Horological Meandering

SuitbertW
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Hi JiaXian, ....

...don't take me wrong, I'm not going to convince you or attempting to change your opinion.

But I found the facts on which you obviously based this opinion a bit puzzling. As John pointed out the reference
to J. Goodall's  - I'm going to see where the data came from. I'm still curious where this striking success in 1968 was made - as I said, to my knowledge and sources the competitions in Geneva were not held anymore in 1968.
As well as in Neuchatel....so there must be some misunderstanding at least on one side.
So, if there isn't this striking success, ......you get my point?
Sure, he swiss manufactureres most likely weren't happy with the  good results  achieved by Seiko  - but I'm not sure that was a major concern in closing down the observatory competitions.
That's only my personal opinion and I've to admit that I'm most likely biased - it's my personal fault that I'm always getting more sceptic when "a story is just too good ".

"As for COSC replacing the observatory trials, COSC did replace them in the minds of the public and as a marketing concept. Watches with observatory certificates were certainly marketed as superlative timekeepers - Seiko certainly did not let people forget that - and similarly COSC-certified watches are the same. COSC is certainly not the same competitive procedure as the observatory trial, and that's why COSC watches are not ranked."


I'm disagreeing here. I'm not sure on what you base this statement (advertising perhaps? would be great to see some! ) but I see it more differentiated.
Observatory competition results were used for marketing - but untill 67 (perhaps 66) those watches were not sold to the public.
I.e. "watches with observatory certificates" weren't marketed to the general public - those sold to the public and prior COSC were chronometers tested by the "Bureau officiel" which in my book is the predecessor of COSC.
To use a comparison - car manufacturers use F1 racing to market their brand - but they don't sell a F1 car.  COSC is a industrialized testing procedure - capable of testing large numbers effectively.
The predecessor, as said, were the "Bureau officiel" (i.e. in my opinion) which co-existed with the observatory testing for a long time.
COSC movements aren't ranked, because there's no competiton - "normal" obseratory certificated watches weren't ranked as well. The bulletins had different categories - but rankings were only given to those which were taking part at the competitions.

That's one point I thought there is at least one misunderstanding - there was the normal testing work of the observatories - and there were the competitions - two different issues.

Lastly, for the Spring Drive, the going train has 4 wheels, plus the mainspring and flywheel. For a traditional mechanical watch, it consists of the mainspring, 3 wheels of the gear train, plus the 3 parts of the escapement (I count hairspring and balance as one). Perhaps "not a lot" I concede, but certainly not much less than a mechanical watch - 6 vs 7 parts.

My point here was your first quote here:

as one more. It was your choice to enhance on escapement
Furthermore the spring drive has only rotating elements - which is by far less critical to produce industrially (IMO). I'm sure I'm not totally off to say that not many would argue that a swiss lever escapement with it's geometrical issues - an  oscillating balance wheel and a hairspring is by far more critical to produce and set up compared to the electronically / inductive controlled fly wheel of the spring drive.

I never wanted to "lower" the spring drive technology - I personally admire them a lot - exactly for what they are. They're eliminating the more critical parts of the mechanical movements with keeping the non critical, proven  parts. Having eliminated all mechanically oscillating parts is certainly a dream for many mechanical solutions - just think of the Wankel engine

Best regards
Suitbert