I was reading an old brochure about 50th Anniversary 1957 Speedmaster and there was a statement "It still takes 14 months to manufacture the 195 separate parts prior to assembly and 80 hand held operations to create the main plate for a single Speedmaster. Painstaking craftsmanship certainly, yet there is no short cut to excellence".

Is this true or just marketing nonsense?

 

If you include the time it takes to raise the Donkeys whose dung they collect as fuel for the smelter, I'm certain its a lot longer.

 

It takes a watchmaker a day to pull one apart, clean it, then put it back together. But there is no romantic marketing sprinkled with moon dust.

Worth a read

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/style/watches-robots-automation.html

 

My Rolls Royce got made faster than that, so no.

 

If it takes that long, it shouldn’t be called a speedmaster but a slownovice

 

If you made the parts in sequence rather than in parallel, that number makes sense.

 

Every watch factory I've been to, the watches are made with batch production, so you will run a batch of main plates, then a batch of bridges, etc., and eventually you end up with all the parts made in various batches that can be put together into a watch.

Like all good lies, it probably has a kernel of truth, so if you add in all internal and external times (productive and non-productive time) someone could probably show a number that equals what they are saying. But in reality, does this mean it actually takes 14 months to accomplish? No.

If it did, it would be many multiples of what they cost right now...

 

And don't forget the slow, peaceful barrel aging in the richly-flavoured bourbon casks, each one wrought of ancient oak planks salvaged from the Spanish flotilla that ran aground on the Cape of Good Hope. Great watches take time, just as beautifully as they tell it.

 

Ah, wait - no hyphen, see. Fake, regrettably.

 

The statement is of course true. So no bitching when it takes 6 months to repair.

 

Here's the hyphen



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Johnson

 

Lol! (Did, too.) Riposte of Q1 2021 imho.

 

Each Rolex only takes a year, so Omega is clearly taking the time to turn out a superior product.

 

My RGM took nine months. That was five months to CNC most of the movement parts, hand finish them and guilloche the main plate on their century old rose engine. And then another four months to wait for the movement number that I wanted.

 

Lots of snarkiness in relation to an interesting question. I wonder if any of the sarcasm spewing commenters really know how long it takes to build an Omega?

 

My answer was entirely serious.

 

“It takes a year to make a Speedmaster” I thought it was referring to selecting the year before making a special edition?

 

Well, that's half true, as it may take a year to make a Rolex but you're on a waiting list for 5 more.