Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

Thirdfox

Ball is Chinese now.

As is Universal Geneve btw (found that out when I was looking into the UG 101 Microtor relaunch) - HK specifically.

One new(ish) US microbrand that people have a lot of love for is Monta - which kinda aims at Omega finishing but at 1-2k usd pricing and without their in-house movement (though just today I was talking about how "in-house" doesn't mean much by itself - Sea-Gull, Citizen and Seiko all have in-house movements too )

Nodus in my recollection is US based too and targets a $500-700 audience.

Cyclingtourist

dakar wrote: »

What’s the state of the US watch industry at the moment? Hamilton is part of the Swatch group, right?

Right. The American watch was the the Chinese watch of its day.

BTW I was scratching an itch (Hamilton Khaki Mechanical) in bed last night and ended up buying a Timex Weekender. Timex (Waterbury Watch Co.) are still nominally American but the holding company is registered in the Netherlands and the watches made (assembled?) in the Philippines. I know the itch will return and I will probably get the Khaki before the year's out.

Fitz II

Wibbs

Cyclingtourist wrote: »

Right. The American watch was the the Chinese watch of its day.

OK yeah for brands like Timex, but American watchmaking was regularly some of the best in the world and blew the Swiss into the weeds. This was most certainly the case in the 19th century. The Yanks pretty much invented standardised parts for watch movements while the Swiss were still making bits to fit individual movements(the American firearms industry was likely an influence). Longines was one of the first to spot this American innovation and implement it. IWC came later to the same conclusion. Indeed IWC was founded by an American, who wanted to mic superior US manufacturing tech with the abundance and lower wages of Swiss watchmakers.

A late 19th century American pocketwatch was on average far superior and cheaper than Swiss offerings. When the wristwatch took off again the Americans were in the game, innovating along the way and again had better movements. In many ways they were a very separate entity to the Swiss and since the Swiss marketing machine got better and better and started to innovate more the Americans got left behind in many ways.

That said they were in the game on styling and they rolled out the first electronic movements, the most successful of which was the Accutron. Invented by a Swiss, but he couldn't get arrested there. When quartz came along the Americans were again in the vanguard, with the vast majority of quartz at the start using US developed and manufactured chips.

Then digitals LED at first(with some oddballs in the mix) then LCD came along and that was almost exclusively an American idea at the start, whereas the Swiss were completely lost at that stage. Then the Japanese made them much cheaper which killed both markets. It wasn't a "quartz crisis" so much as a "digital crisis", with a side order of a bad currency exchange rate.

IMHO too often the "Swiss Watch(tm)" marketing stuff gets in the way of appreciating the watchmakers and innovations of the US, UK, France and Germany and of course Japan, but they caught up and heavily competed with them and essentially rocked the Swiss industry to its very core, only for them to rise phoenix like with the resurgence and marketing of mechanical watches as authentic.

banie01

Wibbs, by some weird synchronicity!
I'm currently reading a book on the technological advancements wrought by the US civil war.

The hypothesis is basically the Springfield armoury and it's work in standardisation, repeatability and interchangeable parts pre-war.
Set the stage for explosive growth in "standards" based mass production.
Particularly after the loss of Harper's ferry and it's machinery early on.

The outbreak of war, the need for private manufacturers to meet the spec, the immediate sharing of method and gauges by the Springfield armoury with companies who had no prior firearms experience along with the concentration of American tool making and precision industry in the N.E particularly Connecticut led to a huge knowledge transfer and explosion in manufacturing capability and quality.

I had been aware of Armstrong and the credit afforded him for standardisation, especially screws and dies.
But, seems he really was just copying the American system.
Very interesting demonstration of successful public research and private enterprise synergy.

banie01

Book is called Astride Two Worlds - Technology and the American Civil War.

If any other nerds want it drop me a pm, I have it on an .epub.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

.......
IMHO too often the "Swiss Watch(tm)" marketing stuff gets in the way of appreciating the watchmakers and innovations of the US, UK, France and Germany and of course Japan, but they caught up and heavily competed with them and essentially rocked the Swiss industry to its very core, only for them to rise phoenix like with the resurgence and marketing of mechanical watches as authentic.

Indeed, stumbled across this on a Northampton shoemakers site where they were spotlighting other UK brands/affiliates....

The art of watchmaking has formed part of British manufacturing for hundreds of years. In 1800, an incredible 200,000 pieces were crafted on British territory by British watchmakers, which equated to around half of the world’s produced pieces. A staggering 60-70% of the innovation in a typical modern mechanical watch has come from Britain, which illustrates just how much craft and key innovation came from our shores.

https://www.cheaney.co.uk/blog/the-british-collective-bremont-chronometers/

Dunno anything about Bremont but they make them very buyable with 48 months interest free credit for UK residents. No doubt it's built into the price but still, makes pulling the trigger easier and is likely to sway folk in their direction.

893bet

Wrong thresd

Apologies

hitemfrank

Augeo wrote: »

Apologies

I'm confident he didn't mean you. I think he thought he was posting in a different thread

Fitz II

hitemfrank wrote: »

I'm confident he didn't mean you. I think he thought he was posting in a different thread

He posted something about missing going out dogging with COVID lockdown, deleted it and left the "wrong thread" message.....

893bet

I'm confident he didn't mean you. I think he thought he was posting in a different thread

Yes. Bumped wrong thread and did ninja edit.

Fitz II wrote: »

He posted something about missing going out dogging with COVID lockdown, deleted it and left the "wrong thread" message.....

Not ninja enough though.

Cyclingtourist

Fitz II wrote: »

He posted something about missing going out dogging with COVID lockdown, deleted it and left the "wrong thread" message.....

There's a 'dogging' thread?

banie01

Cyclingtourist wrote: »

There's a 'dogging' thread?

I dunno what kind of beour you'd get wanting a crossbar tho CT :P

893bet

banie01 wrote: »

I dunno what kind of beour you'd get wanting a crossbar tho CT :P

There is a joke about getting a flat and getting pumped etc.

banie01

893bet wrote: »

There is a joke about getting a flat and getting pumped etc.

Gashed tyres and rubbers, stick an auld patch on that :pac:

46 Long

Any experiences with adding AR coating to a watch crystal, or am I better off just replacing the crystal altogether? I've settled on a Hamilton Khaki auto as my daily wear but the lack of AR coating is driving me nuts.

Cyclingtourist

I see the CEO of Australia's version of an Post has been forced to resign because she gifted Cartier watches to four employees as a 'work reward' in 2018, acknowledging it didn't pass 'the pub test'. One for Archie Luxury no doubt....ROLEX.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54775199

I got a €200 gift voucher when I retired which might have got me a Seiko diver at the time.

Anyone here given a luxury watch for 'services rendered'?

unkel

I'll get a kick in the hole from my employer if I ever even mention the word "retire"

But yeah, she rightly resigned. It's always easy to play Santa Claus with other people's money :mad:

Thirdfox

Here's my tax lawyer head rearing itself - people can get a €500 voucher/gift card absolutely tax free every year from their employers - often given at Christmas which makes shopping a little easier - can't be in the form of cash (which would be subject to income tax) - but one4all/visa/mastercard gift card is pretty much as good as cash anyway.

It's "up to" - so even if employers don't want to necessarily give 500 - a different amount (if it's coming as a "Christmas" bonus etc.) taking the form of the voucher would mean the employee gets more in the pocket.

If anyone wants to send their HR a link - here's the Revenue form:
https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/benefit-in-kind-for-employers/valuation-of-benefits/small-benefit-exemption.aspx

Decent for the employer also as employer PRSI isn't applicable to these up to €500 gifts.

Cyrus

Thirdfox wrote: »

Here's my tax lawyer head rearing itself - people can get a €500 voucher/gift card absolutely tax free every year from their employers - often given at Christmas which makes shopping a little easier - can't be in the form of cash (which would be subject to income tax) - but one4all/visa/mastercard gift card is pretty much as good as cash anyway.

It's "up to" - so even if employers don't want to necessarily give 500 - a different amount (if it's coming as a "Christmas" bonus etc.) taking the form of the voucher would mean the employee gets more in the pocket.

If anyone wants to send their HR a link - here's the Revenue form:
https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/benefit-in-kind-for-employers/valuation-of-benefits/small-benefit-exemption.aspx

yep we do it here every year at christmas, it is well received :P

hitemfrank

I got one of those 500 euro vouchers from my employer 7 months after I started as a Christmas bonus, as the department I work in was really busy so putting in long hours.

Have gotten **** all else in the 4 years since.

banie01

Cyclingtourist wrote: »

I got a €200 gift voucher when I retired which might have got me a Seiko diver at the time.

Anyone here given a luxury watch for 'services rendered'?

I got a clock from Dell, it's quite pretty for a quartz mantel clock.
Inscribed brass plaque with a 0.2c diamond on it too! How fancy! :pac:
They actually paid great performance and recognition bonuses too.




I also have some lovely big crystal cubes from my last employer, they also came with lovely cheques!
But don't tell time
If I actually give it a little thought, performance and recognition bonuses were always a constant top up to my salaries over my working life.
Always look busy, even if you don't know what you're doing :P
Looking busy stands out! :P

Cyclingtourist

Being able to retire was bonus enough for me, beats sitting outside a church with a paper cup or selling lottery tickets on the street like some people do in Spain.

Being able to afford the odd ****ter and go cycling when I want is great. Honestly most Irish people don't know how well off they are.

C0N0R

Was at a retirement a few weeks ago, omega box was presented to him, didn’t get to see the model!

IrishPlayer

Sticking with clocks, recently came across this interesting blog about a guy restoring a Boeing 707 cockpit and making it into his own simulator :cool: [Link]

I noticed one of the parts he is looking for is this cool Sinn Nabo 18 Borduhr cockpit clock



Found some cockpit clocks made by Seiko during WW2, a Seikosha clock that was fitted to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero [Link], interesting blog relating to Seikosha military clocks and watches [Link]



And for German aircraft, another fantastic blog showing the different clocks fitted to the various aircraft [Link]

Wibbs

Here's a pair of mine(ooh er missus!).



French Dodane Type II and a Soviet chrono. I gave the latter away to a charity raffle ages ago. The Dodane I still have. They were fitted to all sorts of French aircraft, helicopters, fast jets, transports, nearly all military. They also made wristwatch chronographs for the French military. Very reminiscent of the German types above. Mine runs really well, but is missing its chronograph pusher. The Dodane company is a family run biz and is still going. One of these days when my beer tokens have gone to servicing a couple of my watches and have any left over I'll send it back to them for a refresh.

Lorddrakul

Revue Thommen has a history of cockpit instruments and chronometers too.

Proper aviation heritage behind their watches.

IrishPlayer

It's great when different interests cross over, I mentioned before that I watch videos about abandoned shopping malls/retail in America. Just after going on to YouTube now and got a recommendation for a repair video for a dive watch made in Switzerland under the name Tradition for a well known retailer in the US called Sears

An Advert for Stellaris watches another brand owned by Sears, Roebuck & Co [Link]



A video relating to the history of Sears

Another very interesting watch made for Sears by Heuer



Known as the Jacky Ickx Easy-Rider after the Formula 1 driver.



Great write up calibre11 relating to him and the watch [Link] An example that recently sold on eBay [Link]

Must have a look around flea markets/GoodWill next time I'm in America