Think of high-end timekeeping and most people will cite Switzerland as the mecca of haute horology. However, over the last twenty years or so, watch aficionados have increasingly been buying up pieces from its northern neighbour, Germany.

On the face of it, Germany’s watch-making prowess shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The country already dominates the holy trinity of football, motoring and beer and, mostly thanks to the industrious watchmakers based in the sleepy towns of Pforzheim and Glashütte, it now boasts a respected timepiece industry too.

German Peter Hele invented the first mainspring and even assembled the first known portable timepiece in 1504, decades before watch-making commenced in Zurich. However, WWII saw a lot of German watchmakers shut down and it wasn’t until the reunification of Germany in the nineties that some iconic brands were revived. Chief among these was A. Lange & Söhne, the most prestigious name among German watchmakers, which was relaunched in 1990 by the late Günter Blümlein, who relaunched the brand with a descendant of founder Ferdinand Adolph Lange: his great-grandson, Walter Lange.

Between this renaissance of great German watch-making names and the rise of younger, upstart brands, the country has quickly gained a reputation for superb engineering and craftsmanship, particularly in the field of metalworking, with watch cases renowned for their durability and precision tolerances. The innovative movement manufactures of Glashütte, combined with its rich history of delicate and difficult decoration, has seen the number of its watch-making workers swell to 1,200 people – a staggering figure considering the population of the entire town is just 7,000.

Complex, beautiful and desirable – a fine German watch should be in every timepiece aficionado’s collection.  A peer-to-peer lender, Unbolted offers the lowest  rates (and if you do find another loan with a lower APR, Unbolted promise to beat it).  So isn’t it time you spoke to Unbolted to about  a secured loan?