Vianney has been improving quite a few things on the initial product and servicing this generation is indeed -very-costly. This means that once the upgrade done, the next service, simple one, should be much, much less. I've seen Classic serviced for around 2K, Deep Space Tourbillon, around 7K. Antiq
was initially his project for the Meilleur Ouvrier de France competition. It was not meant to be sold as is, but to demonstrate his capacities around creating a chronograph and finishing. Then, people started to ask him about buying it.
I agree on the pallet fork that is not matching the level of efforts they did put on other parts. Could still be black polished and nicely finished but an anglage would have been welcome to match the rest of the movement. Regarding the balance cock, my understanding is that they were "stuck" with th
with unpolished bevels in the lower part of the mainplate. I mean with the vibrations of the machine instead of polished or even softened. That was a "surprise" to me. I had an early Simplicity on the bench and I was rather shocked that the wheel train was the JLC original one, without any finishing
Deliveries will start in April indeed. Prototype was good but with a bit of room for improvements. Hour, minute hands, movement decoration, mass ring, dial... Some dedicated machines were created and had to be set up then mastered. In the meantime, here is a second hand with a before/after. There is
I understand that these days, decoration tends to be associated to a watchmaking skill, however, if there is no technical improvement on the base movement, I don't really call it watchmaking. Decoration and more precisely finishing is definitely an important part of a watch these days. A lot (like a
At school, I learned on 6497 ; 2892 ; 7750. And I am confident that pretty much every watchmaker had the same movements in hands during his studies. However, service will require to have access to spare parts but as long as those brands use ETA manufactured parts, these are widely available.