjustment; butterfly clasp with push-button release |
| Edition | 28 pieces |
| Price | CHF 26,000 excluding taxes and shipping |
| Expected first deliveries | February 2027 |
Information checked on 3 November 2026. The delivery date is an announced expectation, not a shipping confirmation; confirm availability and the final quotation with the manufacturer.
