An L.A. watchmaker crafted a $70,000 timepiece. It could revolutionize the U.S. watch industry

Watchmaker Joshua Shapiro gripped the machine’s worn handle with his left hand and exhaled.

Standing at the helm of the 100-year-old “rose engine,” he peered through a microscope at a small, square slab of German silver illuminated by a gooseneck lamp.

Shapiro turned the handle. The rose engine came alive.Wheels rotated in concert. Rosettes spun. And shards of the silvery material were ejected from the plate where the machine’s cutter made contact.Shapiro, 38, was practicing the pattern that would decorate part of the dial on his new watch. He hoped the timepiece, called Resurgence, would revive a once-great American industry. Shapiro’s […]

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