Hands-on at aBlogtoWatch today is a very rare modern timepiece from a small Swiss company that purports to produce only around 20 watches per year. The company is called The Alchemists, and aBlogtoWatch introduced their debut model — the Cu29 — here back in 2019. I recently got a chance to experience The Alchemists’ Cu29 watch in person and was happy I did. The watch itself is part of a trilogy of the Alchemists (or just “Alchemists”) watches and represents the first of the three “chapters.” Each of the eventual three Alchemists watches have been designed, and they get progressively more complicated (and expensive) starting with this time-only The Alchemists Cu29 watch.

The “Cu” part of the name refers to an in-house alloy the brand refers to a Cuprum 479. It is what the watch case is made of, and in practical terms is a stable (non-tarnishing) copper mixed with gold. What do you get? Well, the color of copper with much of the oxidation resistance of gold. The brand is also thematically connected to the historic practice of alchemy, which was a form of early scientific chemistry that blended natural phenomena with mysticism. Many alchemists were also apparently invested in the idea that there was a chemical way to create gold. Little did they know that the answer was less about cauldron fun and more related to particle accelerators. Since all the gold metal I know about today is either mined or recycled, I’m going to assume no alchemist ever figured out how to make gold out of basic metal. Then again, that is exactly what high-end watchmakers do. So, in a sense, guys like Hervé Schlüchter really are “The Alchemists.”

Schlüchter’s name is on the movement of the Cu29 watch, and it deserves the be there. He is the founder of The Alchemists, and he spent time working at Bovet and under Philippe Dufour prior to this latest enterprise. In fact, one way to recognize the Cu29’s movement is like something designed at Bovet but done with Philippe Dufour finishing. That wouldn’t be an embellishment. Both the 44mm-wide case and 38mm-wide movement are mostly produced from Cuprum 479, which gives them a fluid look since the movement and case materials go so well together. The 15.4mm-thick case is also designed to have an “atmospheric” view of the movement and dials thanks to the presence of a large domed sapphire crystal. Alchemists did the right work to ensure that despite the insane curvature of the crystal, it is properly AR-coated and thus offers very little glare. I hope brands with much less curved sapphire crystals that don’t put as much effort into glare reduction will take notice.

Inside this reference AC 003 Cu29 watch is the in-house-made and -designed The Alchemists caliber 003 manually wound movement. Designed from the ground up to be beautiful and well-finished, the movement is created in stacked layers like the gardens of Babylon (as The Alchemists put it). The promise, however, is real, and the movement is exceptionally adept at creating both a sense of height and a deep detailing, given the rich use of textures and colors all over the various surfaces of the Cu29’s movement and dial. The caliber 003 movement is also said to be inverted because the dials are on what would normally be the rear of the movement. Here they are placed on shafts and set above the main dial elements via aventurine dials for the time and subsidiary seconds dial. Other versions of the Cu29 watch use traditional grand feu enamel in lieu of the space-like blue aventurine (that is my personal preference).

Functionally, the movement is basic, but the beauty is in its construction and the creation of reliable systems such as the highly engineered system of gears designed to operate the power reserve arm, as well as the use of a cylindrical balance spring as part of the regulation system. Most wristwatches employ flat balance springs because their relatively compact size makes them ideal for wristwatch movements. More recently, a few exotic high-end watches have started to use cylinder-shaped (or sometimes sphere-shaped) balance/hair springs, as they are said to deliver better rate results and this promotes isochronism (accuracy over time). The hairspring is rendered in heat-treated blued metal and is set on a hand-polished (like the rest of the movement) bridge made out of titanium.

The movement employs dual mainspring barrels set in a series so as to both wind down at the same time, but in a way such that their performance is averaged out while the springs mutually wind down more slowly (thus extending power reserve time). The caliber 003 movement operates at 3Hz (21,000 bph) with a power reserve of 72 hours. In addition to the power reserve indicator on the dial, there is a function selection indicator that changes as the crown is pulled out or pushed back in. The movement is produced from 362 parts and, according to The Alchemists, offers “chronometric” performance.

The elegant design of the Cu29 case and movement is enough for this watch to be an appealing first introduction from The Alchemists, but originality alone is not why these timepieces cost so much. From what I can tell, The Alchemists is among those elite Swiss watch brands that obsess over getting even the most minor textures and finishes right. Two excellent examples are the printing of the markers on the dials and how the mainspring barrels are polished. The dial markers aren’t just printed — they’re created with enough three-dimensional depth that they stand out and offer excellent legibility (and visual effect). The mainspring barrels are both given extremely small yet detailed precision text and polished finishing in the concave areas of the surface that are extremely challenging to properly achieve. This is the type of fine detail quality you expect to see on something like a Greubel Forsey.

Once again, the Cu29 watch is the first of three major timepieces from The Alchemists. It has already been two-and-a-half years since this Cu29 watch was debuted, and it does not appear that The Alchemists team, headed by Mr. Schlüchter, is in any rush to advance the story. They could also be busy filling orders for these lovely timepiece creations, each of which requires an extensive production time prior to delivery. I suspect that The Alchemists’ next Cuprum 497 alloy-based watch will come sometime in 2022. For now, the highly limited production The Alchemists Cu29 watch has a retail price of $210,000 USD. Learn more at The Alchemists watches website here.