2011-04-08

How important is the "base caliber" of a movement?

For example, you will frequently note that lots of people find a watch where the base caliber is the ETA 2892 is prefereable to one with an ETA 2824 movement. Presumably because the first is higher quality (it does cost more, after all).
This is what I call "movement snobbism" (which is different from preferring something which has known properties which are better) and think is basically flawed thinking. For one thing, there's no such thing as a single version of either of the movements as supplied from ETA (you can get them in quite different versions, for quite different prices and either assembled, as parts or only some of the parts and get the rest from another source), for another it doesn't take into account what the watch maker has done to the movement (varies from nothing to quite a lot).
Not being a collector, I don't have enough personal experience with these to make a comprehensive statement of their relative advantages, but I can note that there is at least one maker who's said to use 2824s as a base for watches that are chronometer certified and there are watches with 2892 movements which don't come that accurate from the maker, even if many are.
As another example, I can take two of my watches with "the same" 6497 movements. They behave very differently. One is very accurate as long as you wind it the same time of day. This means it's well regulated concerning which attitude it's in, but the spring delivers its power unevenly. The other one doesn't care much when or how much you wind it, but it's extremely sensitive to position and runs much too fast if left dial up during the night, but quite accurate when you wear it.
Same movements, but possibly not the same mainspring and certainly not the same kind of regulation.

Document created 2001 Oct 19  (So it's from the archives. In fact, I don't have any watch with a 6497 movement today.)

No comments:

Post a Comment