LIVINGSTON (AP) — In 1998, Jeffrey Nashan rolled the dice.

He and former partner David Berghold launched the Montana Watch Co., pouring their savings into crafting 100 mechanical watches.

‘‘We figured we’d either have a lot of Christmas presents or we’d sell them,’’ said Nashan, who has since become sole owner.

And sell them they did. This year, Christmas came early for the Livingston-based business that limits production to 500 timepieces a year. Earlier this month, they still had a limited inventory on stock, but they quit taking custom orders by early October.

Like the name of his company, Nashan’s approach is simple and direct. Employ fine craftsmen, cater to the customer and follow up with exceptional service. Throw in a dose of Montana mystique and the watches have earned the reputation of both future heirloom and status symbol. The high-end watches — more than half his sales are custom orders — can be seen on the wrists of local ranchers, news anchors and NASCAR team owners.

They run the gamut, Nashan said of his customers. Some lock their watches away in safety deposit boxes. Others wear them daily. At least one diver goes deep with his. The one common link, Nashan said, is some tie to Montana, be it a second home or a long-ago boyhood fishing trip on the Yellowstone River.

A small percentage of the timepieces go to women, who tend to wear them big and loose. But the hand-crafted watches are also hot with up-and-coming East Coast professionals.

‘‘In New York City, no one cares what you drive,’’ Nashan said. ‘‘And so, it’s what you come and sit in the board room with. Coming in with a Montana Watch Co. watch, you’ll have a leg up.’’

Montana Watch Co. designs harken back to the early 20th century, with case shapes emulating popular vintage watches of 1915, 1925 and the 1930s.

A basic watch in stainless steel starts at $2,650. Add a few gems and 24-karat inlay in a custom-engraved titanium case, and the price can jump tenfold.

‘‘It’s more about a customer’s imagination,’’ Nashan said. ‘‘There really isn’t a ceiling.’’

Nashan took a circuitous business path. After teaching at Bozeman’s Headwaters Academy, he was working construction when a fellow worker recognized his mechanical inclination. The talent eventually led Nashan to vintage watch and clock restoration. The more he learned, the more it intrigued him.

‘‘This concept of accurate timekeeping, and people being able to wear it as a watch, changed people’s lives,’’ he said, comparing watches of the 19th century to today’s computers. ‘‘We do everything according to the clock. Not long ago, that wasn’t the case.’’

Nashan’s designs replicate the look of bygone eras, but he advances the timepieces using today’s technology. Today’s watches, he said, are less sensitive to temperature changes and magnetism. They’re also considerably more accurate.

‘‘In the 1940s, plus or minus a minute a day was good enough,’’ he said. ‘‘Here, we want plus or minus six seconds a day or less — and most are much more accurate than that.’’

Business has changed in the seven years since the first watch was assembled at the Montana Watch Co. Two years back, Nashan opened a storefront in Livingston. There, customers can browse and watch horologist Keegan McDonnell ‘‘toy’’ with miniscule mechanical pieces.

Likewise, variations on watch ‘‘treatments’’ have grown exponentially since Nashan’s first model. Still designed, assembled, decorated and regulated in-house, most of the watches reflect a Western bent. Bison leather wristbands, hand-tooled or plain, speak Montana. Machined in Manhattan, the cases can be carved from a host of different metals. At the customer’s discretion, they can be torched to the company’s signature gun-metal blue. Add hand engraving, and the matchless watches are transformed into works of art.

The only out-of-country components, the mechanical movements, come from Switzerland. But even they bear Montana fingerprints. Each is reassembled, cleaned, oiled and set to specifications at the Livingston shop.

Once calibrated, each watch goes into a leather pouch, which is then packed into a fire-branded wooden box. All come with a certificate of authenticity and a lifetime warranty.

Buying a watch from Montana Watch Co. begins with a conversation between customer and watchmaker. The process typically evolves into an e-mail exchange, with Nashan translating the ideas into computer files.

Some clients choose the basic model while others upgrade with engraved patterns and scrollwork. Some envision more personal images. Nashan tells of one customer who requested a specific mountain backdrop, with a flowing river and a leaping trout engraved on the dial. As a final touch, the man wanted a 24-karat gold mayfly inlaid at 2 o’clock.

‘‘When the engravers came back with it, he was floored,’’ Nashan said.

From start to finish, one customer waited a year for the watch of his dreams. But that’s the exception, Nashan said. A complex design can take up to 100 man-hours, but a simpler watch averages closer to 20. Most time-consuming is the engraving. Nashan relies on the skills of five artisans, each of whom specialize in a different style.

‘‘That’s where the bottleneck is,’’ he said, ‘‘but they can’t go faster at what they do.’’

Every watch has a story Nashan and his in-house staff of four — McDonnell; her mother, Dee; Catherine Kozacik; and Colonel the shop dog -pride themselves on the time-honored process that goes into their watches. They know their customers personally and they relish the stories the watches have spawned.

Kozacik remembers one customer who drove from Hamilton in a snowstorm to pick up his watch, then woke up in the middle of the night deciding he wanted the higher-end model instead. Within a day or two, he was back to make the exchange, she said.

Nashan tells of another customer whose wife handed him a packed suitcase and a plane ticket to Livingston. As a birthday gift, she’d arranged for her husband to make his own watch. Nashan shut down the shop for four days to guide the man through the process.

‘‘If we ever did that again, we’d have to price it a lot higher,’’ he said, grinning.

And then there was the customer who, somehow, left his watch on the driveway — where it got buried, and remains buried, under a layer of asphalt. Nashan smiles again, admitting that the guarantee has its limits.

Perhaps the most remarkable story, however, tells of the $9,000 watch that was picked up for $6 in an East Coast thrift store.

‘‘I recognized the watch right off,’’ Nashan said, explaining that it’d been purchased for a gift. ‘‘Evidently, they gave it to the thrift store as a donation, not knowing anything about the value. The man who bought it actually bought it for the wooden box.’’

This holiday season, Nashan is long past wondering whether his dream will dissolve into stocking stuffers. Business is good but he has no plans to ramp up.

‘‘It (500 watches) is just fine with me,’’ he said. ‘‘We just try to be a good watch company.’’

On the Net: www.montanawatch.com.