asg
347
High End Watch Production....
Hi All,
Today at lunch, I took some time to visit with a local dealer as he received in some rather "rare" tourbillons and minute repeaters for a local customer to see. The dealer was kind enough to let me handle and try on all of these watches. Some Breguet's, AP's, Parmigiani's, JLC's etc. Some really nice and tasteful stuff, and some pieces I wouldn't wear if you gave them to me for free...That's not the point of my post.
We wound up discussing what the actual rarity of some of these watches could be. The dealer felt that most of these watches were extremely limited in their production, that, from watch houses which I mentioned above ,the total number of torubillons and repeaters produced is extremely low and limited. He claimed to know that Breguet takes about 4 to 6 months to produce a skeleton tourbillon or repeater - I thought he was way off. He thought that to get a Parmigiani or JLC repeater to market would take about the same amount of time.
Take a watch like the Daniel Roth - Jean Daniel Nicolas (JDN) 2 minute tourbillon - This is a watch which Mr. Roth cuts the gears for, files and bevels all parts and actually creates all (major) parts by hand and using ancient techniques. I am told that one single JDN tourbillon takes 12 to 18 months from the date of comission or about 6 to 10 actual working months to build the watch.
A firm like JLC, AP or Breguet uses the most cutting edge technology with CNC and CAD along with the technical expertise of a highly trained watchmaker to finishe and assemble the watch, but, one can extrapolate that the time to produce such a watch is greatly reduced. Is the number cut by 50%? 66%? 20%? I dont know - but I can't imagine that it takes 6 to 10 months to produce a Tradition Tourbillon or Messidor or AP EOT or JLC repeater.
With this said, what do you think the production figures are for pieces like I mentioned above? My dealer believes that in each market (America, EU, ASIA) they get about 1 to 2 of these "complications" a month. I say its more. Please weigh in!
Thanks for your insight.
Best regards,
asg
