The pieces that never reach a window.
A watch is not bought.
It is found, verified, and quietly placed on the wrist of the one person who was always meant to wear it.
Chronometrie Suisse is an independent watch advisory in Zug, Switzerland. We find, verify and discreetly broker significant watches for private collectors, and look after the collections they build, for a flat fee agreed in writing. We do not run a shop window and we do not publish what we place. What we hold, we bought outright and declare before you see it.
It began with a Swatch and a pocket watch.
My first watch arrived the summer I left kindergarten for school. A Swatch: plastic, loud, and the most serious object I had ever been given. I wore it until the strap gave out, bought another, and kept going.
On my eighteenth birthday my family handed me my late grandfather's pocket watch. He had loved watches his whole life, and I had never known it. Holding something that had kept his time made the fascination make sense. It was not an accident. It was inherited.
In 2019 I stopped collecting casually and started properly: reading, handling, and asking questions of anyone patient enough to answer them. Seven years of that leaves you with two things: an eye you can trust, and a network of collectors, dealers and watchmakers who take your call.
Chronometrie Suisse is what I decided to do with both.
Sandro Bacic
Founder · Zug
- Independent
- Of every maison and every waiting list
- Flat fee
- Agreed before the search begins
- Verified first
- Before funds move
- NDA
- On every mandate, both directions
03 · The Service
Four mandates- Sourcing
- Brokerage
- Authentication
- Stewardship
Each mandate stands alone. Most clients begin with one and end up handing us the whole collection.
- Sourcing
- Brokerage
- Authentication
- Stewardship
Sourcing
Waiting lists are not a strategy. We work a private network of collectors, dealers and watchmakers to find the exact reference (dial variant, box, papers, provenance) and to open a door that does not appear on any list.
- Reference-level search
- Discreet negotiation
- Full provenance file
Brokerage
Selling a significant piece in public costs you twice: in price, and in privacy. We place pieces directly with vetted buyers under NDA, and you never appear in a listing.
- Off-market placement
- Discreet settlement
- Named-buyer approval
Authentication
Every pre-owned piece that passes through us is opened, measured and photographed by an independent watchmaker. Movement numbers, case tolerances, dial and hands, service history. You receive the report before the money moves, not after.
- Independent watchmaker
- Movement & case audit
- Written condition report
Stewardship
A collection is a living portfolio. Your watches stay with you; we schedule servicing before it is needed, provide valuations for your insurer when you need them, and give you one place for the whole collection.
- Service scheduling
- Valuations on request
- Your collection online
Two ways to buy the same watch.
Nothing here is a secret, and none of it is unique to us. It is simply what happens when the person advising you is not also the person selling to you.
Access
The open marketA listing anyone can see, from a seller you have never met.
Price
The open marketWhatever the grey market decided this morning.
Verification
The open marketPhotographs, and the seller’s word for what is inside the case.
Privacy
The open marketYour name on a listing, an auction record, and a mailing list you did not join.
Exit
The open marketA public listing, a round of low offers, and a stranger at the handover.
Incentive
The open marketA margin that grows with the price, paid by the person selling to you.
05 · Maisons
We are not an authorised dealer for any maison, and do not present ourselves as one. Current or long discontinued, every piece we place is verified before money moves, and changes hands in confidence.
Four steps, in order,
never in parallel.
A mandate that skips a stage is a mandate that ends in a dispute. This is the sequence, and we do not compress it for anyone.
- I
The Brief
A conversation, not a form. What you own, what you are missing, what you would never sell. We build a written mandate and a ceiling.
- II
The Search
We go quiet and go to work. You receive candidates only when they clear our own filter, never a forwarded listing.
- III
The Verification
Independent verification before funds are committed: on a watchmaker's bench, for any pre-owned piece. If the piece does not survive it, it does not survive the mandate.
- IV
The Handover
Delivered in person in Zug, or insured door to door.
07 · Anatomy
Sapphire
Coating tint, chamfer angle and the exact way the anti-reflective layer goes violet under a loupe. A replacement crystal announces itself before anything else does.
The list is not
published.
Pieces bought outright because they were right. Each one is in hand and verified before it is offered (pre-owned pieces on an independent watchmaker’s bench) and can be seen in Zug by appointment.
What is available changes, and it does not go in a window. Ask, and the current list comes to you.
The questions worth asking.
If yours is not here, ask it directly: concierge@chronometriesuisse.ch
An independent private watch advisory in Zug, Switzerland, founded by Sandro Bacic. It sources specific references, has every pre-owned piece checked by an independent watchmaker, sells significant watches discreetly for their owners and looks after private collections, for a flat fee agreed in writing. It works by introduction and by appointment.
Request access.
Tell us what you are looking for, or what you are ready to let go of. Every enquiry is read by a specialist, never by a queue, and nothing you write is shared outside this house.
Zug
Switzerland, by appointment