Franck Muller became a powerhouse in the watch industry for a reason. Early in his career, he earned his reputation as the “Master of Complications” by adding a perpetual calendar complication to a Rolex Datejust, and later working as an in-house restoration expert for Patek Philippe. The eponymous watch brand that he co-founded in 1992 would massively influence the aesthetic of the luxury watch landscape in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Franck Muller was red hot, but luxury watch competition was weaker then. As other high-end watch brands have gained steam, the Franck Muller brand has seemingly been unable to regain a spot near the top. And yet they’ve quietly continued to release some spectacular complications over the years. In this article, we’ll give you a quick overview of what a watch collector should know about Franck Muller watches.
Franck Muller’s Influence
Franck Muller was influential not only with his designs, but also his complications–especially his innovative work with tourbillons in the late 1980’s. Although Omega claims the “first tourbillon wristwatch” piece of history because of one random prototype they discovered from 1947, Franck Muller was the one who really popularized tourbillon wristwatches. Even after Mr. Muller left his company in 2002, the Franck Muller brand continued to be horologically relevant by creating the first-ever triaxial tourbillon in 2004 in addition to the world’s biggest tourbillon in a wristwatch in 2011.
Plus, since 2007, Franck Muller has been the maker of the world’s most complicated wristwatch in the world. Despite a storied history of innovation when it comes to watch complications, Franck Muller might still be best known for their watch designs–particularly ones involving large colorful numerals and distinctive case shapes.
The Most Significant Franck Muller Watch Designs
Franck Muller’s impact on luxury watch fashion is undeniable. The Franck Muller brand is largely responsible for reviving the popularity of the tonneau case, and they have been inseparably associated with that case shape ever since the early 1990’s.
Tonneau Case
Franck Muller didn’t invent the tonneau case, but he did modernize and popularize it. The brand’s first tonneau-case watch, the CintrĂ©e Curvex, established their aesthetic foundation in 1992. The popular Casablanca was essentially an uncomplicated CintrĂ©e Curvex. The sportier Vanguard, Conquistador and Skafander models also draw heavily from the Curvex design. Meanwhile, the Curvex CX, with its intriguingly modern curved lines, could be considered Franck Muller’s equivalent of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept.
Master Square and Long Island
The unapologetically-art-deco Master Square and the rectangular-but-curved Long Island have both been mainstays of the Franck Muller lineup since about 2000. Both watches have been made in a variety of sizes and colors, with both automatic and quartz movements, and they show no signs of getting discontinued anytime soon. Don’t get discouraged by the almost-five-figure retail prices of some of the simple steel quartz versions of the Long Island and Master Square. On the secondhand market, for example, $8,500 is enough to get you a solid white gold model with an auto movement.
Modern-day watch collectors may only know Franck Muller as a funky brand with mediocre resale value, not fully realizing how influential his designs were. Collectors largely take the existence of wacky ultra-high-end watches for granted now, but in the year 2000, nobody in the luxury watch game was really going wild the way Franck Muller was. It was exciting.
Classic Franck Muller Chronograph
Essentially in parallel to the mainstream successes, Franck Muller began releasing a handful of extremely classy chronographs in the 1990’s. For many hardcore collectors, these are the Franck Mullers most worthy of getting excited about. This tasteful chronograph aesthetic lived on well into the 2000’s as part of the aptly named “Round” collection with reference 7000 CC. If you hear a watch enthusiast mention a “pre-cocaine Franck Muller,” well, this is what they’re talking about.
Mystery
Franck Muller isn’t just a men’s watch brand; they have made a variety of distinctive ladies’ watches over the years as well. The unmistakable Franck Muller Mystery line, available in a variety of different gem-set configurations, features a triangle on a central rotating disc instead of a traditional hour hand. Standard Mystery watches forego the minute hand entirely, while Double Mystery models include a second concentric rotating disc to point to the minutes.
The Most Significant Franck Muller Complications
Franck Muller has created an impressive variety of complicated watches, but let’s drill down to the horological innovations they’re most known for.
Franck Muller Crazy Hours
The Crazy Hours line of watches probably best exemplifies the audacious but whimsical nature of the Franck Muller brand. While some watches aim to be highly legible at a glance, reading a Crazy Hours watch takes a little bit of extra time to read carefully, and the owners of the watches are OK with that.
Instead of their usual sequential 1-12 order, the arrangement of the hour markers has been seemingly randomized. The wearer must be sure to look at the number the hour hand has passed–not the number that “should” be there–to discern the correct time. At the top of each hour, the hour hand really does jump to the next correct hour marker. It’s fascinating and it’s a bit of a “cult classic” as far as watch complications go. Putting so much engineering and effort into such a spectacularly pointless mechanical function is…kind of awesome.
Master Banker
The Master Banker has been an iconic part of the Franck Muller lineup since 1996. Master Bankers display three truly separate times, each individually adjustable by the user. So, if you want the minutes to line up with each other, it’s up to you to synchronize it. But the upside is, this is one of few luxury watches in the world that can properly account for time zones (like India) that are a half-hour apart from other time zones. It’s a very interesting approach to a multi-time-zone watch.
Double-Sided Chronograph
Another complication that has seemingly never been duplicated by another brand is the double-sided chronograph. Through the exhibition caseback, rather than seeing a watch movement, you see another dial! The only hand visible on the back dial is the chronograph seconds hand, pointing to three concentric scales: tachymeter, telemeter, and pulsometer. Muller felt that it would be too cluttered to include all of that on the main dial. The front dial of a Franck Muller Double Chronograph just looks like a typical chronograph dial.
Tourbillon Innovations
People often forget that Franck Muller was the very first person to make a wristwatch with a tourbillon visible through the dial. Nowadays every high-end luxury watch brand under the sun makes tourbillon watches, and the Franck Muller brand has continued to stay relevant in that segment. Franck Muller released the world’s first triple-axis tourbillon in 2004, and in 2011, they released the largest tourbillon ever seen in a wristwatch.
One glance at a Giga Tourbillon model and the giant tourbillon (20mm) will immediately stand out. There’s a reason most tourbillons are much smaller; the Giga Tourbillon is no small feat of engineering.
Most Complicated Wristwatch in the World: Aeternitas Mega
Considering that records get broken and re-broken frequently in the luxury watch world, it’s impressive that Franck Muller has held the title of “world’s most complicated mechanical wristwatch” since 2007. With 36 complications, the Aeternitas Mega is an absolute watchmaking wonder, made up of 1,483 parts.
While the 57-complication Vacheron Constantin ref. 57260 still handily holds the title of “most complicated mechanical watch” overall, keep in mind that it’s an absolute chonker. The 57260 is a 98mm-wide pocket watch that would never work on the wrist. Franck Muller manages to fit all three dozen of the Aeternitas Mega’s complications in a reasonable 42mm case. And yet despite their objectively world-class watchmaking bona fides, Franck Muller often gets overlooked in discussions of the best luxury watches.
So What’s Holding Franck Muller Back?
Well, we won’t beat around the bush: the Franck Muller brand is generally hampered by four things: a reputation for lackluster resale value, the divisive “Alice in Wonderland”-esque numerals that appear on so many of their dials, the use of third-party movements for their entry-level models, and a series of scandals in the early 2000’s. But those complaints aren’t entirely fair to the brand. The love-it-or-hate-it aesthetics speak for themselves, so let’s quickly cover the other three issues.
Does Franck Muller Use Third-Party Movements?
“Watchland,” as Franck Muller’s manufacturing headquarters is known, creates many of their own manufacture movements, even crafting complications like perpetual calendar tourbillons entirely in-house. But they have also extensively used various high-quality third-party movements–Franck Muller was adding split-seconds complications to Valjoux 7750 movements in the early 1990’s, for example. And even when they do use ETA base movements, they start with the top grade and improve it from there, often adding a platinum rotor and additional modules as needed. Franck Muller has also used some Lemania-based movements, but nobody complains when Patek Philippe does that.
Admittedly, though, charging $8,000 for a basic quartz-powered steel ladies’ watch isn’t helping Franck Muller’s reputation among enthusiasts. And somehow, engraving “Master of Complications” on the back of a quartz watch with, well, no complications, seems unnecessary. The brand is walking a weird line of catering to both unsophisticated consumers at the low end, and legitimate hardcore horology enthusiasts at the top end.
Franck Muller Resale Value
Franck Muller watches are notorious for selling well below MSRP; it’s true. The positive side of that is that many of them are very competitive value propositions at their true market prices. If you buy at the right price to begin with, Franck Mullers should retain their resale well enough.
If you’re buying a new Franck Muller, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to aim for 40% off MSRP, but honestly that’s pretty similar to almost any dress-watch-focused luxury watch brand. You probably won’t get the lowest prices buying from a Franck Muller boutique, although they do look quite nice.
Demand for Franck Muller has not yet surged in the way it has for A. Lange & Soehne, Richard Mille and FP Journe in recent years, but it has never gone away, either. Plus, it’s telling that many high-end Franck Muller pieces–such as the Aeternitas and Gravity Skeleton lines– are rarely found for sale secondhand at all. The people that have the best Franck Mullers, largely, seem to want to hold onto them.
Franck Muller Scandals
Franck Muller left his namesake company in 2002 amid disagreements with his cofounder, Vartan Sirmakes. Presumably, the scandals that unfolded the following year were a factor. Reports of Sirmakes purchasing cheap Russian Poljot movements arose in 2003. Those accusations were based on records of a 1994 purchase of 1,500 unbranded Poljot movements, and although the company said “we bought them for research,” many enthusiasts were unhappy with that explanation. And, bizarrely, Franck Muller’s uncle was arrested along with another employee for making counterfeit Franck Muller watches.
On top of that, Muller’s accusations that Sirmakes was employing undocumented Armenian laborers was a head-scratcher. Swiss prosecutors even investigated the company in 2004, and although no charges apparently resulted from it, the reputation of the brand took an undeniable hit. But now that two decades have passed, perhaps the watch world will be ready to give a fair look at Franck Muller again soon.
So Is Franck Muller a Good Value?
Even though Franck Muller’s entry-level watches may seem overpriced–at least at MSRP– their highly complicated watches are arguably undervalued in the current market. Their simple quartz models don’t offer a particularly exciting value proposition, but you can find beautiful openworked Franck Mullers with sapphire cases for $90,000. Something like that would probably go for $2 million if the dial said the words “Richard Mille.”
Even some minute repeater tourbillon Franck Mullers go for under $150,000; an equivalent would likely be in the $400,000 ballpark from Audemars Piguet. Plus, standard Franck Muller tourbillon watches can be found for under $40,000. So at the high end, there is actually some compelling value to be had with Franck Muller watches.
The Next Chapter for Franck Muller?
It’s true that the unusual shapes, large numbers, and bright colors found in the Franck Muller catalog aren’t for everyone. They have an unapologetically early-2000’s vibe. But now that 1990’s nostalgia is already mainstream, maybe 2000’s nostalgia is next on the menu. Plus, the classy limited-edition 30th anniversary releases done with Grail Watch received some legitimate attention from collectors. Many would like to see designs like that become permanent fixtures in the Franck Muller lineup.
And even if Franck Muller watches don’t get a ton of love from English-speaking internet watch nerds at the moment, that doesn’t mean they don’t sell well worldwide. In fact, in 2024 Franck Muller opened their largest boutique yet in Kuala Lumpur. The brand has never let go of the aesthetic that took them to great heights a quarter-century ago, and perhaps that will pay off for them again soon.
