Horological Meandering

Fastwong
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Yeah, I think the GF Hand Made 1 is in a league of it's own there. I can't think of anyone not using cnc and modern equipment to rough out most parts. That said, I've been thinking about this lately since there's all sorts of nuance in this.

I was comparing the new Ferdinand Berthoud FB3 with the GF Signature 1 recently and it was really interesting to have them side by side. FB proudly say that all of their components are finished by hand. The frosted dial for example is sand blasted with real sand by hand. But is that hand finished? The GF frosting on the other hand is executed with a wire brush. The end results of both techniques are honestly close, but operating a media blaster doesn't involve quite the same handwork as an even wire brush frosting. But lets say they are both "hand finished", if we move on to the sub seconds hand, on the FB it is evenly blasted but on the GF it is silvered on it's top, mirror polished around the sides, and engine turned on it's base. So, here both are hand finished but the decoration of one is clearly more time, labor and skill intensive than the other, so more decoration. But does more mean superior? Sometimes more and better got confused. More angles, more black polish, more decorative flourishes, I think sometimes people say that means the movement is "better" finished but is it or is it just more decorated? If one angle from a brand is deeper and sharper than another, is it better or just style? Further, I think that movement architecture also needs to be considered, for example the FB3 is the more complex watch, more parts, more wheels, more jewels, and more individual finger bridges and angles. There's just more linear mm and angles to decorate on that watch vs the GF. They could have taken a different approach and used a backplate instead of finger bridges but they didn't so should we consider that better finished than a movement that's been more intentionally simplified even if the quality of the finishing is similar?
On one hand I think finishing is overblown and on the other I think it's an important discussion that needs more nuance and transparency, especially in a time when big group brands are looking to maximize profits often at the expense of hand finishing. I think there's a good conversation to be had with watches about how much of their movements are machine vs hand finished and then at some point when a brand claims their watches are 100% hand finished, to dive deeper into what that really means. Less so I think to say something is better or worse than something else but more so that when people are spending serious bucks on a watch, they really know what they are getting.