Or, everything else should cost less. Here is my glashutte original panoreserve. I love it. I have known about GO for awhile but hadn’t really looked at it as an option. Last year I went to Watch Time NYC and they had a booth there.
First, quality was nuts. Seeing it person they’re so much nicer than what pics portray. Most impressive watches there for price I saw.
Second, everyone was so friendly and non judgmental. By comparison the guy at Breguet booth was such a pretentious douche bag it’s put me off the brand a bit.
Anyway, went and bought my own shortly after. I put a sickly mint strap that gets dirtier and more moody looking everyday, just the way I like. It’s manual wind and I like that I get to spend 15 seconds winding it everyday I wear it.
Personally, despite everyone going gaga for GO’s movement finishing, it’s not anything special. They have Geneva stripes (what brand doesn’t at this point) and only decide to actually do something artistic when it comes to the balance cock. And they shut away the whole thing under one big plate. I find myself much more impressed by the art i see on old pocket watch movements and Raketa’s.
There’s a little more to it than this. Need to ask why it was done this way and what benefits does it add?
Such as? Probably for artistic reasons.
From a machining perspective it is very difficult to make a 3/4 plate. If something is slightly off the whole bridge is scrapped. Being able to attain perfect alignment across all the wheels under one bridge with tolerances under .001mm is a huge accomplishment. Making individual bridges for every wheel is much easier and why you see it a lot in older pocket watches. The drawback to this is you lose a degree of robustness and accuracy across the whole movement. German movements done in this way are tough af
This reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about: Orient movements are a lot more conservative than Seiko one in what they show off. Would you say that this makes them a little more robust?
https://preview.redd.it/irgjjm5b6evb1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec59a63292a4bfcef126e8862409f564ceb414a0