U T S W atc h e s
By Michael Thompson
Teutonic
Tolerance
UTS has achieved
cult status among
dive watch collectors.
T
o manufacture a dive watch that safely reaches
depths that, frankly, very few men or women actually visit underwater requires the use of a case with
strictly calculated tolerances and carefully judged
designs. Water under pressure is unforgiving, and a dive watch is
meant to be a tool to assist a diver. Underwater, a leaky gasket or
a poorly assembled case is more than simply an inconvenience.
Nicolaus Spinner, the founder and chief engineer of German-based UTS Watches, leaves nothing to chance. Since he
founded his brand seventeen years ago he has been the only
person to decide whether each of the two hundred dive watches
he makes each year is truly professional grade.
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Wristwatch | 2016
“I only trust my own precise calculations,” Spinner says.
“As a result, the manufacturing tolerances are exact, and all
detail items, such as shafts, crowns, pushers, and seals, are not
standard components but represent wholly individual engineering solutions. Since 1999, I have been building our high quality
German-made watchcases.”
Thanks in large measure to Spinner’s obsessive nature and
focus on deep-dive models, UTS has achieved cult status among
dive watch collectors. Spinner’s facility, near Munich, operates
much like a small-production maker of complicated watches, but
with a focus on cases, bezels and their attachments rather than
strictly on the automatic or manual movement inside.