Vincent Calabrese left school in Naples at 12 and taught himself watchmaking, repairing watches on the street before he moved to Switzerland at 17. In 1977 his straight-line movement won a prize at the Geneva inventors’ fair, and Corum launched it as the Golden Bridge. In 1985 he and Svend Andersen founded the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI), the academy of independent watchmakers.
I can source any watch, new or used, even very hard-to-get. I chose these examples to guide you.
Collection Spatiale
About $5,000 to $14,000 at auction
Each Personnelle movement takes the form of one letter, here an engraved M, mounted between sapphire crystals with no dial behind it. Vincent Calabrese makes every piece to order, and his website puts the wait at about a year. He made the first, an H, around 1981.
NHC · 40mm · Automatic · BFS series (steel)
About $2,000 to $4,000 at auction
Calabrese started NHC, short for Nouvelle Horlogerie Calabrese, to offer his designs at lower prices. The Beauty Fuel shows the date at 12, the day of the week at 9, a second time zone at 3, and how much power remains at 6.
Collection Spatiale
$200,000 plus
Through a clear case with no dial, you can see the tourbillon and the gears that drive it. Gold frames fastened with blue screws hold them in place, and Calabrese engraved 1990 on one of them. He first built a tourbillon into his open Spatiale watches in 1985. The only negative is that you see the hairs on your wrist, so it's not a great watch for a man with a very hairy wrist.
Régulus · 36mm · Manual wind
About $254,000 at launch in 2014
Calabrese mounted the gold movement in a case made entirely of clear sapphire, and no visible part holds it. The tourbillon at 9 o'clock has a bird-shaped cage like the cages Calabrese designed for Blancpain's tourbillons.
Calabrese worked first in a shop before he repaired watches on the street. Corum bought the patent for his straight-line movement and launched the design in 1980. In 2023 the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève honored Calabrese and Svend Andersen for founding the AHCI. He has made watches under his own name for decades.