Retired Watchmaker's Estate Yields 40-Year Supply of 'Parts That Might Come in Handy'

The estate of recently retired watchmaker Heinrich Federhaus, 78, has revealed what his family is calling 'a staggering accumulation of components that no reasonable person would keep,' filling an estimated 847 individually labeled drawers, twelve shoe boxes marked 'MISC — DO NOT DISCARD,' and an entire upstairs bedroom that Federhaus told his wife was 'load-bearing and best left alone.' The collection, amassed over Federhaus's 52-year career, includes approximately 14,000 watch crystals sorted by diameter, 23,000 crown tubes organized by thread pitch, a wooden crate containing nothing but click springs, and what appears to be every single broken mainspring Federhaus encountered between 1972 and 2019. 'He kept the broken ones,' said his daughter, Annelise. 'I asked him why, and he said, and I quote, They still have good steel in them. That was in 1994. He has not used any of them.' Federhaus defended the collection from his living room, where he sat surrounded by what he described as 'the working archive.' 'Every part in that room was saved for a reason,' Federhaus said. 'That Omega balance staff from 1983? Discontinued. Those Longines hour wheels? Out of production since 1997. You cannot get these. Unless you come to my house.' The family has contacted two auction houses, a horological museum, and a structural engineer, the latter to assess whether the upstairs bedroom can support the estimated 1.4 metric tons of tiny brass and steel components it contains. Federhaus has agreed to part with 'some duplicates,' which his daughter estimates will take approximately three years to identify, given that each drawer contains a hand-written provenance note explaining why the contents are 'irreplaceable.' 'He has seven identical Peseux 7001 stems,' Annelise said. 'He calls them his retirement plan.'