That's not entirely true. A lot of "swiss" watches used ETA movements that require some amount of finishing and customizing. Some companies would do more than others. That has since stopped and ETA movements are used prettt much by only its parent corporation, Swatch, iirc. Rolex uses its own in house movements as do some other very high end swiss watch makers like Patek Philippe. Other high end watches use movements made by seagull out of China. They're very good relatively speaking but the same thing applies. Different watch companies do different things to customize the movements. Seiko uses their own movement for the most part. Ball is another.ChrisinHove wrote: ↑Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:49 pmI was told by a repairer that the costly designer watches all use similar and inexpensive movements. As if I ever needed an excuse NOT to spend many 00’s!
When talking about what makes a budget brand worthwhile, they use a good movement and they do enough quality finishing to make it a good watch without going overboard and without skimping on the important stuff. There are several that do generally good work without breaking the bank. That's why you see the name seiko, seagull, and rolex quite often. They make the movements and the watches and have a vested interest in picking out the better movements fot their own brand. Other high end companies that belong to swatch: breitling, etc., still have access to ETA movements. The different movements are made to different specific requirements. The number of jewels. The number of complications, etc. The companies can do a number of things with the movements, they're basically like a house foundation. For a long while companies like Hamilton and Omega used ETA movements and were regarded as very high quality even though they used the same movement manufacturer as some lower quality companies. I don't know where they're getting their movements now unless they folded under the Swatch umbrella.
Anyway, several good movement manufacturers exist and that's really what you're looking for at the base level. Anything after that is really somewhat user preference and a little bit of knowledge.
The lack of really good, experienced horologists/watch makers and repairers is a real concern in the watch/clock world right now. There's only a couple of schools in the world and their graduation rates are low, as are their anuual incomes. Most companies are just hiring cheap foreign labor to do parts swaps until the watch works right. Even most watch repairers in the US are only there to do maintenance. Anything more and they'll tell you to send it to the manufacturer where they'll just replace the thing if anything at all.
