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The time that the watchmakers have been panicking has arrived: ETA, the Swatch subsidiary that produces movements for most of the industrys contractors, is mowing off their afford. ETA will make its last shipment of movement blanks -- customizable movements -- toward the end of 2010. Thereafter, watch producers that had relied on ETA (Tag Heuer, Panerai, IWC, and beautiful many each additional watch mark you know) will must find another source for movement blanks -- alternatively will have produce them themselves.
Breitling namely 1 company that has chosen the latter path. The Swiss watch maker revealed their premier in-house activity,
breitling watches, the Caliber B01, at Basel final year. The Caliber B01 will be obtainable in the Navitimer prototype for of Spring 2011 (it is currently obtainable in the Chronomat B01).
Breitlings sale mentor, Ben Balmer, has been with the company for almost 20 years. He even comes from the same hometown: Biel, Switzerland. AskMen sat down with Ben to discuss the ETAs movement moratorium, the inconsistency between Swiss and Japanese watches and why men love timepieces.
What was the first watch that you owned?
Ben Balmer: My first watch was… do I must tell you? (smiles) My first watch was a Tissot and the bracelet was a bracelet that we at Breitling resolved, a year and a half ago, to produce in one of our own watches. It was a devise from the '60s, and it was basically the inspiration for our Air Racer bracelet, a metal bracelet. The bracelet above my Tissot was favor that. I was actually proud when we launched that bracelet afresh afterward so many years.
And then I had a Breitling, while I was 18. Because I was living in Biel and Terry Schneider, who basically runs Breitling today and whose household owns Breitling, was my brothers best friend. Terry was working at the period at Breitling, even if he went elsewhere else to study about watchmaking. And I wore the watch because he was a friend, and because I simply liked the watches.
Biel is a metropolis thats basically all almost watches. Thats where Rolex has its movement factories. When I was a children the metropolis was much bigger,
breitling watches, and full of folk, for everybody was working in the watch manufacture. Then in the mid-70s, electronic watches came forward and suddenly mechanical watches were out. So a lot of folk lost their jobs.
The Swiss watch industry has since nicely regained -- and a lot of people honor the Swatch Group for reviving it.
BB: Yeah, Swatch definitely played a very important role. It was not the only one, but definitely the most powerful.
Is the Swatch Group giving the Swiss industry variant boost today, along restricting the delivery of their movements and forcing watchmakers to produce their own?
In a way what you say is true. And the best testimony of it is Breitling. We were a very agreeable partner to ETA, which was the aboriginal Swatch subsidiary that manufactured movements. And we had been a very agreeable partner for numerous years. We would not purchase fully assembled movements. We would buy mechanical movements from ETA, but in chapters -- meaning the hundreds of chapters that make up a movement. We would bring these chapters to our plant and assemble the movements using them. This allowed us, until now, to assemble to our own descriptions and to make them execute better.
This arrangement is now coming to an end… for Breitling and for everybody else also. Starting at the end of 2010,
breitling watches, no one will be delivered movements in components. You will still be skillful to buy movements from ETA, but merely complete movements, assembled ones.
Discover Breitling's solution to the ETA problem: The Caliber B01... Next Page >>
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What You Need To Know Breitling recently began producing their movements in-house
Breitling watches became renowned with pilots because of the functions they offered Japanese watches have quality, but no cachet. "My first watch was... do I must differentiate you?"
Breitling
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