Dear forumners,
What's the problem?
This is the natural cycle of time in the watch industry. By the fact that some people are complaining shows how "young" today's consumer or collector of mechanical watches are. Even our more senior members remember buying quartz watches with first pay check....not counting the children with trust funds who bought their own watches before 1970
At the dawn of time, every watch was "manufactured" by one watchmaker or assembled in small batches in Geneva through Spring and Summer from components fabricated by farmers working in their spare time in Winter.
Then, industrialisation and consumerism created demand for single site, integrated factories like Zenith, IWC, Longines, Omega etc. Some 'manufactures' like Piaget, JLC, ARSA etc made movements for 3rd parties. Quality was good and consistent due to industrialisation and QC. Costs came down and everyone had a watch for life...maybe a 2nd watch for Sunday-best.
Piaget and JLC made movements for other brands for many decades before putting their own name on the watch dial and becoming watch brands.
The circle moved on and economic depression or war caused some brands to stop making their own movements as outsourcing was cheap and maybe even better consistency than in-house. Some brands continued with a dual-source policy using movements from inside and outside to suit circumstances viz Patek Philippe, Omega, Rolex, Vacheron, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Breitling etc.
The advent of quartz era killed most of the 'in-house' Manufacture policy. The small movement makers joined forces so we ended up with ETA and SWATCH. Nobody complained about Venus, Lemania and even Zenith El Primero movements in Patek Philippe, Omega and Rolex watches before.
The circle moved on again and mechanical watches become status symbols instead of solely timekeepers. Yuppy (Young Urban Professional), Dinky (Dual Income No Kids), Bob (Bollinger on Breakfast), MOCAAP (My other car also a Porsche) culture since 1980s revived the mechanical watch and in-house became the USP (unique selling point).
Transparent casebacks were invented just to see what you paid for. Its not good chemistry to expose the lubricants to UV light but showing off was more important than basic engineering principles. Cult figures, false gods and idols were created. (Insert brand or watchmaker names here).
The circle moves on and economic boom and crash become usual (Japan, Brazil, India, China, Russia and then the whole world). Brands open and close shops across the world following the money. Entire batches of $200k complicated watches were bought by single dealers in Al Maty and Moscow. China market just crashed for the big ticket items but by sheer numbers (1 Billon is a good number), the mid-range price / high volume market is a robust bet for the future.
Zenith did NOT announce they were abandoning in-house movements. They are just outsourcing a good movement at reasonable cost for some watches.
The Circle of Time moves on....................
Regards,
MTF
This message has been edited by MTF on 2014-06-11 18:59:40