Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Gronefelds Launch an Accessible Watch with the Grøne Manueel One
In a suprise move, the Horological Brothers launch a new project at a far more attainable price.
In a very unexpected move, the Horlogical Brothers known as Tim and Bart Grönefeld are launching a new, more accessible brand aimed at a broader audience. Honouring their father with the very first model, the newly founded Grøne Oldenzaal brand offers the typical Grönefeld style (design-wise at least) at a smidge over 2k euros before taxes. The brand is not only a new adventure for the two Dutchmen but also an open invitation for a new generation of enthusiasts and collectors to enter Tim and Bart’s watchmaking vision. The debut model, called Manueel One is nicknamed “Sjef’s One” in honour of their father, Johannes Sjef Grönefeld.
The Manueel One uses the classic case of the 1941 Remontoire and 1941 Principia as inspiration, with scalloped lugs and a conical crown signed with the brother’s signature logo. The case itself, machined from stainless steel, measures a compact 38.5mm in diameter and 10mm in thickness, including the sapphire crystal (9mm without it). The bezel is said to have domed surfaces between the lugs, but concave sections on the side of the case. The caseback is engraved with an outline of the city of Oldenzaal, the brother’s hometown, and the Dutch proverb “Zoals het klokje thuis tikt, tikt het nergens” which translates to “there’s no place like home.”
The dial looks quite stunning, with multiple levels and plenty of detail. It starts with a salmon-toned centre with a tremblage-like finish – it is most likely stamped instead of hand-executed, given the Grøne Manueel One’s price point. The outer ring has two levels, one for the blue minute track on the very edge, and a broader section for the hour polished hour markers. The markers themselves extend over the edge of the ring, floating above the salmon centre for a touch of depth and refinement. The hands are made from polished stainless steel in a vibrant blue tone and paired with an applied Grøne Oldenzaal logo. The words “Oldenzaal”, “Manueel” and “Netherlands” are printed with the same shade of blue as the hands.
Don’t expect the Grøne Manueel One to feature a complex and intricately finished movement in the typical style of the Grönefelds, as it is aimed at a very different audience. Hidden under the engraved caseback is a hand-wound Sellita SW210. This manual evolution of the SW-200 runs at 28,800 vibrations/hour and boasts 42 hours of power reserve. Time is indicated by central hour, minutes and seconds hands, with a hacking function for the seconds to enable a precise setting of time. The brothers state that the movement has been torque-adjusted to a “just right” crown-winding feel, as preferred by Tim and Bart. What that means in reality remains to be experienced.
The Grøne Manueel One Sjef’s One is presented on a blue calfskin leather strap and offered in a limited run of just 388 pieces. Pre-orders will start on November 19th, 2024, at 3PM Central Europe Time. Deliveries are expected to start in December of this year. And perhaps the most surprising fact of all is the very affordable (compared to regular Grönefeld watches, that is) price of EUR 2,150 before VAT.
On another note, we can’t hide a certain resemblance with another and longer-established Dutch brand, Delft Watch Works (an accessible side project of Michiel Holthinrichs, of Holthinrichs Watches), offering a quite similar design and dial, with outsourced automatic movement, somehow close inspiration, for a more attainable price of about 750 euros.
For more information, please visit Grøne.com.
10 responses
2150 plus VAT (so north of 2500 for most of us in Europe) for a watch like this seems very ambitious considering the only ‘value’ it has is ‘it’s owned by the same people as a much more expensive brand’.
you could write Zodiac or Tissot on the dial and nobody would question it and it would be 1000 or less… or SanMartin or Merkur and sell it for 200
this looks like a watch made for those who care more about the name on the dial than anything else… aka brand-wh****, aka influencers and ‘reviewers’
This is a cynical money-grab, nothing more. I can count on one hand the number of people in the last 10 years who have commented on the watch I was wearing, so why would any of this matter to someone seeking something “accessible” to a broader audience?
Gross
So begins the decline and desperate cash grabbing for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th tier brands as the market contracts…
A watch put out for the suckers, while making it hard to get one by its campaign to make it a small numbered limited edition to try to build it into a desirable commodity, while making it difficult to get in a queue online and requiring you to establish an account just to be able to order. Gimme a break! How arrogant can they be? And they’ll probably sell ‘em. There’s a sucker born every minute!
I really like the Grönefeld watch brand and also the two brothers. And it doesn’t bother me in the slightest what the new watch costs and that the two brothers will hopefully earn good money from it.
What bothers me is that the watch doesn’t correspond to the company’s own brand values - especially the loveless back and the simple movement that is far too small.
The watch company “Steinhart”, to name just one of many examples, shows that even small brands with less influence can do this better – for half of the price.
So much cynicism, calling this a cash grab when the company could simply make a handful of their regular pieces that most of us can never afford for the same retail as this entire run of low priced watches? Sure it is limited, they don’t know what the demand will be and don’t want to overproduce. Overpriced for a Sellita? There are plenty of Sellitas at this price point, off the top of my head, Montblanc, Bell & Ross, Ming. Sure, its not a value brand Tissot or Zodiac that makes an order of magnitude more volume and spends half its budget on marketing. If you’re happy with those, great, but the economy is simple, the smaller the run the higher the cost per… These look to have been made thoughtfully and if they aren’t for you, that’s fine, but the criticism I read here seems like just sour grapes.
These knuckleheads come out with a relatively affordable timepiece and then make it hard to get one! Now that’s what I call a logical way to sell what you’re proclaiming is a watch for more people to be able to get their hands on! HA! It’s time to boycott this type of outrageous practice until these chuckleheads come to some reasonable way of conducting their business.
Of the 21 available Principias on Chrono24 as of writing this comment, 12 are below what the list price would be including VAT, with a couple more hovering at approximately the list point. For a company that makes less than 100 pieces a year and has had a notice on its website for years now apparently claiming they can’t accept new orders, there’s certainly a disparity between what impact one would expect such an aeonic wait would have on demand, and the reality of a now-cautious market that doesn’t seem to want them that badly; i.e things aren’t looking great for them when their order book clears, presumably hastened by people cancelling their orders after taking a quick peek at the state of the market.
After all, Max Busser said it best in a moment of disarming honesty when asked in healthier times a couple of years back why high-end independents were experiencing a surge in popularity: “It’s because people see these pieces consistently exceed their list value on the secondary market.” And despite all the smoke being blown up our collective bums currently about independents being as popular as ever, I suspect things may be looking a bit grim for anyone bar Journe…or perhaps De Bethune, bless the efforts of the 1916 Company.
So. Is this a bit of a desperate move to inject funds? It’s a fair chunk of cash to receive for something that one can see from the example of Holthinrichs you provided would be a very low-cost enterprise. I like Gronefeld’s watches, and I don’t hope this fails, but it seems like something they should’ve done 3 years ago when the fever was high, not now. But they weren’t to know. *shrug*
Could’ve been a really cool project with a great mission. Unfortuantely, the decided to give us a lazy design with a plain, un-Gronefeld movement and finishing.