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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1350 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Open Source Watch Movement Project

I didn't see the PDF. I made it as far as checking out their Facebook page and discovering they've been basically stuck for two years.

They've got like three guys there who did serious time at APRP. They should be able to do this no problem- I mean frankly, they could give their drawings to any of their former employers (Parmigiani Fleurier, JLC, APRP) and get whatever they wanted quickly.

It's a really weird scam - APRP makes a goodly percentage of the bizarro hotrod stuff out there yet they're going for a 13 1/2 ligne, hand-wound small seconds with calendar. That's big, by the way - 7750 big. You're looking at about $200 retail for the same thing only smaller from Sellita. If you're going to use that movement for anything you're pretty much going with a Seagull St8000 case. In which case go with an ST8000 'cuz it's got a tourbillon.

The lack of innovation here is formidable: the size is weird (it's a small pocket watch), the complications are negligible, the beat rate is used pretty much only by the Omega coaxial escapements and the bridge is fiddly and weak. I honestly don't get it.

O&J used ETA because they don't care about the movements. They recently switched to Ulysse Nardin because UN wants to be friends with Ludwig Oechslin again and he had a hand in most of their designs. Omega loves their coaxial escapement because they bought it from George Daniels, who said it never needed lubrication, but it does. And here's the thing: at 13 1/2 ligne nothing fits. No modules, no cases, no crystals. There's nothing practical about this.

At all.