Credits: Article and images by Martin Green @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/02/05/wristwatch-precision-why-the-fundamental-purpose-of-watches-is-playing-second-fiddle-and-how-to-fix-this/
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Press releases are filled with lines telling how great these developments are and what a breakthrough for the industry, but what they often don’t show are the numbers that show the positive effect on the precision of the watch.
The truth is that this is often also quite difficult to establish. What are you comparing it to? Suppose it is a further development of an already existing movement. In that case, you have a way to achieve this, but with an entirely new movement, you can only show its current precision, often based on conditioned testing in a workshop. This would help but still make comparing challenging and often not fair.
Precision can best be established by an independent authority, and in the past, there were competitions for this, the so-called observatory trails. This tradition came forward out of the longitude problem, which could only be solved by having a very precise timekeeper on board your ship.
Over the years, precision competitions became popular, and achievements were even advertised as a testimony to how good a brand was. Brands even developed special calibers to compete in these challenges, and a specialist watchmaker to fine tune them for optimum performance.
This sounds very much like the Formula 1 for watchmaking, and it was. The competition was crazy, and the difference between winning or coming in second could easily be 1/10th of a point. The competition was so fierce, and the performance of the watches so good, that they even established something called the ‘Craftsmanship Test.’ To make it, you had to be outstanding, which is also proven by the fact that in the 27 years that this test existed, only 12 watches made it.
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Credits: Article and images by Martin Green @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/02/05/wristwatch-precision-why-the-fundamental-purpose-of-watches-is-playing-second-fiddle-and-how-to-fix-this/