I'm sorry but that analogy doesn't descript the situation at all.
Not only it doesn't make sense it is flawed and misleading. It move away from discussing watch movement to being cynical about Malaysian space mission.
Please keep this in mind. In house movement is in no way guarantee superior than a thirty party movement like eta.
This is the same for all brand at all level. Even all the way up to Patek.
Watch brand has long blow the hone of in house movement not because it's superiority but the ability to control supply and excuse to charge the customer more.
I don't see how the rocket and moon analogy fit into that.
Regard
Tyler
Movement are secondary to me when it comes to modern panerai. It's the appearance of the dial and case that's more important. However that being said, I do find majority of the panerai that I like happens to be hand wind.
I do have automatics but more than 75% of my panerai are hand wind.
The dial and case must come before the movement. That is the usual case for ppl buying panerai.
Best
T
Agreed. The importance of movements are sometimes overly hyped. oftentimes new "in-house" movement is actually less robust than proven "3 party" movement.
Don't think there are so much differences between ETA and in-house movements of hand wound or automatics. All mechanical watch has the basic 5 parts:
- main spring
- gear train
- escapement
- balance wheel
- dial including hands
So why there is so much hype of an in-house movement?
Off topic a bit and please allow me to do a not so good analogy of in-house and 3rd party movement.
Malaysia is finally going to the moon!!!
Rocket: Designed and parts made in Russia, assembled in Malaysia.
Shuttle: Designed and parts made in USA, assembled in Malaysia.
Astronauts: 2 Malaysian, 1 American and 1 Russian.
Technically speaking, there might be no differences if the rockets, shuttle and astronauts are purely from USA/Russia/Malaysia or the combination of all nations, eventually they will reach to the moon. Doing it all on one country's effort can be more expensive and take longer time as well.
But still, feeling like something's not complete, isn't it?
It is the exclusiveness, pride of challenge conquered and the feeling of "I do it all by myself and nailed it" that make "in-house" special and sought after, IMO.
"...We choose to go to the moon, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." John F. Kennedy
Everybody have their opinions and I am sure you are viewing the in-house vs 3rd party movement thing from different perspective.
If you notice, I've not mentioned anything regarding the superiority of in-house movement in terms of quality comparing with 3rd party movement like ETA. Of course I also aware that many newly developed (even some existing) in-house movements required much more cares and maintenance.
The point I try to make is, in case you have missed it, is all about the feeling of "exclusiveness, pride of challenge conquered and the feeling of "I do it all by myself and nailed it"
Making own in-house movements required tremendous R&D costs and time. If not doing it right, most of the time doesn't make good economy sense to the company. Another analogy, Proton. Proton could have just keep using some outdated Mitsubishi/Honda engines (which proven to be good and reliable over the years) and keep milking money out of it instead of making its own crappy CamPro engine.
But if Proton don't try, they will never able to progress to another level as a carmaker (of course they are still suck
).
Back to watch. For example, if Panerai don't start to make their own in-movements, how would it distinguished itself from, say Longines, Laco, Oris, etc except for selling very much overpriced for basically the same ETA movements? And I'm not saying P.9000 is more superior than OP III. There's differences between watch manufacturer and watch Manufacturer.
For me, owning a watch which made its in-house movements associates myself with the spirits of innovations, courage and dare-to-be-different. That's just me, ok.
Cheers.
