10 Dirty Watchmaking Secrets...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Here’s 10 dirty secrets that watchmakers use to make an extra buck! We’d all love a watch that does everything for nothing, but that’s just not going to happen. To make our watches cheaper, watch brands need to cut corners.
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Timex Q Timex Reissue TW2T807007U
Baltic MR01 Salmon
Christopher Ward Bel Canto
Zeroo Time T4 “The Archer”
Hanhart 417 ES 1954 39mmm
Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 T137.407.11.041.00
Furlan Marri Havana Salmon Ref.1031-A
CIGA Design Blue Planet
Seiko SNXS79
Breitling Premier B25 Datora 42 AB2510201K1P1
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Rolex has this interesting cost saving tactic in production where they just don't bother creating enough watches and leave their stores empty
Yeap, artificial scarcity.
You talk with some ADs however, they have stock, they are just very selective on who gets them.
@@gpaje theyll sell it to their customers who spent the most money while also having no history of flipping
Makes it more exclusive, and thus keeps the prices high. Classic tactic of luxury brands. Plus a lot of this falls on ADs trying to milk more money out of people by pushing them to spend on other things to get their dream watch.
@@gpaje I spoke to an AD while he was drunk on a night out and he spilled everything, they do indeed get some stock but it's the stuff nobody wants, even standard steel sports watches just don't come into the store without special order in quantities more than 3 or 4 a month, said he'd worked there 3 years and seen 3 Batman GMTs in person in that whole time
Edit: to be clear he said there were plenty of Explorers and the less popular models just nothing that gets the hype like Daytona's, GMTs, Subs
In this case, Seiko could give a whole Masterclass lecture.
Except Seiko isn't trying to pretend to be a high end option. 🤷♂️ much more egregious when actual high end brands do it.
Did you notice the hand finishing on that Seiko 5, though? It punches much above its weight class, for sure.
@@adamw.7169 yes it is Grand Seiko is exactly that
@@fark69 nope. Grand Seiko is a different company from Seiko. They've been independent since 2017. Besides, Grand Seiko is far from being one of the brands that cheap out. lol.
AP using stamping for their mega-tapiessere pattern in the RO dials.
F.P. Journe machine finishing their movements along with stamped dials.
Let's not forget 2022's biggest cost hack: remaking an iconic chronograph in cheap ceramic, slapping a luxury brand label, selling at well above the value mark and then limiting the availability to drive up hype.
Almost makes you want to howl at the Moon 😏
Luckily the superior Bulova Lunarpilot is coming in a smaller case size in 2023. Would rather have that than the moonswatch
That still angers me today. They made a bait and switch. I was ready to buy it when it would available online at the official store but then they made a 180 and said it's only available in store and made it limited. What a load of bull that was.
@@conyo985 I would probably buy the Alaska project one if it releases online. I'm not paying over asking price or going to a Swatch shop in another country for it.
I'm one of the "lucky" ones in that after months availability is finally getting better. Typical hunting time is 2 weekends to find the one you want, except for Neptune (impossible to find) and Mercury (sold out the quickest).
You missed the trick of not bothering to design a new watch and grabbing something from the back catalogue or indeed, someone else’s catalogue.
Well done, thank you. You touched briefly on the Timex (and older Rolex) bracelet manufacturing process-going cheap on the bracelet is still a tactic on higher end watches.
Rolled links are not really seen in higher end watches anymore. I pretty much exclusively see them on sub $150 Seikos
I got one: cam actuated instead of column wheel chronograph movement. Looking at you Omega
@watchfinder3 wouldn't it better to find a graceful job instead of scamming? Try it once
According to some illustrious luxury watches producers, another way to save money is to cut the man in the middle. Some of them have fancy misspelled italian names and the videos they produce to present their product, always shows big bags of $ in savings and crosses on the middlemen. That has to be true.
Another way to save money is using a lower grade, or the lowest grade possible on a "shelf-ready" movement. Such as standard and elabore grades on ETA and Sellitta movements.
How to explain Frederic Constant prices compared to other brands? I would like to see shown the FC Monolithic, very interesting!
Frederique Constant is fully made in China which cuts their costs. The company itself is based in Hong Kong.
@@fark69 strange to hear that. I had read the factory was in Swiss and there are even some video tours. Some parts i believe (same for other swiss manufacturers). And the headquarters, at least official is Geneva. Where did you get your information? Would be interesting to know more, thanks;)
@@fark69 HQ is Citizen
Enjoyed this!!! Thank you!!
Dont lie you enjoy only casio videos
@@krvav1 is that right Boris?;)
Hello. Can you do a review of the Edox Classe Royale triple calendar with moon phase? Its an old watch but i think it makes a viable JLC x Cartier love child. Thanks!
What do you think about brand Roamer?
I finally caught you on a mistake! (I'm way too excited about this, haha). You say car manufacturers like Zonda, but as I'm sure you know the brand is Pagani and the model is the Zonda.
In 1990 l bought the Speedmaster reduced with a leather stap. The supposedly metal buckle turned out to be chrome plated plastic ugh!
I really am wondering what 2 watches I'm getting for Xmas one Is old one is new
Printed dial v applied markers
It depends on the watch. Some applied indices are on the cheaper side, stamped through the dial with little to no finishing. While some printed dials are a bit more elaborate, like using a human or machine to fill in and wipe away paint.
Great content but could you please do something about the sound quality?
Very interesting and well produced video 👏
The finishing by hand is all fine and dandy but when a machine does almost as good of a job and saves you tons of cash then it's a no brainer.
I dunno, there’s something special about a A Lange & Sohne and knowing a highly skilled watch maker has worked for ages perfecting it.
That said, well well out of my budget, so I’ll take a mechanically made time piece anyways.
@@itsjustafad
Yes but I find the idea alone to spend on a watch the same amount as a luxury car costs absolutely mental.
@@itsjustafad but you can't tell that with your own eyes.
It is if you can't see the difference.
That Christopher Ward Bel Canto is beautiful.
Folded metal links (cough cough Rolex)
Solid case back (cough cough Rolex)
Outsourced hands (cough cough Rolex)
Rolex might also have the most underwhelming finishing on their movements, not in correlation to their cost.
@@emphasis20
Yup. Though I must admit Rolex build quality and QA is possibly second to none. And unlike some other watchmakers they don't scrimp on materials (looking at you, omega).
And to be clear I am certainly not a Rolex fan.
5:12 "Zonda" is just the model, the manufacturer you're talking about is "Pagani" which sources the engines from AMG...stick to watches Andrew! ;)
Is this a different guy from the one that used to do the narration a few years ago?? - i havent watchd one of these vids for 3+ years
rolex loves their stamped clasps
That’s why Casio’s my brand for most of my collection
Seiko is 2nd
Citizen 3rd
With Casio, Seiko, Citizen, and Orient you can have a big collection of every single kind of watch all while being very affordable and fantastic quality.
Broke ass...
Jk me too lol
Citizen is number 1...... Don't kid yourself!!!!
I like my PRX powermatic and Hamilton Navy Sub, but that's my limit. My 2 Invicta Pro Diver's are good watches and very dependable. My GShock & F91W stand up to abuse working in the woods and hunting. For range use I have a very dependable Seiko solar field watch or an old quartz Wenger Terragraph, both have held up under years of firearms training and competition.
I enjoy fine watches, but not the current prices or games. I blew it not buying a Rolex at the PX in the 70s.
@EPC 1522 they do. the Chrono timer with automatic movement, going to cost you around 3K, though
Watching this while running a CNC mill 😃
I watched it while on a folding machine and a bush inserter.
T
5:10 The Zonda is model, not the name of the manufacture. The Zonda is made by Pagani.
No one cares.
It is not that computers are not more precise than humans (they can be extremely precise beyond any human potential), its that they generally can't see/understand what they are doing beyond basic terms, and can't recognize fine issues/defects in the material, and fix problems themselves. That and the super precise machines are very expensive.
Yet they make far more complicated things than watches. Do you think pacemakers are hand finished?
In my opinion, there's a distinction to make in what Andrew said. A particular word: finishing. In the world of workmanship and generally craftsmanship, it has two meanings. One is general, used to define the type of process used to obtain a certain surface or overall look of the product, being it "guillochè" "hammered" "sandblasted" "polished" etc. The other meaning refers properly on the act of finishing itself, in other words all the actions taken to achieve the above mentioned look of the product, being it "finishing by hands" or "finished by machine". In this case, finishing by machine is way more precise than hand finishing but only for certain types of processing. Take, for example, the perlage on the movement bridges: the precision of a machine is way more neat and position wise perfect than one made by hand and the overall look of the surface is more pleasant. But on the other side, machines has their own limits and can do a perfect job but only to some extent. Take for this example the bevel polishing. Machines make the bevels but due to the tiny tolerances involved in polishing by machine (nerdish bit: it's difficult to program a machine that has to keep constant pressure on the surface with a tool progressively consuming and becoming smaller) it's more easier polishing them by hand.
There are some processes that have a better result if done by machine and other done by hands. Usually there's a little bit of both, but there could be only machine made including the worst stamping or unnecessarily overcrafted by hand, just to show how skilled the finishers are, like the hand chiseled and skeletonized bridges of some high end watches.
Problem is that the dial on the PRX doesn’t look that good, it looks unfinished and clumsy.
It’s not a secret the movement parts and cases + bracelet in “Swiss made” come from China. The labor is calculated extremely expensive, and that results the majority of the value is generated in Switzerland.
A watch is considered "Swiss" if:
1) It was assembled in Switzerland.
2) It was tested by the manufacturer in Switzerland.
3) At least 60% of production costs are generated in Switzerland, and.
4) At least 50% by value of all components is Swiss-made, excluding the cost of assembly.
So a very expensive Swiss bolt can make any movement "Swiss Made" if expensive enough. Very tricky.
Labour isn't included in the cost however. A lot of people miss this.
How they can usually get around it is that an ETA mechanical is essentially 100% Swiss made and significantly more expensive than hands, cases, and dials.
Bracelets and straps aren't even considered part of the watch. Only the head is.
@@dimman77 at least 60% of production costs must be generated in Switzerland, which includes labour.
@@cedarcanoe Labour is specifically excluded.
Look at it this way, not just watches. Brands that spend $XXXXXXX on advertising and celebrity ambassadors will always find ways to make that money back. It's applied directly on the price of the product. I cannot say for all, most small brands direct to consumer that is not spending a big marketing budget. Those are the products you will get the best value. Agree?
Plated brass hands instead of steel hands, plastic movement parts )
Pagani (Manufacturer), not Zonda (1st Model built)
I hate plastic movement holders. I just opened a Longines Evidenza moonphase calendar, a watch that was not far from 3k new and saw that ugly plastic holder. Apparently cartier and Tag used to do the same 🤢
Do ceramic watches
Wow, I know it's simple, but I never thought about the last one...
So ... the short cut you find least objectionable is the one that “looks” like a perpetual calendar, but isn’t...
Hmm 🤔
10 ways I ball out by buying an F-91W
Zeroo T4 ❤
Hublot management: write that down write that down!
"Genuine leather alligator print"
Ah yes that car maker Zonda, on a par with other luxury makes such as Diablo or F355
I’ll buy a Chinese watch when the sun rises in the west on February 29 as the rain falls upward into a verdant heaven.
affordable paint and sapphire substitute, less premium colors.
Have you ever have any chance of checking on Indian bran watches..?. I may suggest you with TITAN. There are independent people also Bangalore watch company and Jaipur watches too.,If you want. Try TITAN, i want to know what's your view on our mostly worn watch brand.
india will be a superpower by 2020
@@entropete it's 2022 now, soon to be 2023.
@@entropete living in the past.....??
I have a Bangalore Watch Company timepiece. Very nice, well made... with a Sellita movement.
Balling on a budget 👍🏾
Interesting but it seems like the most impactful “cheapener” is manufacturing watches in a place you can get away with paying workers a few dollars a day to do part prep and assembly.
Tbh, humans better stop debilitating themselves on jobs such as watch parts polishing. FACTORY LINE is better be put first almost always. #Scaling. P.S. Don't click this hashtag, it's not good. P.P.S. You really don't wanna click it. I warned.
Packaging. Rolex clearly cuts costs with those plastic green boxes. Nothing like getting a 15K watch in a box that at most costs 2 dollars to produce.
I’d like to see a video on how watch brands manage to make mass produced products made from non precious metals appear to be worth vastly more than they cost to develop and produce.
The answer to this is easy to type, but very hard to do in reality. It boils down to this simple thing: Make something people want to buy more than it is available for purchase. In broader terms what you are asking is the simple thing that drives all production, make something and then sell it for more than the cost of its materials, logistics and labor. If you do that you make money, if you fail at that you will be out of business very quickly.
Tissot cheaped out on my new PRX piece. They branded it as Skmei instead of Tissot. They did cut the price to about 30 bucks though so I'm not complaining 😉
LOL! Wut?
@@conyo985 it's a joke about a popular "homage" (copycat) brand on Aliexpress called Skmei
@@fark69 ✌️😉
How are you enjoying your SkmeiRX? I was tempted, but not sure I could handle seeing SKMEI every time I checked my watch.
@@mrmyc0rn840 I thought exactly the same thing. It's the only watch I own with that kind of jibberish brand, but I don't mind too much. It really is a good looking watch that being quartz keeps good time too. The Skmei logo is even hard to read at arm's length so you only see it if you look for it. Cheers!
Apparently Grand Seiko didn't hear about cheaping out
The ultimate in-house and the ultimate hand made. Most people really don’t understand the craftsmanship that goes into GS.
I'm very surprised that Rolex is outsourcing their hands. What supplier is able to reach a so high level of quality and quantity?
That Baltic micro rotor movement looked very impressive.
Not if you realize how bad the stamped striping texture is compared to real manually applied abrasive stripes.
One of the sprocket wheels had a smudge and the other looks like the finish had some drips that dried on there. Not that we would notice with the naked eye but it’s this level of precision, this attention to detail that separates the higher end form the mid-tier.
Remember the Bremont controversy? (‘British-made’).
Bremont built their own manufacturing facilities, for a long time making practically everything besides the movements. They've just heavily modified a third-party movement to the point where they're now allowed to put Made in England on the dial of those watches.
All of this is very expensive for a company that is not based in Switzerland or heavily utilizing their supply chains. Understanding their costs, whether someone feels their msrp are personally justified is subjective, but I do give them their respects.
@@emphasis20 - Thanks for your informative reply. I’d actually quite like like one of their chronos, but the price puts me off somewhat.
you all just assume something is less good bc it was made with a mchine. But that is not the case. I tell you as a mechanical engineer, the machine makes the repeatability of the ,,quality". You can get a machine to do a bad finish or a good finish. It depends on how the machine is set.
Sometimes watches made by hand can also have noticeable flaws that a machine would not have made. This can come with the territory of being made by hand, and you will be paying appropriately ($$$) for the oversight in preventing those flaws as much as possible. Watches made almost entirely by humans is on a whole different spectrum of the watch hobby.
For some, I'm one, that something is made by hand is worth a great deal of money, it doesn't matter that it isn't as precise or it takes longer, If you remove highly skilled people from any process something is lost. With a machine, it might be a sewing machine or an aero engine one can appreciate on many levels the complexity of the design, the skill of the assembler, the thoroughness of the engineering, the intelligence of engineering solutions and occasionally the beauty of it as well. If you remove all the admirable humanity from machines they are, in my view, diminished in a way that's difficult to describe.
@@marcusrawlinson5024 You know.... every machine was made by humans?
@@Provuk Yes.
Please do a video ok high end Smartwatches. Tag Heuer, Breitling, etc.
Uhhh
Mineral crystal vs. sapphire.
Lousy bands for beautiful watches…Seiko 🙄😉
Watchfinder saves money on TH-camrs by only showing their hands!
A Q Timex is a good deal for under $200 really? Timex makes cheap expensive watches. They're not worth the price. For some reason this brand gets a pass. It's been around a long time so that makes it ok. invicta is a heritage but why are they not afforded a pass ? Invicta makes much better watches for less money, but they don't get a passed because they make some big giant watches that smaller men can't wear. There is so much bias in this industry.
‘Early men’? What about those of us on the late shift?
@@AtheistOrphan you can't wear them either.
@@mintywebb - Damn! (OR, perhaps by ‘early men’ the commenter meant Neanderthals and the like?)
watch companies homage or straight up rip off other watch designs to save money.
Or just do what quartz did.... add a battery.
No offense but the Tissot prx dial looks nothing but freaking cheap😟🥴
You do realise Zonda is a Model Name not a Brand Name? Like the Royal Oak or Submariner.
Stamped clasps, no micro adjustments and butterfly bracelets without half links.
Poor boxes.
How about the free marketing they get from TH-cam watch channels.
The watch channels are all now a rotation of the same videos.
relox
Review the first annual calendar ever made, Patek 5035
I'm an old person at a wooden table/desk.
Tax avoidance
Printed rather than applied indices...
Can I come work for you?!
Surely it’s a minimum of 60% not a maximum.
Advertising costs.
Rolex green plastic boxes are the cheapest quality- screams budget watch
Watchmakers also use cheaper quality straps to bring the cost down, cheaper crystal materials etc.
What i can't stand is a GMT watch with uni-directional bezel. To cut the cost designer take diver bezel and simply put 24h markings on it, instead using proper bi-directional rotating system. The problem is that using GMT function on uni-directinal bezel is ridicolously difficult and pointless. For me this is a deal-breaker. I saw even 1000$ watches designed that way.
The Timex Q is an atrocious watch for the money. A poorly finished, chinese made quartz watch should be selling for less than $50, not $200.
All these techniques are still a waste of money when you can buy a Casio mq24 for $8 on sale or a Casio ae-1200 for $13 on sale.
Lol you gonna hand that down to your grandchildren?
@@TH-camuser1aa - no. I'll invest the extra $10,000 I saved by not buying and servicing a luxury watch and give them the cash instead
I always laugh when I see Rolex and its hands mentioned together. The overpricing is abysmal, when the QC of especially the scratched hands is bad, paint edges about there, dials with dust. (Simplest movements often, too.)
1 million/yr made by robots = 5000 pc every hour in normal 8 h European working day. How many QC hours would 5000 perfect watches need? 😆
Hopefully plastic watches will come next.
I've never wanted a "cheap watch" more than I've wanted a Bel Canto.
Waiting for the email regarding deposit for delivery 2H 2023
I was able to buy it, but I didn’t and decided to spend it on a better watch
@@Sexiestmanalive01 I have "better" watches. I still want this one.
So you’re telling me that it takes millions to make a mechanical watch something that people have been making since the 1800s without even computers 😂 yup I believe u
This is the reverse of the topic but I'm often surprised when the buckle on a strap, even the full deployant system, is made of the same solid gold or platinum as the case. Surely few would object to most of the buckle being a common metal or plated? No-one asks for gold spring bars, do they? 😁
People do in fact ask for gold spring bars. As steel spring bars on a gold watch, would cause more wear on the holes in the case, due to the different hardness of the metals.
I get that it's frustrating when you cant get a watch you want but you are all taking your feelings out on rolex who is going balls to the fucking wall with production. None of you are capable of even imagining how absolutely mind blowingly large their demand is. They are currently HURTING for staff and workers and are expanding as fast as is humanly possible without, and this is the key here, sacrificing their quality. They refuse to lower their standards to hire substandard workers just to fill demand.
Essentially, you are all just mad that a company isn't physically able to grow as fast as you would like it to, so to make that feeling feel legitimate, you accuse them of being disengenuous.
No, you just dont understand supply and demand.
I literally felt the exact same way up until extremely recently when I actually took a long hard look at the facts and realized I was being emotional and unreasonable about it. You can grow up and acknowledge it, or keep bitching online about it, but the fact is, rolex is doing everything they can to expand production.
Even if they weren't, would you ever blame a small company for not expanding into an enormous one because they had high demand? Of course not. It's their choice how much to create of a certain product and always has been. Even ignoring the complete falsities, the argument itself is unreasonable.
It is an absolute fact that Rolex limit supply. It is their marketing strategy for their luxury product. If demand was easily met the price would drop. It is basic economics. I don't blame them for that. It just means I will spend my money buying the watches I want at the time I want them. That means I don't buy Rolex.
I just figure you saving a shit tonne of money, I know why people get off on Rolexes, I just get why people so easily fall for it. They come across as analog bitcoin rather than a desirable watch, great way to launder $$$$$$.
Like many others, this video begs the question;: why is it so cheap to manufacture in China? I know the answer, which is why I don’t buy Chinese watches.
I will never understand the claim that machines are less accurate than humans.
I don't see humans hand-building integrated circuits with 7 nm traces, and that sounds like a rather precise work to me.
Just because human labour is more convenient for decorating watches, due to the general low quantity of produced units, doesn't mean that it's by any mean more accurate. The reason they're more expensive is simply because the brands with humans more involved in the production process cannot scale nearly as well, and have to pay their employees a bit of money, so their products become more expensive. This raises demand, and the supply cannot be easily scaled up, so the brand can afford to hike up the price as much as they want, regardless of their manufacturing costs.
Every major watch brand could use machines to produce far more intricate designs and finishes, but they'd always rather choose not to because it's better for their business.
I, for one, completely disagree with humans being involved in the production process of any mass-produced everyday item, for anything other than QA, and even that would be much better done by machines than faulty humans, who easily overlook major issues in production and end up causing expensive headaches for their customers.
>seiko
>nr 1 of luxuey watches
lol at this scammer channel
Poor
Hi sir, why don't you review ba111od TOURBILLION I'm very interested to see that in your page