Kikuno does not because he has made only a handful of watches. But the income from the kind of work he does - intensive labour, low volume and extremely esoteric mechanics and design - means he will never have the kind of commercial success to make it a big business.

There is only one independent watchmaker ever who has become a multimillionaire (approximately CHF125m net worth) and that is Franck Muller. But his business (which he no longer owns) is a vast, mass production enterprise.