jiggerly-cool
144
Addition to your clarification request, and a gripe
Apr 12, 2022,09:54 AM
Hi Patrick, when you inquire with your Bulgari contact, please also ask how the jewels are counted, whether the 36 included the spacers.
Aren't only bearing/pivot jewels supposed to be counted? This harks back to the days of yore before rules were tightened, when non-functional jewels used to be added to inflate the jewel count. It would be helpful to know if spacers are considered functional and part of the count (I note there appear to be more spacers than the 36-31 difference between v1 and v2).
Another thing is, please convey feedback that enthusiasts (well, ok, I'm speaking just for myself and a few others I know) find it annoying that watch companies change/modify movements but the name/designation remains unchanged. Like this BVL 136, apparently. In the interest of transparency (at least) there should be something to denote changes, say, BVL 138-2, BVL 138/A or similar.
Sometimes the changes are improvements, which of course the brands have every right to implement. Like with JLC moving the year indication and lengthening the power reserve from ~40 to 70 hours, but still calling it the same "Calibre 868" (yet there are other JLC movements with "/"). Nevertheless, it would be better with a change indicated in the designation.
(While we're at it, Panerai takes an interesting approach to this. When there's an upgrade change the movement designation announces it, no eagle eyes needed, like how the P.4000 becomes P.4000/10 after skeletonization [and a switch to a gold rotor, which also happens with the P.4000 when cased in gold]. But when there's cost-cutting/feature-stripping, like the P.9010's lost stop-seconds and decoration, all's quiet.)