So why is it that practical people still want movements which are in-house made? Often much better and more reliable or serviceable than in-house made movements. So why, then, are we so obsessed with mechanical movements? Another, more complex, irony is that many of the “sourced” watch movements that companies buy from major suppliers are very good. Arguably the most accurate and reliable watches are quartz-powered. For example, when you get a watch, you want something that is accurate and reliable. In fact, movements are at the heart of a great irony or contradiction of being a watch lover.
This is a question I ask myself often, as the placement of an in-house made movement in a watch is not always a good or desirable thing.
As I hope you can see, there is an issue in the industry regarding the existence of a generally agreed upon naming convention to indicate whether or not, or to what degree, a movement is made in-house.įor this movement TAG Heuer sourced the base movement design from another watchmaking company but actually produces these movements in-house. It also opens the door for brands who clearly do not produce in-house made movements to refer to their movements in a misleading manner. If you are a watch company, and want to tout your movements as “in-house,” there aren’t really a set of guidelines on what that exactly means. Someone recently rhetorically asked me, “what does in-house even mean? So many people are using it, when they don’t make their own parts!” In many ways, the question is sound.
One of the main reasons is the existence of “plausible deniability” in regard to what the term “in-house” or “in-house made” even means. Why does aBlogtoWatch feel the need to do this? Well, that is a good question. In fact, this entire article is about putting down a set of terms and guidelines for brands to follow when describing the movements inside of their watches. Watch makers are notoriously misleading when it comes to discussing the origins and nature of their watch movements. Why is that important to mention? Because, in the watch world, the “holy grail” for any brand is to produce their movements entirely in-house, even though that is rarely actually achieved. There are very few companies out there that are able to produce all of the parts needed to make a complete watch movement. Many of these parts are highly specialized, and most are very small. Some movements have fewer parts, but many have a lot more. You have to understand that even your basic mechanical watch movement has over 100 parts. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of companies out there making watches, but only a handful that are producing movements, especially mechanical ones. Furthermore, we will be focused on discussing mechanical watch movements, rather than quartz ones.īremont’s partially in-house made movement uses a combination of Swiss and English-made parts. Unlike most of the articles on aBlogtoWatch, intended for mainly consumers and watch collectors, this article is something we want watch lovers to comment on, but is actually intended as a message to the watch industry itself. Specifically, we want to define how watch makers and companies should describe and/or name the watch movements they use. Today, we will be discussing a very important matter concerning watch movements: who made them, and where they come from. Like car engines, when it comes to watch movements, there is no lack of topics to discuss. Drawing an analogy from the world of cars, you don’t necessarily buy a new vehicle simply because of the engine inside of it and its claimed performance, but because of the complete design, driving experience, and mechanical performance put together. Watch movements are generally classified as mechanical or quartz (electronic), and are, in many ways, what draw people to purchase or desire a particular timepiece.
The movement of a watch is the engine inside of it which “makes it work.” I understand that novices to the world of watches may not even be aware of what “watch movement” means. A few small parts today may still come from niche third-party Swiss suppliers. Rolex currently produces in-house made movements for their entire watch collection, but that wasn’t always the case.
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