Horological Meandering

How important is independent certification of a Swiss watch to you, and would it address your concerns about Swiss Made and the quality (in its broadest sense) of the final timepiece? I thought about this issue when I visited the Fleurier Quality Founda...  

As much as I like the claim that the 'PP Seal' is more rigorous and of a higher standard than the Geneva Seal, or the Qualite Fleurier Standard, I fell that having a independent / 3rd party test is better and most importantly fairer . However, I don't thi... 

Hi Andrew, First, I'd like to mention that these certifications (indpendant or not) are not a major creteria for me. I know the watch I'm looking out, I study them and I know if they are of high quality standard or not, enough to make a selection. But, I ... 

Smoke in the eyes my friend...I am ,like you,my own certificate,and that suits me fine and its more than enough.... Mo

There are as many 'certifications', 'seals', 'hallmarks' and 'brands' as there are lemmings. An Observatory certificate is a bit of fun; other than that, Mark and Mo are on the money. Cheers, pplater.

I agree with your remarks. But even if there is an independent organism that would do test or judge on a specific seal...would it change my mind? We would perhaps all drive the same car if we would follow results from crash tests, breakdown figures. In re... 

Here's what he had to say about it recently (edited for brevity and forum rules) I am looking at several different watches in the $8-$10K retail range. One ... model has the features that I want. Yet for virtually the same price, but with less features, t... 

As far as I can tell, all existing certification tests are designed to allow a favored group of watches to pass. When the Poincon de Geneve decided that wire springs would be prohibited, you had better believe that first they checked to be sure their clie... 

Perhaps a good certification process might actually push improvements in the final product? What if COSC said that from 2015 they were going to decrease their tolerances to -1 to +3 seconds per day? Would that lead to a better, more robust, more accurate ... 

but as a "diver's watch" I'm glad that it conforms to and tested to pass an agreed upon international standard. I am sure that it is part of Certina's marketing str ategy for this wa tch and I bet there are a lot of other "diving watches" that cannot meet...  

It has no residual value. If you go diving, say 6 months after you have bought the watch, and you found water seepage, ISO is not "accountable".Certina might repair or offer a new watch to you, if it is within the warranty period. Best, Horo

designed the watch, the engineers incorporated elements which allowed the Action Diver to pass ISO 6425. Plus the deepest I know I will go is to the bottom of the 12 feet pool at the local Y :-) Cheers, Mike

COSC is pure commercial, easily obtainable and fairly low standards...how many standard mechanized issued Rolex Submariner movements need to be certified?? PP seal is but a self aggrandizement exercise and branding given to in house QC...one industry insi... 

... putting the Big Bad Wolf in charge of the children's nursery and the piggery. So I see that you agree with external, independent accreditation of a facility. For this to work we have to have defined standards that the facility must be audited against.... 

... you are spot effing on! - Scott

of their testing protocol. It is as good as it gets. The COSC certification only looks at a selected number of movements prior to encasement and certainly in that process the accuracy of the movement can be affected. The QF testing does assess each certif... 

Thanks for your comments, Mitch. I like the concept of the FQF and the fact that it covers issues like performance on the wrist (Fleuritest), robustness and build quality (Chronofiable test), parts finishing and addresses the Swiss Made fallacy. But of co...