Quote:
Originally Posted by NemesisX
Since when did "fit and finish" assessments become a matter of personal opinion? That there's no consensus on which brand boasts superior "fit and finish" is testament to its uselessness as a horological quality indicator.
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I think the problem is that as goes exterior fit and finish (most folks never see the inside of a Rolex) there's not much difference between a $500 watch and a $50K watch. There's just not any actual superiority to be found in terms of F&F; among' similar watch-type offerings, nearly all the brands are pretty much equal.
Once in a while, I come across an ergonomic design aspect that is better on one brand than on another. For example, I can, without the aide of my glasses, read the date on a Rolex Oyster watch; I can't read it on my Omega Constellation, and on my Deep Blue T-100, I can barely discern the aperture for the date, let alone the actual date, which I can't see with or without glasses. (It's been so long since I wore my Seamaster I couldn't tell you that I can still read the date. The last time I wore it, I could.)
Construction varies among watch brands, but at the Omega and Rolex levels (even before one gets that far up the pricing scale), construction quality tends to be as good as it's going to get for a given type of watch. Also, engineering techniques and the innovation associated with the design of a movement varies among brands and specific watches. For example, more and more makers these days are shifting to silicon components for all or part of some of the movement parts' because that material has sufficient structural strength, surpasses the metal in that it wears more slowly, and it's not susceptible to magnetic fields. Omega has implemented the co-axial escapement throughout most of, if not all, of their mechanical watches, so on the innovation front, they are a step ahead of Rolex.
The thing about innovations is sometimes they have a practical benefit to the typical consumer and sometimes they don't. For example, I'm pretty sure silicon parts are less dear than metal ones, particularly gold ones and rhodium plated ones, but I can promise you the price of the watches using silicon parts isn't going down in comparison the same watch model that was made with all metal parts. The maker's profits, however, will surely increase. The co-axial escapement is a brilliant innovation, but it necessarily makes a watch's movement thicker and yet collectors who care about innovation would prefer a thinner watch because the thinner a movement is, the more difficult it is to create, especially if the movement is an automatic one, so thinner speaks greater volumes to the maker's skill.
All the best.