Benzinger

Jochen Benzinger began his career as an engraver in 1978 at the Pforzheim Goldsmiths' School, initially working on gold jewelry. He founded his own workshop in 1984. His breakthrough into watchmaking came when Gerd-Rüdiger Lang of Chronoswiss commissioned hand-guilloché dials, marking the first time Benzinger's name appeared on a watch dial. As Pforzheim's watch and jewelry sector declined from 30,000 workers to approximately 2,000, Benzinger acquired liquidated antique machines from closing workshops. Today he operates around 20 different machines, many over a century old, producing approximately 50 watches per year across three labels. He has created dials for IWC, Chronoswiss, Glashütte Original, Moritz Grossmann, and Fabergé's Imperial eggs. Rolls-Royce enlisted him for dashboard clocks in the eighth-generation Phantom. In 2017, he partnered with Markus Grieb for high-complication pieces under Grieb & Benzinger.