Perhaps my all-time favorite movie is Wall Street. Of course we all remember Gordon Gecko's infamous "Greed is good". But another often forgotten question was asked by Bud Fox - "How much is enough? How many yachts can you water-ski behind?"
It goes without saying that the Swiss watch industry owes its existence today to the SWATCH group, and most specifically to Mr. Hayek. But now it seems that the watch industry is at a tipping point. For several years, SWATCH has stated that they will stop selling movements (ebauches), and everyone panicked - several companies started making their own plans for movements - and others looked for other alternatives. One particularly noted move was the "in house movement" of a well-known Swiss company who was less than forthcoming about the Japanese origins of its new chronograph movement until it was called out.
And from the sidelines, I can certainly understand what Mr. Hayek meant in his Watch Time interview where he stated that the goal was, in fact, to force watch companies to actually make watches and not merely assemble "kits" and slap on their name to a dial. All of this made sense. But now it seems that the folks at SWATCH are pushing some different buttons - or maybe to put it more aptly, they are tugging on springs.
Nivarox is owned by SWATCH. Nivarox also has a near strangle-hold on the balance spring supply. And the word around the campfires of Switzerland and Germany is that they are intending to not sell this particularly vital part outside of the SWATCH Group. Not unlike your local utility company refusing to sell you electricity - it is that vital, and Nivarox have an undisputed monopoly. Of course this would not include the "special friends" of SWATCH, but this move would obviously destroy quite a few brands and create a fairly large unemployment problem. And while they cannot do this outright - i.e. stop selling completely, what they are seemingly doing is slowly starving companies of this essential part. Put another way - what good is your own movement without the spring?
What is the real intent here? As I write this, I have several watches looking at me - a few SWATCH Group items, and several from "Outside". My suspicion is that this is hopefully just another case of saber rattling, but again - to what purpose really? This would be like Standard Oil refusing to sell oil outside of Ohio. Movements, ebauches - this I get and I think deep down most folks do. But springs? Come on SWATCH Group - how much is enough?
It goes without saying that the Swiss watch industry owes its existence today to the SWATCH group, and most specifically to Mr. Hayek. But now it seems that the watch industry is at a tipping point. For several years, SWATCH has stated that they will stop selling movements (ebauches), and everyone panicked - several companies started making their own plans for movements - and others looked for other alternatives. One particularly noted move was the "in house movement" of a well-known Swiss company who was less than forthcoming about the Japanese origins of its new chronograph movement until it was called out.
And from the sidelines, I can certainly understand what Mr. Hayek meant in his Watch Time interview where he stated that the goal was, in fact, to force watch companies to actually make watches and not merely assemble "kits" and slap on their name to a dial. All of this made sense. But now it seems that the folks at SWATCH are pushing some different buttons - or maybe to put it more aptly, they are tugging on springs.
Nivarox is owned by SWATCH. Nivarox also has a near strangle-hold on the balance spring supply. And the word around the campfires of Switzerland and Germany is that they are intending to not sell this particularly vital part outside of the SWATCH Group. Not unlike your local utility company refusing to sell you electricity - it is that vital, and Nivarox have an undisputed monopoly. Of course this would not include the "special friends" of SWATCH, but this move would obviously destroy quite a few brands and create a fairly large unemployment problem. And while they cannot do this outright - i.e. stop selling completely, what they are seemingly doing is slowly starving companies of this essential part. Put another way - what good is your own movement without the spring?
What is the real intent here? As I write this, I have several watches looking at me - a few SWATCH Group items, and several from "Outside". My suspicion is that this is hopefully just another case of saber rattling, but again - to what purpose really? This would be like Standard Oil refusing to sell oil outside of Ohio. Movements, ebauches - this I get and I think deep down most folks do. But springs? Come on SWATCH Group - how much is enough?
James, How are you?
ReplyDeleteI wanted to suggest to anyone who is looking for hairsprings that there are alternatives that i know of. The first is British Precision Springs, they're nothing like Swatch, they'll actually sell hairsprings to individuals as well as manufacturers.
http://www.britishprecisionsprings.co.uk/
There's also Straumann hairsprings by Precision Engineering AG, they probably have a larger minimum order than British Precision Springs, but they're willing to sell to anyone who can meet the minimum quantity, John McGonigle uses them for his watches.
http://www.precision-engineering.ch/Straumann.html
It's also not as impossible to manufacture springs as most think, you simply need very precise rolling mills, so if you can get the machines to mass produce your own movements, then you should be able to get the equipment to make your own springs, it's not prohibitively expensive to a manufacturer with enough capital to make their own movements, it just requires the right set of knowledge.
-Paul