Agree with most of what your saying....I have a Breitling I wear as a daily and I'm pretty sure it has a eta in it and it keeps time great...my JLC master compressor diving chrono is at jlc factory for polishing.
Companies like Omega bought Zenith and hence use Zenith movements now...seems like all watch companies are now owned my Swatch or Richemont and that's why we are seeing swapping of movements now.
I think companies that use eta and valjoux are fine if it isn't a premium price but I have an issue with the ones who charge premium price while using an eta mvt without even dressing it up abit...I think we're saying the same thing.
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Originally Posted by The1
I agree and disagree with you on this. Some of the companies using ETA movements are only using the winding parts, everything else they do is their own. Some make their own Chrono functions and add other bells and whistles to the base ETA piece. I have 2 watches with the same ETA base, and if you put them side by each and view the workings of them, they are so different. And on top of that, the finish is at different levels. But generally the companies that do this aren't asking ridiculous premiums
Now at the same time, there's companies who just put a base movement and base chrono and etc all in a simple case, then charge the moon for it. This is where I think the watch world is wrong.
I believe Panerai was a bad offender of the stick it in a pretty case and ask the moon for it. Panerai has been rectifying this lately, and they do not have many watches with an ETA movement in them anymore. They are switching over to in house.
Yes Swatch has stopped selling it's ETA movements to a lot of companies now, but it could have been easy for many of these "shunned" companies to just find another affordable base, but most are deciding to go the in house method. Ironically, this cuts out the middle man, and can actually make the companies more money in the long run because they aren't paying anyone for their parts. So the price of watches should be dropping, but it's actually going up because they know there's a demand for in house.
We are being taken advantage of as a result of the ETAs being discontinued in a lot of brands.
It's people with false information, who are making this the reality. And a lot of the watches that people thought were affordable luxury items like Tag or Omega, are now going to start being priced outside the affordable market for a lot of people.
It's almost a catch 22.
I own a few ETAs and I own several in houses, and I can tell you, my ETAs keep better time then some of the other in houses  Their reliabilty is excellent because they are so time tested and hard worn by thousands of people.
PS, I have to say JLC is probably my favourite brand, I have 3 JLC watches, I fully believe for their quality and in house movement, they are one of the only companies who price their products right for the product you get.  You have good taste (in my opinion) liking them  |