Rolex, Breitling, or Tag

One word... Zenith!

[e-man67]

Originally Posted by RX2010

Longines is a brand I haven't seen mentioned, I'd check them out too

I had a Longines Hydroconquest 41mm that was awesome! Ultra high quality in every aspect with a Swiss Eta 2824 movement new around $800! P

[Blueface]

Dad has a couple of Longines that I should maybe shoot and post for Moses to give me an idea on.
They are solid 18KT cases, from the late 60's, early 70's.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by krevo

Moses,

For your reading pleasure. This article completely sums up the type of service that has come to be expected from Rolex.

http://www.rolexreferencepage.com/service.html

I'm almost 100% certain that bracelet was disassembled and either replacement links were included or the links were completely overhauled. Unfortunately there are no before pictures but check out the price tag on the regulation (as well as second trip back to them not even a week later for a closer look at the movement)

From the article, it did not sound like they did that much to the watch and they had to do it twice. The watch does look like new for sure and it sounds like they were at least cordial making amends to their failure to adjust it correct the first time. They had to disassemble the watch to fix that spring.

As for the price, the watch was under warranty and only a year old. It shouldn't need a service, but needed it and Rolex was good about fixing it. Customers with a prestige item like this would expect 1st class service and the margins are so huge on a Rolex, they can deliver it.

Rolex makes about 800K watches a year. Figure $1500 profit per watch and that's $1,200,000,000.00 year. Not bad. I'd expect a free service too.

Someone made a comment that all their parts are handmade. That is not true. Most of the parts are stamped and hand finished. Production watches are not really handmade at all. They are hand assembled, but the parts are made from dies, stamped, Wire EDM, etc... And finished to whatever the price point of the watch is. Even Patek and Vacheron aren't as handmade as they'd like you to believe.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by e-man67

I had a Longines Hydroconquest 41mm that was awesome! Ultra high quality in every aspect with a Swiss Eta 2824 movement new around $800! P

Had to look it up online for a picture. I really dig the chrono!

[e-man67]

Photos do not do the Longines justice! Even more stunning in person!

[mosesbotbol]

Brietling and Tag are both in a difficult position with ETA cutting them off from buying movements. I would look to buy either brand as soon as possible. There is likely to be big price increases on Swiss watches across the board. Same for getting an ETA movement watch serviced; do it sooner than later.

There's a lot of uncertainty in watch industry right now for many companies. The cases are made to for an ETA, so a major change would mean big dollars in tooling, engineering, etc...

Rolex is in a safe position with their own movements and Omega, Blancpain, and several others are all under the Swatch group umbrella.

[BHalbrooks]

Why would you post in this? It's so old lol.