Handmade means what?

Suffering a temporary (hopefully) bout of insomnia, I was reduced to flicking through late night TV channels to find something to pass the time.

And came across a channel selling Constantin Weitz watches. Not a brand I had heard of, offering a wide range of styles, one or two of which were
very similar in appearence at least to some prestige brands including Richard Mille. Prices were around £100 t0 £300.

What intrigued me was the repeated statements made by the presenters - one of whom had apparently worked for Garrards in London ( at one time the Royal Jewellers) to the effect that these watches were not mass-produced, instead they were handmade.

Which got me thinking - what, in terms of watches, does handmade mean? What criteria must a manufacturer satisfy to justify such a claim? Are there acceptable levels of handmade?

I'd be very interested to see what you think.

Colin

colin, i think artistic licence was heavily used in the ad.

By: G99 : March 15th, 2013-12:27

they probably mean hand assembled just like every other mechanical watch ever made. typical tv shopping channel jargon. i once went to a watch auction in Birmingham. it was a regular quarterly auction and at the end the auctioneer announced that the follo...

Horological Meandering