ERIC AUFFHAMMER / FOUNDER
About Balance of Time
I Didn't Set Out
to Become a Watchmaker.
I started with a question: what has this watch already lived through?
Balance of Time grew from the intersection of mechanical watches, history, photography, and my natural need to investigate the details other people pass over.
I am a professional photographer and lifelong observer. The camera taught me to slow down, study evidence, and understand that age is not automatically damage. Mechanical watches demanded the same kind of attention.
The Philosophy
The Watch
Comes First.
A vintage watch should not be made new simply because we have the ability to change it. Wear, oxidation, marks, and mechanical behavior can be evidence. Once erased, that evidence cannot always be recovered.
My approach is to photograph the watch, record its condition, observe how it behaves, research what can be known, and only then decide what intervention makes sense.
“The goal is not to erase age. The goal is to understand the watch well enough to preserve it honestly.”
The Work
Every Watch Carries a Story.
Some arrive with boxes, papers, and a clear history. Others arrive with nothing but a worn dial, an unfamiliar movement, and a question.
Those are not obstacles. They are the beginning of the investigation.
A Workshop Built in Public.
I do not present Balance of Time as a workshop backed by generations of inherited watchmaking credentials. That would not be honest.
This is a disciplined, developing study of mechanical watches—documented openly through the Workshop and Case Files. The investigation, the decisions, and the progress are part of the record.
That transparency is intentional. Trust should come from the quality of the observation and the honesty of the work.