By then, he'd already begun a career in education, having coached track and field and worked as a substitute teacher at Arcadia High School. He got a master's degree in history at Cal State Northridge six years later. Shapiro pursued his love of history at UCLA, where he majored in the subject, graduating in 2008. Still, it was far from a straight path to watchmaking. "You can have a fulfilling, wonderful life doing things differently than other people." "What I learned from my grandfather is you don't have to walk the beaten path," said Shapiro, who grew up in Arcadia. They heated the recovered precious metal in a furnace until it coalesced, and poured it out as a nugget that Shapiro later made into a coin. Then about 6 years old, Shapiro would salvage gold that had been deposited in or on the company's crucibles. One of the duo's early "projects" was smelting gold. And he fostered his grandson's interest in metalworking and related pursuits. The elder Shapiro, who co-founded South El Monte and later served as its mayor, settled in the Southland in 1946 after working as a welder on the Manhattan Project. Shapiro's watchmaking journey began, in a way, at the South El Monte machine shop owned by his grandfather, Max Shapiro.Īs a child, Shapiro hung around the shop, Kenny Sandblasting, where he'd "spend all day climbing over old machinery and tinkering things." But Resurgence could transform him into something else altogether. Shapiro, who until recently taught a high school history class, long wore that label well. "That is an American thing - we are always cheering the underdog."
LOS ANGELES HOROLOGY SCHOOL SERIES
"That a self-taught American in this non-watchmaking country was able to achieve that - it would be a huge achievement," he said.īoutros, whose company has sold two Infinity Series watches at auction - including one on May 13 for nearly $27,000 - said collectors are "rooting for" Shapiro. Paul Boutros, who oversees watches in the Americas for auction house Phillips, said in January that Resurgence would be a breakthrough for watchmaking in the United States. Industry figures are rooting for Shapiro. That's why the partly self-taught watchmaker named the new watch Resurgence. Shapiro, whose previous offering, the Infinity Series, debuted in 2018, hopes his endeavor will inspire other horologists here to return to the traditional art of watchmaking. In 2016, for example, the FTC ruled that Detroit-based Shinola could not no longer use the slogan "Where American is made" because at the time its watches featured key parts made overseas.Ī true U.S.-made watch has not been produced for more than 50 years - ever since the last of the once-great American watch companies went out of business or were sold to Swiss concerns. It's a distinction that other American watchmakers have sought - only to see regulators intervene. (Think: gears, wheels, levers and springs.) Shapiro has done his research, and believes Resurgence complies with strict Federal Trade Commission rules that dictate when a consumer good warrants the "U.S. made" engraved on the movement - the mechanical innards that power a traditional timepiece. The Inglewood company aims to make about 30 a year, and each watch will have "U.S. Versions in other metals, including tantalum, begin at $80,000. Resurgence, which debuted Monday, starts at $70,000 in a steel case. Shapiro Watches' latest project is without equal in contemporary American watchmaking.
"That's when I got into this and had this wild dream of making my own watch - making every part of a watch," he said. It's part of a process that spanned thousands of hours and began 12 years ago. He estimated he'd spent upward of 30 hours designing and fabricating this piece for the watch, a prototype of Resurgence. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)Īfter honing the pattern - and some hand wringing over just how wavy it should be - Shapiro would make the final part in sterling silver. watchmaker Joshua Shapiro and the prototype of his new U.S.-made watch.
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