Worn & Wound
Can AMT Bridge the Gap Between Off-the-Shelf and In-House?
As a watch enthusiast, one should be a movement enthusiast too, right? Sure, everyone loves a handmade, ornately finished, über-high-end independent movement labored over for hundreds of hours, but I’m talking about something more industrial. The movements for the masses, so to speak. If you’ve been into this hobby for even a short time, you’ve likely seen models featuring movements from ETA, Sellita, La Joux-Perret, Soprod, Miyota, Seiko, and maybe a couple of others. Well, there is another whose name you might have bumped into here and there, poised to become a much larger player: Manufacture AMT (Advanced Mechanical Technology). Manufacture AMT was founded in 2018 and is owned by Sellita, though it operates as a separate company. This is, admittedly, somewhat confusing, as they clearly share IP, as shown in the movements. Regardless, AMT largely does white-label development for brands and offers only a small, nonpublic catalog to third parties. The AMT5000 chronograph, used by Hanhart, Oak & Oscar, Furlan Marri, and a few others for several years, is a good example of what AMT is all about. Based on the SW500 but improved in many ways, AMT5000 variants feature column wheels and flyback functionality as standard features across automatic and manual configurations with different subdial layouts. We all love a hand-finished movement, but what about the ones that power most of our watches? As a confessed movement enthusiast, I reached out to learn more about AMT’s ...