Five Things

[gnuyork]

• There was once a resistance to paying a lot of money for a Swiss watch because ‘Swiss’ meant low quality. It’s part of the reason for Rolex being established in England (with the watches distributed from England), even though the watches were produced in Switzerland. Today, you could probably substitute China for Switzerland and Switzerland for England.

Interesting. I remember reading something about my circa 1940s Omega with Fab Suisse on the dial. Some Omegas were imported to France, but a Swiss watch was considered inferior to French watches and so by law had to be labeled as such to not mislead consumers... I don't know how on the mark I am, but I recall something to that effect.

[geoffbot]

Those are all really rather interesting indeed

[tribe125]

Interesting. I remember reading something about my circa 1940s Omega with Fab Suisse on the dial. Some Omegas were imported to France, but a Swiss watch was considered inferior to French watches and so by law had to be labeled as such to not mislead consumers... I don't know how on the mark I am, but I recall something to that effect.

Actually, my reference was talking about earlier decades. There might have been some chauvinism in French perceptions of Swiss watches of the 1940s.

[Rdenney]

Actually, my reference was talking about earlier decades. There might have been some chauvinism in French perceptions of Swiss watches of the 1940s.

In the 19th century, the French produced the most finely made clocks. American clocks were styled to imitate them, even including "Japanned" cases (lacquered wood) with painted grain to resemble the black marble used by the French. They were called "Black Mantel" clocks, and did to the French in the1880's and 1890's what Japanese clocks did to American clocks in the 60's.

French, fine movement, marble case, porcelain enamel dial:


American (Ansonia), production movement, japanned wood case, paper dial:


Rick "not his, but has several like these" Denney

[tribe125]

• Rolex had sister brands before Tudor. There was Marconi, Unicorn, RolCo, and the Oyster Watch Company. They were Rolex products but not Rolexes. Unlike Tudor they were not sold by Rolex agents. Hans Wilsdorf also registered ‘Omigra’ but thought better of it.

• SSIH, the company that included Omega and Tissot, managed its own distribution in some countries but worked through agents in others. Some agents were allowed to contract with outside manufacturers to build their own Omegas.

• Production of the Patek Philippe Nautilus will be stopped. President Thierry Stern just needs to decide when, because he believes that making too many would be dangerous. Clients won’t like it “but we would have made enough Nautilus and we will introduce something better”.

• Seiko made the first quartz watch but didn’t patent any of its technology. Seiko thought it was more important to establish a world standard.

• The legendary Breguet Type XX of the 1950s and 60s had an identical twin - the Mathey-Tissot Type XX. The Breguet was a Mathey-Tissot made for Breguet. Still based in France, Breguet was fulfilling a French military contract.

[Rdenney]

• Rolex had sister brands before Tudor. There was Marconi, Unicorn, RolCo, and the Oyster Watch Company. They were Rolex products but not Rolexes. Unlike Tudor they were not sold by Rolex agents. Hans Wilsdorf also registered ‘Omigra’ but thought better of it.

• SSIH, the company that included Omega and Tissot, managed its own distribution in some countries but worked through agents in others. Some agents were allowed to contract with outside manufacturers to build their own Omegas.

• Production of the Patek Philippe Nautilus will be stopped. President Thierry Stern just needs to decide when, because he believes that making too many would be dangerous. Clients won’t like it “but we would have made enough Nautilus and we will introduce something better”.

• Seiko made the first quartz watch but didn’t patent any of its technology. Seiko thought it was more important to establish a world standard.

• The legendary Breguet Type XX of the 1950s and 60s had an identical twin - the Mathey-Tissot Type XX. The Breguet was a Mathey-Tissot made for Breguet. Still based in France, Breguet was fulfilling a French military contract.

Seiko might have had some trouble with prior art. The Swiss were developing the quartz watch in parallel to Seiko, based on their own R&D going back well into the 50's. The Beta 21 had working prototypes in 1967, using technology not borrowed from Seiko-Epson. Though the Astron was first to market, it's unlikely that Seiko could have patented tge basic approach, and quartz would wristwatches would have happened by no later than 1970 even without Seiko.

Girard-Perregaux, in 1971, introduced the first fully mature quartz movement, running at 32 KHz and using a stepper motor. The logic chip was made by Motorola. The research leading to that didn't depend on Seiko's IP gift to the world.

The Quartz Crisis wasn't about quartz, it was about cheap quartz, and that didn't blossom until the late 70's. That killed cheap pin-lever mechanical watches, which were the cash cow of the Swiss industry. It was also about global economic troubles, the Energy Crisis and the protest movement, all of which put a big dent in the luxury market.

But Seiko knew how to produce them cheaply sooner than anyone.

Rick "there's always more to the story" Denney

[tribe125]

• The Cartier Tank might not have been inspired by a tank, whatever Louis Cartier might have said. Historians are sceptical because there was no mention of ‘tank’ when the watch was introduced. Louis Cartier liked the grid patterns of modernism and the Tank was an evolution of the Santos without curves. Cartier calls the side pieces ‘brancards’ or stretchers, meaning a brace used to extend or support a framework. Nobody knows who came up with the ‘tank’ nickname but Louis Cartier saw that it had promotional value in the years immediately following the conclusion of World War I.

• The Swiss reacted to quartz by retreating. They thought there was no margin in competing with Japan and Hong Kong. As the Swiss retreated, the Japanese moved up to the next level. Nicolas Hayek said the Swiss had to compete at every level. The Swatch was made with little human input, meaning that Swiss labour-rates were almost irrelevant.

• Patek Philippe once had to melt down gold watch cases to pay its workers. The company was rescued by its dial maker, Fabrique de Cadran Stern Frères. The Stern family still own the company today.

• Breguet gave up watchmaking to work on electric clocks and the electric telegraph. Breguet’s grandson, that is. In 1856, Louis-Clément Breguet made an electric clock with a tuning fork regulator. Almost a hundred years later, Swiss engineer Max Hetzel used the tuning fork principle in the Bulova Accutron. Louis-Clément sold the Breguet watchmaking business to English watchmaker Edward Brown, Breguet’s Assistant Director. The Brown family then owned Breguet for longer than the Breguet family. At one point, they wanted George Daniels to run the company but he turned them down, preferring the sound of ‘Daniels of London’ to ‘Breguet of Paris’.

• Retail price maintenance, which includes the practice of a watch company limiting or barring discounts, is illegal in Britain and Europe. Regulators can impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s worldwide group turnover. Which makes you wonder.

[Strela167]

Don't know how you keep finding these snips , but brill

Used to think Russkie and Chinese as pour until saw the light, swizzzz is showing more and more to be a con, pity, but marketing, perhaps same as the ever increasing depths of divers, well so be it

[TigerDore]

Whose boat?

Youse boat. ... How youse doin'?

[tribe125]

Don't know how you keep finding these snips , but brill

Used to think Russkie and Chinese as pour until saw the light, swizzzz is showing more and more to be a con, pity, but marketing, perhaps same as the ever increasing depths of divers, well so be it

I will run out at some point but I’ve got enough to keep going for a while yet. Many of them actually come from interviews with CEOs and owners of watch companies. They’re usually pretty frank and matter-of-fact when talking to people who know the industry, especially when referring to past events. Most of the Omega tidbits, for example, came from Nicolas Hayek.

I wouldn’t actually subscribe to the ‘Swizz’ point of view. The watch industry is like any other industry promoting its products. It’s largely decent and truthful, but it’s not going to go out of its way to correct flattering misconceptions. In fact, watch enthusiasts are probably responsible for more misinformation than watch companies.