Having read a recent Richard Mille post I was surprised to read that the movement was outsourced, albeit to a specialist movement maker.

This bothered me somewhat. I was mulling this over for a bit and came to the conclusion that it's just like Pininfarina, Zagato and Mulliner and their relationship with Ferrari, Aston Martin and Bentley. Ok, I though that seems to makes sense... But wait a minute there seems to be a significant difference. In the motoring world the coach builder always seems to play second fiddle to the marque. It is still primarily a Bentley, an Aston or a Ferrari.

In the watch world it seems to be the other way around, so much so that the movement maker barely gets a mention. Guys forgive me naivety; I am new to this game, but where am I going wrong?

up front people about where and how the movements for his watches are made.  It has been an unusual position as so many Swiss watch makers adapt off the shelf ebauche and then claim it is their manufacture.

However, it should be noted that there is a great difference between the base ebauche and the finished movement.  Most of the labour, skill, and expense goes into the finish and defines the end quality to a certain extent (although choice of materials is also of obvious importance).  In this instance, Richard outsources all of the movement ebauche and finish.  While Vaucher manufactures the movement ebauche and conducts the finishing, there is further outsourcing for the case crystals, the cases come from Donse Baum, and the PVD treatment is also completed elsewhere.  However, the design, specification, and quality control of the end product is all Richard Mille.  It is simply the case that he has been very open about it.

Parallels exist: Bentley and Rolls Royce are more VW and BMW these days.  However, the cars are designed, specified, and the end product is quality controlled in England (where as the mechanics came from Germany)!

Hope this helps.  Glad you liked the RM010 write up.  Although I saw a picture of you with a Richard Lange in a Z8!  Your germanic roots?

Andrew H

... just an observation that the watchmaker responsible for the heart of the machine is somewhat unsung.

I just had a cursory look at the RM website and could not find a mention of any of their suppliers by name. They do however mention the 'designated manufacture' process.

To illustrate my point further a google search of ["richard mille" watch] returns ~ 161,000 hits and a similar search for ["richard mille" watch voucher] returns ~ 116 hits. While not terribly accurate, it sort of indicates that they are not exactly in the spotlight.

It's rather interesting that you cite the Bentley/Rolls Royce VW/BMW parallel - it's the same with Lamborghini/Audi - It seems that you get a better product but somehow lose some of the soul of the machine. But at least it always starts and gets you home in one piece!

Despite having a Germanic sounding name (sans the K) and prattling on about two fine German products, although one happened to be designed by a Dane, I'm British.

Btw I really enjoyed your shots of the maxi racing. It must have been pretty spectacular to be there! www.watchprosite.com /

Hi Carl,

It is basically the case that the movement manufacturer's are unsung in watchmaking.  As Andrew rightly points out, the vast majority of watch companies do not make their own movements and a large percentage of those give very standard calibers their own internal caliber designations.  I don't think there's anything particularly wrong or evil about this practice really, but perhaps I've just been around it too long and have become dulled to the chaffing against my sensibilities.

This practice has really been integral to the watchmaking industry for many hundreds of years and even the most revered brands in the industry have used movements supplied by others (usually without any indication that it came from elsewhere) and most continue to do so to some extent.  Andrew is also right that the fine finishing and modification of base calibers that some of these brands engage in largely justifies "in-house" manufacture status, at least for certain examples.  The Patek Philippe manual wind chronograph calibers being an excellent case in point. 

More often than not in the entry level pieces of even haute horlogerie brands though there's not much internal finishing or modification going on.  At least it's not easy to see what may or may not have been done, even with a microscope.  And yes, I've tried.  This becomes incresingly true for the mid-level luxury brands who typically just order an ETA customization with their name engraved on the rotor and call it whatever they want.

Relative to these practices, Richard Mille does seem surprisingly open about the source of their movements, particularly with regards to the pieces made by Renaud et Papi.  It's a little hard to imagine anyone being embarrassed to put the Renaud et Papi name on a watch with another brand name on the dial, but certainly most of the R&P customers are not at all up front about it (and R&P are of course not talking). 

The industry is changing a little bit in this regard, with Richemont being surprisingly open about the work of Val Fleurier in caliber development, Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth seemingly very open skirt about their collaborative efforts and many other brands beginning to make movements in-house even if they've historically never done so.  Time will tell if the movement manufacturers ever get equal billing with the name on the dial, but it's still a pretty good uphill climb from here anyway.

_john

answer your question.

Yes, in the watch industry (in the industry and at the consumer level marketing) the brand, ie, that which is on the dial, takes precedence over the movement maker ("engine maker") or case/dial maker (coachbuilder) And that name on the dial is usually the marketer or distributor (or both)

For some decades during any given century, there are world renowned "watch" brands that do not do much more than (perhaps) some design, and mostly marketing and distribution.

There is no direct equivalent situation in the car world (Monteverdi? de Tomaso? Iso? all of these, and similar, can be argued) because of homologation and regulatory rules. Watches, as a product category, are unregulated in this regard.

Hope that addresses your specific question.

On a philosophical level, Andrew and John's points are dead on. How one chooses to prioritize or weigh these points is purely individual, though of course the individuals can easily be grouped after the fact.

It's when researchers and marketeers and industry "gurus" try to group BEFORE THE FACT that ugly stereotypes come to the fore - like hairy chested, open silk shirted, heavily jewelried disco danny's doing the Rolex Drape over their Porsche 911 steering wheel at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica.

;-)

Most long time visitors to ThePuristS and PuristSPro tend to have a fascination, even obssession, with mechanics and finishing; less so with design (but some are REALLY hardcore about design!) and even less so with brand prestige and mystique.

Not the darlings of the marketing types, who would wish all customers pay a king's ransom for just the brand prestige and mystique, without question, substance be damned, but there is a grudging admiration for the mindset of the Purist.

you should win it for this effort.

"like hairy chested, open silk shirted, heavily jewelried disco danny's doing the Rolex Drape over their Porsche 911 steering wheel at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica."

That's beautiful.  I mean really beautiful.  I mean, Damon Runyon, Raymond Chandler, yes, even Henry Miller beautiful.  With my eyes closed I can imagine it as a lyric from an unpublished Tom Waits song, his voice rasping the phrase 'doing the Rolex Drape' through a cloud of Marlboro smoke.

Jack

.

I also enjoyed the line (read it a couple of times) but Jack's Waits analogy really brought it home.

Well done Thomas!

... my better half declared that I'm becoming too much of a purist.

.

Ouch! My mistake, when I correctly spell Vaucher ["richard mille" watch vaucher] the hits go up to ~ 586. Sorry about that the number is still quite paltry when compared to 161,000 for Richard Mille.

Many thanks for your response, it is really quite enlightening. I'm now intrigued/worried by the refinishing of base calibers justifying "in house" manufacturing status. Any chance you expand on the Patek Philipe manual wind example?

I feel that this has potentially opened Pandora's Box for me

Hi carl,

This is definitely Pandora's box in the watch enthusiast game, but don't worry about it too much.  With several years of dedicated study you'll start to be able to keep things in perspective about what is or is not in-house and how important it is or is not.

Here's a link to a thread from 2003 (illustrated thankfully) on the Patek Forum:

www.network54.com

There's plenty of other good info about this particular movement in both the Patek and Vacheron forums if you are willing to search.

_john

.... it makes for interesting reading.

I sort of fell into this hobby by accident - I never realized it would be quite so absorbing. This thread really has been most informative. And as a bonus the market place just got a wee bit smaller for me!

Many thanks,

Carl.

What I would really love to see from the Purists is a sticky reference or multiple sticky references describing each major house's references and the calibers used.  Alternatively, this could be posted in a reference section of the website.  Each entry could look something like:

XXX Brand, YYY reference, ZZZ calibre: this caliber is entirely manufactured in house or heavily modified ETA or movement manufactured elsewhere but exclusive to this reference or brand, etc.

To me, this would be a tremendous asset.  Purists, what do you think? 

www.network54.com

Not to shoot down the idea, but certainly the idea has been risen before.  If you have some fresh ideas about how to go about it, please do share them.

_john

and come back to you with some ideas.

It shows up as www.network54.com or similar, but it's a link to some prior discussion of the subject and the difficulties associated with such a thing.

_john