Located in the small town of Mentor, Ohio USA, Lum-Tec watches is a family run business that specializes in making small batch, hand-crafted timepieces. The team is led by president and founder Chris Wiegand. Their parent company “Wiegand Custom Watch” has built, designed, and improved watches for several well-known brands. With years of expertise, Wiegand decided he wanted to build his own watches, using the best components and materials available. What got our attention was the fact there are not many other watch brands that offer handmade pieces, with Swiss and Japanese movements, sapphire crystal, and superb finish, while maintaining a relatively affordable price as Lum-Tec does.
Another cool feature of these watches is that they are all limited editions. Most are made in batches of 500, which means your watch will only be worn by a limited number of other people. Once the original batch is made, Lum-Tec designs and builds new watches. Each watch is numbered and comes with a signed and stamped certificate of authenticity from Lum-Tec and signed by Chris Wiegand.
Our online shop, FourteenNinetyTwo.com is proud to be an authorized dealer of this excellent watch brand. To dive deeper in to Lum-tec, we conducted an interview with its’ founder Chris Wiegand. Below is a condensed version of the many questions we had for Wiegand! We scattered some of our favorite watches throughout the article to give an idea of the brand and design.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: What is the story behind LÜM-TEC?
Lum-Tec: Chris Wiegand’s quest for a good watch led to the disassembly of many expensive watches. It was inevitable.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: What inspired you to name the company “LÜM-TEC”?
Lum-Tec: We like our watches to glow. Luminescent Technology was the inspiration, umlaut as a nod to family’s Germanic roots.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Where does the company draw its inspiration in creating such attractive watches?
Lum-Tec: Chris is very passionate about details. From the world around us with the invaluable feedback we receive from our end users.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Which model, or models, would you say has, or have, propelled the company to where it stands today?
Lum-Tec: Our combat B series has been spectacularly popular, but I do not believe it is a single model. We try to make a variety of designs for a broad appeal. I see it as a combination of design, cooperative feedback and aftersales care. It has served us well.
Mayorga// FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Do you consider the company as a microbrand?
Lum-Tec: Not really big on labels, frankly. Objectively, we aren’t as big as some swiss houses established 2 centuries ago. Then again, our designs and models do not change with glacier speeds either.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Is the age demographic of your clients varied or is it more focused on a certain age range?
Lum-Tec: From my interactions with our clients, I’d say all ages. We’ve heathy representation across the brackets. The majority of our clients are in the 30-60 age bracket.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Would you say that the new generations, millennials, and later Gen-Z, have the same level of interest and love towards watchmaking, and mechanical watches, as the old generations?
Lum-Tec: Almost everyone has a cell phone. I believe the appreciation for a handmade, micro mechanisms have remained constant. We’re telling time with springs and gears! How cool is that? The thing that is keeping interest alive is social media. We can introduce thousands of people to our product that would’ve never found us otherwise.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: You use a variety of Swiss Automatic movements and Japanese Miyota movements. Tell us about your experience with each. For the consumer, there is a price difference between the two, we were wondering what your take on the 2 is.
Lum-Tec: It is our belief a good watch is an accurate watch. We’ve made significant efforts to separate the wheat from the chaff. The swiss movements have long history and refinement behind them. The Japanese movement are reliable and keep excellent time. At some point the distinction becomes philosophical, so more of a personal choice. We are happy to use any good movement and we have found ones that perform very well, regardless of origin.
Mayorga // FourteenNinetyTwo.com: Finally, what does the future hold for LUM-TEC?
Lum-Tec: Near future? Solar powered watches. We’re very excited about out upcoming Vortex models. We are also known for using a variety of materials in our cases. We have used tungsten, cobalt chromium, bronze, carbon fiber and other materials. In the future, we will continue to push the limits to try out new materials. We want to make watches that are good quality and will continue to grab the attention of our customers.
Great article, I can honestly say I am a huge fan of Lüm-Tec, their watches and everyone that make it all happen. I currently own nine of them and am sure my LT collection will grow.
Would love to see follow-up articles on everything Lüm-Tec is doing.
Thanks,
Deron Wilson
Hello Deron, appreciate the compliment and the passion for this cool brand. We fell in love with their Combat series, and once we saw the rest, we couldn’t decide which ones were our favourites! At the moment, the Combat B45 is looking damn good. We’ll keep adding each new watch to our shop as they are made available. Email us if you would like to be added to our mailing list (info@FourteenNinetyTwo.com). Cheers!