New Watch Day 2 · Watch Lover

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New Watch Day 2

While I am known as a flagrant non rule follower at least on here, in an effort to make

and others "Happy" I am going to follow the 3 day new watch rule.

Today's post will be more about the specs of the watch, as yesterday was about the emotion and the story in being able to add it to the collection.

The RGM x Teddy Baldassarre Model 501. This is the second run of the collaboration; I was told by Teddy’s team that the first run was 25 pieces and this second run was 20 pieces, with some differences between the two that I’m working on getting documented in writing. Mine is from the 2026 batch and came with the full RGM/Teddy kit and certificate.

The watch is built by RGM Watch Co. in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Roland G. Murphy’s independent American watch company. RGM is one of the few American makers still strongly associated with traditional watchmaking craft, especially engine-turned/guilloché dials, traditional case work, and historically inspired mechanical watch design. The Model 501-Teddy uses a 39mm stainless-steel case, roughly 48mm lug-to-lug, 20mm lug width, and 50 meters of water resistance, putting it very much in the refined dress-watch category.

The dial is really the soul of the watch. It has a blue galvanic, hand-guilloché style dial with a traditional layout: central hours/minutes, small seconds at 6, Breguet-style numerals, and a stepped vintage-inspired case profile. It has that old-world American watchmaking feel without looking like a pure reproduction. It is dressy, but not sterile.

The movement is the Schwarz Etienne ASE 200, which is a Swiss manufacture automatic micro-rotor caliber. So while this is not one of RGM’s in-house American movements, it is not a generic outsourced movement either. Schwarz Etienne is a legitimate Swiss manufacture, and the ASE 200 is a high-grade movement with a micro-rotor architecture, visible through the display back. The micro-rotor gives you automatic winding while leaving much more of the movement architecture visible than a full central rotor would.

Specs-wise, the ASE 200 is quite serious: 30.40mm diameter, 5.35mm thick, 33 jewels, 21,600 vph / 3 Hz, hacking seconds, small seconds at 6, and an impressive 86-hour power reserve. That long reserve and micro-rotor layout make it a very appropriate movement choice for a refined independent dress watch.

For me, the appeal is the combination: an American independent watch from RGM, a hand-crafted blue guilloché dial, a very limited Teddy Baldassarre collaboration, and a proper Swiss micro-rotor movement. It may not be RGM in-house on the movement side, but it still feels very much like an RGM where it matters visually and emotionally: dial, case, finishing language, and story.

This one fills a nice lane in my collection: not a hype sports watch, not a mass-market dress watch, but a small-run American independent piece with real craft and provenance.

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New Watch Day 2