Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo is thrilled to welcome you to The Geneva Sessions, Spring 2026, Online Auction, running from 12:00 PM CET, Thursday, 5 March, to 2:00 PM CET, Thursday, 12 March. The sale features more than 80 high-end luxury wristwatches, ranging from A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe to Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe.
– By Logan Baker
When people talk about a revival of French independent watchmaking, the conversation often jumps straight to the finished object.
What gets missed is the infrastructure behind it all – the teachers and the workshops. In that sense, the first appearance of a watch by Florent Lecomte at auction feels significant.
It represents the arrival of a watchmaker whose influence already runs deep through the current generation of French independent watchmaking. Lecomte’s primary identity is not that of a brand founder. He is, first and foremost, a teacher.
Since the mid-2000s, he has been based in Morteau at the Lycée Edgar Faure, where he trains future watchmakers rather than marketing himself to collectors. Some of those students have gone on to become names you already recognize; Remy Cools, Cyril Brivet-Naudot, and Théo Auffret are all former pupils.
That context matters – because Lecomte’s watches do not feel like a career pivot or the result of a calculated business plan. They feel like an extension of a lifetime spent thinking about how watches are designed, built, finished, and taught. That Lecomte even began making watches under his own name was an accident of timing.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, with classrooms empty and his schedule suddenly open, he returned to the bench in his personal workshop and began experimenting. He documented the process on his Instagram, where collectors slowly began to notice his work and encourage him. What started as a way to stay engaged during an unprecedented professional pause slowly turned into a serious body of work.
The watches themselves are resolutely classical. Lecomte draws heavily from 18th- and 19th-century French traditions, with Abraham-Louis Breguet as an obvious spiritual reference point, alongside Ferdinand Berthoud’s marine chronometers and the philosophical rigor of George Daniels.
The Series 2, appearing at auction here for the first time, is a clear expression of that mindset. Produced in a run of just 12 pieces, the watch immediately distinguishes itself through its regulating organ. This is the first Lecomte watch to feature a proprietary balance wheel, designed and manufactured entirely in-house.
Rather than hiding that achievement, Lecomte places it front and center, suspended within a multi-layer dial architecture and anchored by a black-polished bridge. It invites you to look closer.
And at this price level – the watch carries an estimate of CHF 3,000 to 6,000 – that invitation is unusual.
Making a balance from scratch is neither efficient nor necessary. Lecomte machines the wheel, calculates and forms the balance spring, and regulates the system himself. It is slow and difficult work. But it shows intent – once you take responsibility for the regulating organ, everything else follows.
The Series 2 offers a density of handwork that is rarely encountered in contemporary watchmaking, regardless of scale. Screws are black polished. Dial surfaces slope inward and terminate in sharp interior angles finished by hand. Bridges reveal carefully executed anglage, not only at their edges but along wheel spokes and secondary components that most makers would leave untouched.
Turn the watch over, and the same discipline continues. Lecomte is transparent about his movement's starting point. The underlying architecture of his movements nods to historically robust calibers like the ETA 6497 and Unitas 6498, but the transformation the calibre has undergone is total.
Gear trains were reworked. Bridges were redesigned. And the finishing elevates the movement into something unmistakably handmade. Nearly every component is designed, machined, and finished in Lecomte’s home workshop, using a mix of traditional lathes, manual-milling machines, and CNC equipment.
Lecomte has no interest in scaling his production, accepting outside investment, or relocating to Switzerland. He is committed to remaining in Morteau, signing his watches with the town’s name, and supporting the next generation of French watchmakers by opening his workshop to recent graduates who lack access to equipment. That decision costs him speed and visibility, but it also gives him autonomy.
The watch offered here, lot 74 in the upcoming Phillips Geneva Sessions, Spring 2026, Online Auction, is number 5 of 12 in stainless steel, accompanied by its fitted box and warranty.
You can view the complete Phillips Geneva Sessions, Spring 2026, Online Auction catalogue here.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past ten years covering the watch industry from every angle. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo in early 2023 as Senior Editorial Manager, after previous roles at Hodinkee and WatchTime. Originally from Texas, he spent a decade in New York and now calls Geneva home.
Recommended Reading
An Interview with Self-Taught Watchmaker Ondřej Berkus
The History of the Vacheron Constantin Chronomètre Royal
When Watchmaking Becomes Culture: The Expanding World of F.P. Journe