Many watchmaking schools use the ETA 6497 as the basis for the initial phase of working on a movement. Note that there is typically a lot of skills learned before you ever touch a movement, but once you do start, it's typically on the 6497. It's large, very easy to work on and manipulate the parts, the parts are robust, and you can learn most of the skills required on this simple movement. You may not want to start with a genuine ETA version, but getting a Chinese version may be more reasonable in terms of costs.
To me starting off with anything more complex than a simple 3 hands manual wind, is a mistake.
Cheers, Al
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