Petermann Bedat

Gael Petermann and Florian Bedat met as students at the Watchmaking School of Geneva, where both trained from 2007 to 2011. The exact credential titles held by either founder are not documented in available sources, though both are consistently described as having completed the same program. After graduating, Petermann worked at A. Lange und Sohne before turning to the restoration of vintage watches, while Bedat worked at Harry Winston and then also at A. Lange und Sohne. The two later reunited in Switzerland, opened a shared workshop in Renens, near Lausanne, and founded their own house, Petermann Bedat Sarl. Sources give the founding year as either 2017 or 2018, and this has not been resolved from available reporting.

Their first in-house watch, the Reference 1967 Deadbeat Seconds, was developed around 2019 and publicly launched in 2020, and it won the Horological Revelation Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve that year. In 2023 the house followed with the Reference 2941 Monopusher Split-Seconds Chronograph, which won the Chronograph Prize at the same awards, and the pair also produced a unique Chronometre d'Observatoire, Reference 1342, in collaboration with dial maker Auffret Paris for the Only Watch charity auction. Their newest model, Reference 1825, was announced in 2025 with deliveries scheduled from 2026 to 2029. Both founders appear to remain active in the house as of 2026, based on ongoing brand activity and forward-dated production plans; no obituary or death notice for either founder was found in major watch press, though neither founder's exact date of birth is documented in available sources.

Petermann Bedat's standing rests primarily on formal recognition rather than gallery or museum validation. Its 2020 Horological Revelation Prize marked it as a brand to watch, and its 2023 Chronograph Prize was widely treated by the specialist press as confirmation that the young house could compete with far larger manufacturers, though the specific list of competing entries is not confirmed in available sources. Outlets including Hodinkee, Revolution, and Quill and Pad have covered the brand closely since its 2019 to 2020 debut and generally describe it as one of the most closely watched independent watchmaking names to emerge since 2017. No exact verbatim quotation attributable to a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed from available sources, so none is reproduced here.

Petermann Bedat has only two documented public auction results. The higher of the two, CHF 240,000, is reported for the unique Chronometre d'Observatoire Ref. 1342, made in collaboration with Auffret Paris, at the Only Watch charity auction conducted by Christie's in Geneva in 2023. The exact sale date is not confirmed in available sources, and because the piece is a collaboration and Only Watch is a philanthropic sale in which bidders knowingly pay above open-market levels to support medical research, this figure should be treated as a low-confidence data point rather than a clean benchmark for Petermann Bedat alone. The more representative data point is a stainless steel Reference 1967 Deadbeat Seconds, which sold for CHF 215,900 against a CHF 40,000 to 80,000 estimate at Phillips' Geneva Watch Auction: XX on 10 November 2024, as lot 135. Specialist trade coverage notes that, as of the most recent reporting available, only one example of the Reference 1967 had surfaced at auction at all, underscoring how thin the secondary market remains. On the primary market, the current Reference 1825 launch edition is priced at CHF 75,000 before tax, sold directly from the workshop and through authorized retailers including The Hour Glass and A Collected Man.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Petermann Bedat, and the concept does not apply in the traditional art-historical sense to a contemporary watch house; authenticity is established instead through the maker's own certificates, presentation boxes, and workshop production records. The auction record is extremely thin, with only two confirmed public sales, one of them a charity auction whose price reflects philanthropic bidding rather than open-market demand and whose exact date is unconfirmed, so any single result should be treated with caution rather than as a stable benchmark. Production is small and largely allocated through waitlists that already extend toward 2029, and there is no fine-art gallery or estate representation because this is a watch brand, not a visual-art practice; buyers instead work directly with the maker or with authorized retailers including The Hour Glass and A Collected Man. No museum or institutional collection holding a Petermann Bedat piece was found in available sources.