News · Marloe Watch Company

Five watches to mark a workshop

Marloe brought assembly and servicing in house, then built five numbered watches to say so. British dial, hand-wound Sellita, 1,195 pounds.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 3 min read · 9 August 2026

A three-quarter view of the Marloe Pacific Watchmaker Edition showing the polished case, onion crown and coloured ring indices — Image: Marloe Watch Company

Five watches exist. Marloe built its own workshop so it could assemble, service and repair in house instead of posting the work out, and the Watchmaker Edition marks the moment it opened. Each one was put together at Marloe HQ by Alison, the company's head watchmaker, and each is numbered.

A brand throwing a party for its own back room is usually marketing. This one's at least celebrating a real change in how the watches get made.

The Marloe Pacific Watchmaker Edition, a white grid-pattern dial with coloured ring indices and a mint green sub-seconds dial, on a dark brown leather strap — Image: Marloe Watch Company

The indices are screwdriver handles

The hour markers are open rings in a different colour at every position, set on a dial printed like graph paper. Put the watch next to its own box photograph and the joke lands. Those are the colours watchmakers use to tell one screwdriver from another across a bench. It's a small idea, played straight, and it gives a 40mm three-hander more character than another sunburst blue ever would.

A dial made in Bedford

The dial was made in Britain by Bedford Dials. British-made components in a British watch at this price are rare enough to be news. The sub-seconds register at six is mint green with an orange hand, and the dial carries the words assembled in-house.

Marloe is careful about the wording and so should we be. The watch is assembled in house, not manufactured there, and the movement is Swiss. What's changed is that assembly, servicing and repair now happen under Marloe's own roof instead of being posted away, and that's the part that'll matter to you in ten years.

The exhibition caseback of the Watchmaker Edition showing the hand-wound Sellita movement with a Marloe M on the ratchet wheel — Image: Marloe Watch Company

Wound by hand, and 70 grams of it

Inside is a Sellita SW216-1, hand-wound, 23 jewels, with more than 46 hours of reserve and a small seconds. The case is 40mm across and 12mm deep on 20mm lugs, under a box sapphire with anti-reflective coating, and it weighs 70.5 grams without a strap. Water resistance is 100 metres and the caseback is glazed, which on a hand-wound movement is the right way round.

Seventy grams and 12mm deep on a 40mm case means it vanishes under a cuff, and hand-winding is what keeps it that thin. The SW216-1 isn't rare or exotic. It's the sensible spine of a watch whose interest is all in its dial and its story.

One thousand one hundred and ninety-five pounds, and then they are gone

Marloe is asking 1,195 pounds. That's a lot next to the rest of its catalogue and not much at all for a numbered watch with a British dial that somebody assembled by name. There's no Australian price. There are five, so this won't take long to sort itself out.

The obvious objection is that 1,195 pounds buys a lot of Swiss watch from a brand with a bigger name. The obvious answer is that none of those have five examples in the world or a named person who put yours together. Whether that's worth the difference is a matter of taste. For a first British-assembled piece, I think it is.