Some more musings on the perpetual In-house vs outsourced movement wars.

[Dimman]

Not picking a side here, as I do appreciate the 'total watch control' idea of vertical integration. But a couple movements have rustled my jimmies.

First, I'll lay out some of the basics I hope are generally agreed on. In-house isn't an automatic indicator of quality. My Seiko 7S26 isn't better than a Bremont 2836 just because Seiko is infinitely better at movement design than Bremont. And the Frederic Piguet 21, Valjoux 23 and the JLC-auto-for-all whose reference escapes me at the moment, have made their way around the highest of highend like the town sl- err... bicycle.

But In-house is still a status thing, particularly for the highend guys. But what happens when these highend guys are passing off expensive in-house movements that are closer to a 7S26 than a Top Soigné ÉTA 2824? And maybe not being perfectly honest about the origins to boot?

The first one that struck me as moderately insulting was the Cartier Caliber 1847 MC in their Clé. The macros of SJX show stamped-like-a-Seagull stripes, and possibly laser etched on the rotor, with an unfinished main plate. Hideous! (no offense Seiko 7S26) And seeing the Magic Lever in the 1847's winding system sure doesn't help not bring up visions of cheap Seiko movements...

But whatever, no one seems to care. The rest of the watch looks pretty skookum, but it's another big strike against an already (in my personal opinion) substantially over priced (and a bit gimmicky) piece. A Top Soigné ÉTA 2824 or 92 would look far better. Especially if they gave it a non-standard decoration pattern such as Tudor did to their 2824. And in contrast to Tudor's utilitarian looks, the 1847 shows no accuracy (COSC) or power reserve improvement that the Tudor received. And the Tudor's new looks kinda fit well with tool-iness. Anyways, big strike against the benefit of in-house on the Cartier.

The next player is also primarily a fancy jewelry house first and foremost. Bvlgari. They announced their BVL 191 a little while ago, and what the hell happened to it? The main plate is unfinished and also has unused holes exposed around the ghetto-looking balance bridge. Almost as if they took a pre-existing movement and switched the balance cock with an ugly bridge, the auto winding bridge with their own, maybe added a jewel on the mainspring barrel, and called it their own. Almost. (Ok, I think/suspect they did exactly that with a Soprod A-10/M100. The balance, mainspring barrel, and crown stem release are really, really close to the Soprod just from angled pics, and the extra holes are where the alignment pins would go on the Soprod's balance cock. If that were the case...)

Even if they designed it from the ground up, again it's a slight finishing step up from the Cartier, which is only slightly ahead of a Seiko 7s26. With the negative of having exposed unused holes. Like really, Bvlgari?

But to add to my origin suspicion they also have the BVL 193. Refered to as in-house by the illustrious Ariel Adams himself in a puff piece about it. Mucher finishing, and interesting specs. 50h power reserve, yet two barrels, 28 jewels, uni-directional winding... Wait, this is suspiciously exactly the same as a Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier VMF3000. It even has the default Vaucher rotor profile. Am I being Paranoid? Ugh...

Anyways some food for thought for the anti in-house team. Despite being pro in-house myself I have to call out these annoyances. Am I out of line here? Stretching? These are not cheap watches, but am I still expecting too much?

Here's some pics attached, some are from press releases/promotiinals, some from SJX, who takes awesome macros. First two are the Cartier, 3rd is the BVL 191, 4th the 193,5th VMF-3000.