Patek Philippe

eric.vonschonberg
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your argument against complexity of rattrapante

Unless I've misunderstood you, it seems you are trying to make the case that a rattrapante is not much more complicated than a simple chronograph.  Is that really what you're trying to argue?  You realize there would not be many people who would argree with such a position, don't you?

Let me see if I can follow your argument anyway.  The first point seems to be that rattrapantes aren't really all that complicated, but that they just require a lot of care puting together.  So, what do you think makes a watch complicated?  Is it the parts count that really matters, or do you think the difficulty of puting it together might have something to do with it?

Your second point seems to be that since the 1186 doesn't cost much more than the 1185, a rattrapante couldn't be very complicated.  The problem with that argument is thar price and degree of complicated are only loosely correlated at best.  Some simple Pateks can still be quite expensive, and some brands offer quite complicated pieces for amazingly low prices.  You could spend several hundreds of thousands of dollars buying a Patek tourbillon, but you could get an even more complicated tourbillon watch from IWC for a fraction of the cost.

Rattrapantes and minute repeaters are highly complicated and beyond the reach of most watchmakers' abilities.  While tourbillons are also quite complicated and also beyond the reach of many watchmakers' abilities, there are plenty more watchmakers who can make a tourbillon.  The fact that so many brands can offer tourbillons, but much fewer can offer minute repeaters and rattrapantes is indicative of just how much farther out of reach rattrapantes and minute repeaters are than tourbillons.
Eric von Schonberg