Watches! What do y'all have on your wrists?

[rdenney]

And let's not forget that many brands are somewhat artificial marketing constructs that are firmly integrated into very large luxury conglomerates and leverage economies of scale. It's basically all about Swatch Group, LVMH, Richemont and Rolex.

Don't forget Seiko and Citizen--Seiko is just about as big as the Swatch Group. Both also have luxury sub-brands (Grand Seiko and Credor for Seiko, and the British Masters, Frederique Constant, and Bulova for Citizen). Even Fossil has Zodiac, Michelle and others. And MGI has Movado, Ebel, and Concord among others at lower price points. Sowind, too (Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin). The independents tend to be either extremely high-end or micro-brands that buy movements and parts out of catalogs for the most part.

There are many brands that new investors re-created from nothing long after they disappeared, but actually most of the ones we've been talking about have operated more or less continuously, though none still under founding family control. Some are made-up names (Frederique Constant, Maurice Lacroix) and some have made-up histories. I think Ebel may be the last of those we've been discussing that was family-controlled--Blum (the B in EBEL) was pushed out by his investors in 1995. But it's a business like audio, with a cast of characters who are larger than life. The major Swiss brands are quite often still using their traditional buildings, even if they also have modern factories. Driving around Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds is really interesting for watch geeks.

Rick "did that about a decade back" Denney

 

[Doodski]

Don't forget Seiko and Citizen--Seiko is just about as big as the Swatch Group. Both also have luxury sub-brands (Grand Seiko and Credor for Seiko, and the British Masters, Frederique Constant, and Bulova for Citizen). Even Fossil has Zodiac, Michelle and others. And MGI has Movado, Ebel, and Concord among others at lower price points. Sowind, too (Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin). The independents tend to be either extremely high-end or micro-brands that buy movements and parts out of catalogs for the most part.

There are many brands that new investors re-created from nothing long after they disappeared, but actually most of the ones we've been talking about have operated more or less continuously, though none still under founding family control. Some are made-up names (Frederique Constant, Maurice Lacroix) and some have made-up histories. I think Ebel may be the last of those we've been discussing that was family-controlled--Blum (the B in EBEL) was pushed out by his investors in 1995. But it's a business like audio, with a cast of characters who are larger than life. The major Swiss brands are quite often still using their traditional buildings, even if they also have modern factories. Driving around Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds is really interesting for watch geeks.

Rick "did that about a decade back" Denney

Rick it is very obvious after reading all your very interesting and knowledgeable comments over the years about watches and all it's related matters that you are a absolute authority on the matters. Have you considered writing a book(s) on this stuff?

 

[HedgeHog]

General public? I've never encountered any awareness of watch brands as "obscure" as Panerai in the general public, except maybe among young, male Stallone fans. Watch enthusiasts are all over the map with Panerai, just as with, say, TAG-Heuer. The enthusiast community, in my view, goes nuts over minor infractions of the watch idiot savant code, which is that a movement is not a legitimate in-house movement if any part of it resembles any part of a movement made by a disrespected brand, and if the company CEO misdescribes that, he should be taken out and shot. In Heuer's case, that was Seiko's technology that Heuer licensed for the 1885, and in Panerai's case, it was ETA. But it's highly likely that the common 2892 is a more refined movement that is thinner, more accurate, easier to own, and cheaper to keep serviced than whatever customization Panerai's movement contractor constructs just for them.

And then there was the anti-Stallone crowd--watch people are utterly quixotic about who they will and won't accept as spokespeople for watch brands. Somehow, Stallone was on the unacceptable list. And Panerai was accused of being a ghost brand, which is true, but some ghost brands get nothing but favor. Go figure. Watch enthusiasts are crazy. You won't see very many recent posts from me on Watch-U-Seek because of that--I just got tired of it.

Rick "would still like to own a Luminor GMT" Denney

I don't recall the general Stallone hate. Afterall, he made Panerais noticeable. Then Arnold also did the big dials. Mind you, I was in the garden wall of the Paneristi forum so my "general public" is quite limited. I think the hate from that group for Stallone was when he switched to Bell & Ross or Graham or some other brand.

TAG hate was weird. They are my entry to watch collecting but everyone "watch connoisseur" pooh-poohs them. Actually, I bought the F1 Kirium (looks great) but I get the hate on that...quartz on a TAG. ZOIKS.

 

[JiiPee]

In every hobby, there are some who take it a bit too seriously and look at it as it was a kind of religion with it's own holy rules that define what is good and what is evil. When it comes to watch collecting, arguably the most vocal orthodoxy usually demands things like:
- The watchmaking company should have a continuous history going back to at least 100 years.
- They should never ever have produced a watch that did not contain an in-house designed and manufactured movement.
- They should only produce watches with the most elaborate hand-made finishing.
- They should have extremely complicated movements in their product portfolio.
- They should never use any celebrities in their marketing, and they should never sell their watches to hoi-polloi. Instead they should concentrate to serve the faithful followers of watchmaking orthodoxy.

 

[JiiPee]

I'm wearing this one today (although the photo is old)

With the appropriate cufflinks, ofcourse ...

 

[rdenney]

Rick it is very obvious after reading all your very interesting and knowledgeable comments over the years about watches and all it's related matters that you are a absolute authority on the matters. Have you considered writing a book(s) on this stuff?

It's not the first time that suggestion has been made to me. But I think my knowledge is too scattered and derivative, and I have too little industry access to bolster it with inside information. And I simply can't afford to keep up with the guys at the deep end.

Example: A fellow wrote an article about Ebel on the Phillips Auction website last year, Here. I found out later that the author, Logan Baker, is a friend of a friend, but I had no idea he'd written this article before it was posted. In it, he credits me (and Ebel has been my special study as a watch collector, even to the extent of searching the French-speaking media of northwestern Switzerland and painstakingly translating it, given that I have no French), but his example collector was Alfredo Paramico, who swims very much at the deep end while I paddle around in the kiddie pool. I have examples of many of the watches pictured in that article, but mine are steel and bought preowned or as overstocks while his are platinum or gold and probably acquired a vastly higher price points. He would be far more likely to have access to the MGI hierarchy than I would, or even to be able to correspond with Pierre-Alain Blum. It's just the way the industry works. Logan himself would have considerable access I would not have.

And beyond Ebel, in every avenue of interest about watches that I have explored there are those before me whose work is already available.

But I have thought about it and I do have a library of notes from sources that are no longer available, so who knows what I might decide to undertake when I retire. I think, though, it would take me coming upon some central idea that had never been explored.

Rick "just a dilletante" Denney

 

[rdenney]

TAG hate was weird. They are my entry to watch collecting but everyone "watch connoisseur" pooh-poohs them. Actually, I bought the F1 Kirium (looks great) but I get the hate on that...quartz on a TAG. ZOIKS.

Yeah--I tell people that Heuer was owned by the Piaget family, who save them--and Lemania--from collapse in the early 80's, but sold them in 1986 when Piaget was acquired by Cartier du Monde to build the conglomerate that became Richemont. Cartier did not want Heuer, and sold half of it to TAG and a quarter of it to...Ebel. Eddy Schöpfer, who designed the original Ebel Sport Classic with its wave bracelet, also designed the TAG-Heuer Link. A few years later, Ebel was acquired by Investcorp (who had already acquired Lemania and Breguet) and in 1999 sold Ebel to LVMH, who already owned the former TAG-owned portion of Heuer. That gave LVMH complete control over Heuer, which I think was their target, and they let Ebel languish. Blum tried to buy Ebel back in 2004 but Gerry Grinberg of the Movado Group beat him to it. For some reason, the Heuer haters think Heuer somehow had a different sort of history than other Swiss brands, all of which (with very few exceptions) have a long history of M&A, good, bad or indifferent. Maybe it's the TAG on the logo, but I really think it's because they made popular quartz watches and being popular with the general public is antithetical to the watch-idiot-savant syndrome. I think the controversy over the caliber 1885 was a result of that disparagement rather than a cause of it, but that's just my impression.

I own a ca. 1996 Heuer Carrera 1963 Re-Edition and a recent caliber-12 Monaco, both of which I think are quite true to the originals in concept, and really far better in execution than the originals ever were.

Rick "people complain about the prices of TAG-Heuers and then go buy a preowned Rolex Submariner at higher than original retail " Denney

 

[rdenney]

In every hobby, there are some who take it a bit too seriously and look at it as it was a kind of religion with it's own holy rules that define what is good and what is evil. When it comes to watch collecting, arguably the most vocal orthodoxy usually demands things like:
- The watchmaking company should have a continuous history going back to at least 100 years.
- They should never ever have produced a watch that did not contain an in-house designed and manufactured movement.
- They should only produce watches with the most elaborate hand-made finishing.
- They should have extremely complicated movements in their product portfolio.
- They should never use any celebrities in their marketing, and they should never sell their watches to hoi-polloi. Instead they should concentrate to serve the faithful followers of watchmaking orthodoxy.

Of course, that means they should buy only a Patek-Philippe Calatrava or a Vacheron-Constantin Traditionelle. (I think those don't use LeCoultre ebauches, but I may be wrong there.) Or a watch from the very high end like F. P. Journe, though Francois-Paul Journe certainly has not been in business for a hundred years. Those are the only examples I can think of that are generally available and meet most all those requirements. Maybe a Jaeger-LeCoultre, though the hand-finishing on those still isn't at the level of PP, VC, or AP. They think their rules are even possible for watches price below five figures. Sigh. Even companies like Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin don't have that level of hand-finishing, and those do not retail below five figures (but do present unique buying opportunities on the used market). GP and UN use manufacture movements that they actually do make themselves (as does Zenith), but none of them can fully claim in-house design--there is too much that is in the public domain and entirely derivative about mechanical watches, and the cost of starting from scratch is enormous.

Aside: The real advancements in the technology of mechanical watches have been in factory tooling. Rolex has 5 and 6-axis CNC milling centers that are the size of trucks, all lined up in their SOTA factory on the Solothurnstrasse in Biel-Bienne. They developed those themselves, but need them for their production scale, which is close to a million movements a year. Zenith has a 5-axis CNC milling center in its factory in Le Locle, but it's tiny in comparison and still requires a lot of supervision by technicians. But they only make 30 or 40 thousand movements a year. ETA's (part of Swatch) production capability is huge in scale and highly advanced.

Mostly, American collectors simply do not understand how the Swiss do business as an interdependent national collective to a vastly greater extent than U.S. companies. They are more like the Japanese in that regard.

By the way, even fulfilling most of that list of requirements won't ensure success. Ebel, under Movado:

- Continuous history going back to 1911, and family owned far longer than most Swiss watch companies.
- Yes, they produced watches with supplied movements, but so did everybody. Even Patek-Philippe used LeCoultre and Valjoux movements routinely. But Ebel also produced their own chronograph movement, every one of which was certified by COSC, from 1995 to 2012. But their most collectible models used Zenith movements. Go figure.
- Hand-finishing? Yes, consistent with their price point, and certainly better than, say, Rolex (who ain't bad by any means).
- They had every kind of complication in their lineup from two-hand dress watches to quantiemme perpetual-calendar chronographs, and everything in between.
- Well, they did use celebrities in their marketing, but they were sponsoring golf tournaments right alongside Rolex and Patek-Philippe.

But they have never concentrated on marketing to the keepers of the sacred flame, and that's been their downfall in the enthusiast community. And they are American-owned (the Movado Group is headquartered in Paramus, NJ, though the luxury brands are formally made by the MGI Luxury Group, S.A., in Biel-Bienne.) Movado (but not Ebel or Concord) was in department stores when such existed and is an aspirational brand for the middle class, and that was indeed the kiss of death. Are they making a comeback among collectors? My heirs sure hope so

Rick "owns 25 Ebels but lots of other brands, too" Denney

 

[Doodski]

It's not the first time that suggestion has been made to me. But I think my knowledge is too scattered and derivative, and I have too little industry access to bolster it with inside information. And I simply can't afford to keep up with the guys at the deep end.

Example: A fellow wrote an article about Ebel on the Phillips Auction website last year, Here. I found out later that the author, Logan Baker, is a friend of a friend, but I had no idea he'd written this article before it was posted. In it, he credits me (and Ebel has been my special study as a watch collector, even to the extent of searching the French-speaking media of northwestern Switzerland and painstakingly translating it, given that I have no French), but his example collector was Alfredo Paramico, who swims very much at the deep end while I paddle around in the kiddie pool. I have examples of many of the watches pictured in that article, but mine are steel and bought preowned or as overstocks while his are platinum or gold and probably acquired a vastly higher price points. He would be far more likely to have access to the MGI hierarchy than I would, or even to be able to correspond with Pierre-Alain Blum. It's just the way the industry works. Logan himself would have considerable access I would not have.

And beyond Ebel, in every avenue of interest about watches that I have explored there are those before me whose work is already available.

But I have thought about it and I do have a library of notes from sources that are no longer available, so who knows what I might decide to undertake when I retire. I think, though, it would take me coming upon some central idea that had never been explored.

Rick "just a dilletante" Denney

Well... I am not a watch hobbyist aficionado etc but I do have a interest in historical storytelling and interesting timelines about stuff when it is told in a manner that makes it personal and involving. A perfect example is the old TV show about British Columbia Canada gold mines and ghost towns that was on TV. Usually I consider all those old colored bottles that people collect from that period as garbage dump find crap, the fighting in saloons and all the gold miner stuff that occurred to be very simple stuff. For some reason(s) the method of the storytelling and the mood of it made me watch it regularly. Usually I would not even bother thinking about watch history, styles, brand owners, evolution and all the stuff you do think about and somehow you get in my mind and I am intrigued, interested and read your watch commentary and enjoy reading it. Maybe some people are swimming in the Olympic swimming pool but you have a certain method that makes it all that much better.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Those are the only examples I can think of that are generally available and meet most all those requirements.

this is a fun read

https://frodsham.com/wristwatch/index.php

 

[JiiPee]

Of course, that means they should buy only a Patek-Philippe Calatrava or a Vacheron-Constantin Traditionelle. (I think those don't use LeCoultre ebauches, but I may be wrong there.) Or a watch from the very high end like F. P. Journe, though Francois-Paul Journe certainly has not been in business for a hundred years. Those are the only examples I can think of that are generally available and meet most all those requirements. Maybe a Jaeger-LeCoultre, though the hand-finishing on those still isn't at the level of PP, VC, or AP. They think their rules are even possible for watches price below five figures. Sigh. Even companies like Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin don't have that level of hand-finishing, and those do not retail below five figures (but do present unique buying opportunities on the used market). GP and UN use manufacture movements that they actually do make themselves (as does Zenith), but none of them can fully claim in-house design--there is too much that is in the public domain and entirely derivative about mechanical watches, and the cost of starting from scratch is enormous.

Aside: The real advancements in the technology of mechanical watches have been in factory tooling. Rolex has 5 and 6-axis CNC milling centers that are the size of trucks, all lined up in their SOTA factory on the Solothurnstrasse in Biel-Bienne. They developed those themselves, but need them for their production scale, which is close to a million movements a year. Zenith has a 5-axis CNC milling center in its factory in Le Locle, but it's tiny in comparison and still requires a lot of supervision by technicians. But they only make 30 or 40 thousand movements a year. ETA's (part of Swatch) production capability is huge in scale and highly advanced.

Mostly, American collectors simply do not understand how the Swiss do business as an interdependent national collective to a vastly greater extent than U.S. companies. They are more like the Japanese in that regard.

By the way, even fulfilling most of that list of requirements won't ensure success. Ebel, under Movado:

- Continuous history going back to 1911, and family owned far longer than most Swiss watch companies.
- Yes, they produced watches with supplied movements, but so did everybody. Even Patek-Philippe used LeCoultre and Valjoux movements routinely. But Ebel also produced their own chronograph movement, every one of which was certified by COSC, from 1995 to 2012. But their most collectible models used Zenith movements. Go figure.
- Hand-finishing? Yes, consistent with their price point, and certainly better than, say, Rolex (who ain't bad by any means).
- They had every kind of complication in their lineup from two-hand dress watches to quantiemme perpetual-calendar chronographs, and everything in between.
- Well, they did use celebrities in their marketing, but they were sponsoring golf tournaments right alongside Rolex and Patek-Philippe.

But they have never concentrated on marketing to the keepers of the sacred flame, and that's been their downfall in the enthusiast community. And they are American-owned (the Movado Group is headquartered in Paramus, NJ, though the luxury brands are formally made by the MGI Luxury Group, S.A., in Biel-Bienne.) Movado (but not Ebel or Concord) was in department stores when such existed and is an aspirational brand for the middle class, and that was indeed the kiss of death. Are they making a comeback among collectors? My heirs sure hope so

Rick "owns 25 Ebels but lots of other brands, too" Denney

I'm not aware of any Swiss brand that would meet every criteria in my list, which just shows the silliness of the snobisme. JLC is often mentioned as an example of in-house only purity, but even they have used at least the perpetual calendar module from IWC. And of course, JLC does not take the hand finishing to the extreme level.

Most high prestige brands used outsourced chronogrpah movements in the past, and ironically those chronograph specialists were eventually either bought/merged with other brands (Martel, Valjoux, Lemania, Venus...) or they went into bancrupty (like Excelsior Park).

Some highly respected old brands like Longines and Eterna still exist, but their glory days are over as they morphed into a kind of middle of the road brands.

I'm not an Ebel expert, but imho they failed in two important areas: 1. Brand image - They are generally seen more as a fashion oriented brand, than a "serious high-end watchmaker", and 2. They lack a halo product in their portfolio i.e. a model that would be widely known as desirable, and consequently generate prestige for the whole brand.

 

[rdenney]

this is a fun read

https://frodsham.com/wristwatch/index.php

I wish they had a picture of the assembled movement, so I could get a sense of how they arrange the two trains of wheels. I don't quite get why they would double-pulse from one balance wheel when two balance wheels would vibrate sympathetically and offset each other's errors. (LeCoultre has a movement of that type.) But I don't have George Daniels's book, and it's probably described there.

I also didn't see prices, but I have this feeling that one would need to bring their checkbook.

Rick "the British have a long history of marine chronometry going back at least to John Harrison" Denney

 

[rdenney]

...

I'm not an Ebel expert, but imho they failed in two important areas: 1. Brand image - They are generally seen more as a fashion oriented brand, than a "serious high-end watchmaker", and 2. They lack a halo product in their portfolio i.e. a model that would be widely known as desirable, and consequently generate prestige for the whole brand.

That's the way they are perceived, but that's only been in the 21st Century. In the 90's and earlier, they were highly respected in the industry and by collectors and owners. I think it was Maximilian Büsser (of MB&F--very high end for those following along) whose first serious watch was an Ebel Chronograph which he still owns. Ebel was the "it" watch of the 80's and carried that into the 90's, but when they lost the leadership of Blum, they lost a lot. I do think MGI made a good run at it while Gerry Grinberg was alive, and the models they made in those years were unique and made very well, but MGI is rather corporate under his son Efraim. Ebels are downmarket from where they were, but they are still quality watches and enjoy a good service model. And in the U.S. (where MGI dumps their overstocks), they can often be had for a fraction of retail. Of course, that availability is one reason I have so many but also part of why they lost brand value. Under Blum, they would never have dumped overstocks like that.

MGI has had the same difficulty with Concord, another traditional Swiss manufacturer that Grinberg bought back in 1970 as the consolation prize after the first time he tried to buy Movado. (He succeeded in acquiring Movado in 1982.)

Blum, when he needed investors in 1992-1994 to save the watch company from his S&L-credit-crunch losses in unrelated investments, shopped Ebel to Cartier. Had that gone through, I think things would have turned out differently--Richemont respects the uniqueness and independence of its maisons more than the other groups. Also, Blum was very good friends with Alexander-Dominique Perrin, who was the architect of Cartier's reintegration into Cartier du Monde and retail comeback. But Cartier thought Ebel too similar to Cartier.

The Sport Classic was originally a high-end quartz watch, just like the original Hublot Fusion, and Ebel eventually built their own quartz-movement factory (and made movements for Cartier, too). Blum (No. 2 grandson of the founding couple--Eugen Blum and his wife Alice Levy) had a EE degree. The halo product was the Chronograph, with its Zenith movement, and which they put on Don Johnson's wrist in Miami Vice. That's the watch that Frank received as a gift from one of the drivers of his cars at Williams in thanks for a world championship. It sold (and sold out) for a price higher than a Rolex Daytona right up through 1994, even after Rolex started using the same Zenith movement. But Rolex crowded out Zenith's production and Ebel, being a much smaller company, needed a high-grade movement of more reliable supply. That's whey they adopted (and bought the rights to) their enhancement of Lemania's 1340 as used in the Omega Speedmaster Professional. Their chronographs used that movement until 2012, when they sold those rights to Ulysse Nardin.

Their current watches certainly do draw from the design language of their leading products from when they were one of the top five most important Swiss watch companies, and I would include that as a feature of companies representing the best of Swiss watchmaking. So many companies are making totally derivative designs borrowed from more expensive brands. Love them or hate them, the Sport Classic design is not derivative.

Who knows what might have happened had Blum been successful in reacquiring Ebel in 2004 rather than MGI. One thing is for sure: I would not own as many of them

Rick "paid 7.5 cents on the dollar for a new Perpetual Calendar Chronograph, and shudders to think of what servicing it will cost" Denney

 

[HedgeHog]

I own a ca. 1996 Heuer Carrera 1963 Re-Edition and a recent caliber-12 Monaco, both of which I think are quite true to the originals in concept, and really far better in execution than the originals ever were.

Rick "people complain about the prices of TAG-Heuers and then go buy a preowned Rolex Submariner at higher than original retail " Denney

Nice...I have the Carrera and Monaco too. Very nice pieces but they feel super light when compared wit tool watches.

 

[HedgeHog]

I'm wearing this one today (although the photo is old)
View attachment 486556

Love it. The back of the Portugieser are something to behold.

 

[rdenney]

Nice...I have the Carrera and Monaco too. Very nice pieces but they feel super light when compared wit tool watches.

The Carrera Re-Edition absolutely. It's 36mm and has an acrylic crystal, just like the original.

But the Monaco is a beast of early 70's McQueen Macho. I have a large wrist (has varied between 7.5 and 8" over the years) and it fits well as long as I'm wearing short sleeves.

Rick "only his Concord C1 Chronograph is noticeably chunkier" Denney

 

[A Surfer]

The Carrera Re-Edition absolutely. It's 36mm and has an acrylic crystal, just like the original.

But the Monaco is a beast of early 70's McQueen Macho. I have a large wrist (has varied between 7.5 and 8" over the years) and it fits well as long as I'm wearing short sleeves.

Rick "only his Concord C1 Chronograph is noticeably chunkier" Denney

That is a gorgeous watch. Amazing aesthetic.

 

[HedgeHog]

The Carrera Re-Edition absolutely. It's 36mm and has an acrylic crystal, just like the original.

But the Monaco is a beast of early 70's McQueen Macho. I have a large wrist (has varied between 7.5 and 8" over the years) and it fits well as long as I'm wearing short sleeves.

Rick "only his Concord C1 Chronograph is noticeably chunkier" Denney

Are chrono Monaco larger? Mine doesn't look that big. I like the Steve Mac one with the stripe.

 

[pablolie]

Are chrono Monaco larger? Mine doesn't look that big. I like the Steve Mac one with the stripe.

I think they are 39mm... which means they wear like a 42mm "traditional" watch... tastefully large but in no way huge. I settled into >44mm years ago, which is a bit unfortunate because large watches went out of fashion for many brands... but I prefer them and they look better on me. Of course, personal preference is our personal prerrogative and useless to argue about.
And keep in mind on-wrist watch photography can be quite misleading because of up-close photo distortion.

 

[A Surfer]

Yes larger watches good, small dainty watches no.