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Old 14th Feb 2010, 19:33
  #17 (permalink)  
AlpineSkier
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Yesterday Vin Rouge wrote

"Breitling dont even manufacture their own movements any more. All they do is the case and the strap."

The fact is that AFAIK, with the exception of the 20K+ watches like Audemars Piguet and the cheap watches like Swatch, nobody "makes" their movements.

The Swiss watch industry is based on the canton of Neuchatel ( where the Institue of Chronometry is ) extending down into the canton of Vaud ( towards Lausanne).

In this area there are hundreds or maybe thousands of tiny subcontractors making everything from a single type of gear-wheel to a second-hand or fully-assembled movement.

This is also the area, notably in the Vallee de Joux, that invented and manufactured the old-fashioned but inticate devices that played the tunes in ice-cream vans

Designer names , which usually have Geneva addresses, buy-in the design for movements etc and then subcontract just about everything for manufacture and -assembly.

The industry has more conglomerates than most people think : IWC (International Watch Co ) ranges from Rolex to Tissot .
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