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  1. Greatpa Dec 19, 2016

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    So Moser is doing something very interesting. If you have not read the article, go to Moser's site or Hodinkee.
    This news made me think how many percent of the Omega watches' value come from Switzerland.
    The change is that a watch's value must be not 50% but 60% (starting 1st January 2017) to be allowed to print Swiss made on the dial. This will of course affect some Swiss brands that play around the 50% line. But what about Omega? How many percent is Swiss made and will they be affected also?

    Thank you for a great forum and sorry in advance to all grammar Nazis :oops:
     
  2. rcs914 Dec 19, 2016

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    I'll postulate that this will affect nothing overall - the percentage is based on value. Who determines the value? The manufacturer, since they are creating the parts and assigning a cost to each one of them. It strikes me as entirely subjective. If Switzerland had really wanted to affect change, they would have had to require that 100% of each watch be manufactured there, or remove the value equation and dictate what parts of a watch must be made in Switzerland.
     
  3. Archer Omega Qualified Watchmaker Dec 19, 2016

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    "With over 95% of our components produced in Switzerland, we far exceed the requirements of the Swiss Made standard, and yet, the same label on our dials is used by those brands barely complying, who benefit from the flexibility of the label to manufacture a large proportion of their components in other countries. Today, the Swiss Made label is devalued because it is used by entry-level brands to justify their very existence or price point. Ultimately, our own image is undermined by this."

    So your brand is somehow devalued by it increasing to 60%, but it was fine when it was 50%?

    "Following this reasoning to its logical conclusion, H. Moser & Cie. is removing the Swiss Made label from the dials of its models."

    Not sure how logical the conclusion was...I suppose of they raise it to 80% Moser is going to move to China in protest then?

    By the way, the Swatch group was one of those pushing for this, so I suspect they already far exceed the 60% level. I recall reading a story where they were quite disappointed it was only raised from 50 to 60%

    Cheers, Al
     
    DirtyDozen12, Jwit, al128 and 3 others like this.
  4. Foo2rama Keeps his worms in a ball instead of a can. Dec 19, 2016

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    Moser doing this is a meaningless protest. It will have zero negative effect on their sales. It's a PR grab like their $20k automatic Apple Watch clone. People in the market for Moser know it's a Swiss watch with an almost 100% Swiss content. The people that are affected by Swiss made on a dial already have no idea what it actually means and will never consider a Moser let alone ever hear about them.

    There is a similar issue with Scotch going on right now. The rules/laws for Scotch distillers is that you are not allowed to reference anything but the youngest age when marketing your scotch. So a 12year old single malt from Glen Fiddich will actually have some 15 or 18 or even 21+ in it to get consistency in the flavor of the scotch from batch to batch, year to year. All single malt means is that it is from a single distiller, single barrel means that it is from a single barrel and and consequently all from the same batch, 2 barrels filled sequentially can and will have slightly different flavor profiles, hence the mixing/blending in single malt. So that Johnny Walker 12 year old you have is a blend of multiple distillers and does contain older scotch in it, just the youngest is on the label. This was done to protect consumers from being sold something as a 21 year old that was actually a 5 year old, and clarification of a Solera process Scotch.

    Recently Compass Box a blender decided to list the blend recipe of their scotches, which caused problems. Technically they are violating the law by referencing more then just the youngest distillate, but this is functioning in the spirit of the law by providing more information to the consumer and trying provide more transparency. Well the big blenders do not want to give out their recipes even though they are already pretty much known and took Compass Box to court over this issue. This is somewhat splitting the Industry as the large players that own most distillerys are also the guys that own the popular blends. Bruichladdie has thrown in with Compass Box and all of the new base expression will have a batch number on the bottle that will allow you to go to their website and see all the information on the Scotch ie what percentage from each barrel, and barrel description, age/type etc.
     
    Edited Dec 19, 2016
  5. al128 unsolicited co-moderation giverer Dec 19, 2016

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    Internet connection speed as marketed by ISPs is another "bogus" number.... Fits right in to this topic
     
  6. MarqDePombal Dec 19, 2016

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    Thank you for this. I had to read the article a few times because I thought I was missing something. As you stated, so at 50% you were fine, now that it went to 60% you're protesting??


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