Fort Collins pocket watch converter says it’s time to launch a new brand

For nearly a decade, every time Robert “R.T.” Custer and Tyler Wolfe sold a watch, they’ve made it slightly harder to keep their company going.

Vortic Watch Co., the Fort Collins-based firm they own, has had an unexpected specialty — restoring and converting antique pocket watches so they can be worn on the wrist.

They retail for anywhere between $1,000 to $7,500 each.

Tyler Wolfe, left, and Robert “R.T.” Custer

But there’s a clear limitation: Only so many antique pocket watches are still around.

“It’s expensive, it’s time-consuming and we can’t make very many,” Custer said.

That’s why, nine years in, the pair are launching a new brand under Vortic. Colorado Watch Co. will sell modern, less-expensive newly made watches, no antique parts required.

While that might sound more mundane, Custer said there’s still something unique about the new venture: the fact that the watches will be built in America at all.

Custer said the company raised $150,000 from investors last month to help fund the brand, and is launching a Kickstarter campaign later this month. 

“We’re raising money … so that we can scale operations and sell thousands of watches instead of hundreds of watches,” Custer said. 

Custer said he didn’t wear watches until, while studying engineering at Pennsylvania State University, he met Wolfe, who always wore a watch.

“I became more fascinated in how watches work, how they’re made, the luxury industry,” Custer said. 

The more he learned, the more he wanted to start a watch company that was completely American-made. So, the duo graduated, moved to Fort Collins and launched Vortic on Kickstarter in December 2014. 

“We pretty much sold every watch we made before we could even make it,” Custer said. “All from old pocket watches … that’s the closest to 100 percent American-made watch you can get.”

The two raised $40,000 from that first kickstarter and sold 100 watches the following year. Nearly 10 years in, they now own their 8,500-square-foot manufacturing site at 324 Jefferson St., have 10 employees and have sold 2,500 watches total. 

More recently, Custer said Vortic made 300 watches last year and revenue reached seven figures.

Custer said the last American pocket watches were made in the 1960s, but many companies stopped well before then. He said pocket watches lost their relevance during the first World War, and became nearly obsolete by World War II.  

“The people who served in World War I had pocket watches, but it was trench warfare, so you didn’t want to look down in your pocket to see what time it was,” Custer said. “Men in the trenches strapped their pocket watches to their wrist with leather. That was the first pocket watch conversion.” 

And while the watch industry was changing, World War II started. Custer said most American watch companies stopped making watches and instead used their materials to help the war effort. In that time, Custer said Switzerland, which remained neutral, grew to dominate watch manufacturing. 

A Vortic watch made from a military pocket watch. (Courtesy Vortic Watch Co.)

“When I started (Vortic) most people said ‘Why would you make a watch in America, the Swiss own that,’” Custer said. “But a Timex is $100, a Rolex is $10,000 … I’m trying to be right in the middle.” 

Custer said the Colorado Watch Co. is just the first of several brands Vortic will launch. Unlike Vortic, it will source some parts overseas, although the watch itself will be built in Colorado and Arizona. 

He said Colorado Watch will offer “American industrial” style that’s less flashy than Vortic’s offerings. There will be two options: The field watch will be a “true Colorado outdoors watch,” he said.

“You can wear it with jeans, with a suit, while hiking or biking,” he said. 

The military-inspired watch, Custer said, is a “smaller, less-expensive, fully modern” replica of Vortic’s watches made from military pocket watches. 

Custer said the Kickstarter campaign will go live on Sept. 26 with a goal of $250,000.