How does someone even become an "Independent Expert" on watch authenticity? Specifically Rolex

[UncleDave]

But why? Why would a manufacturer use COSC as an excuse to limit supply when they could, you know, limit the supply the old fashion way: Just not make as many?

Only reason I can see- is so you can pin the blame on a 3rd party. Which is occasionally helpful, but I agree, I dont see it.

 

[ofelas]

Nautilus 5711...mmm...collectium.

Had one of those a few years back.

****e's overrated, unless one is a collector.

 

[PandaBear]

Interesting concept as a production limiting gate, but Rolex can always remove " superlative chronometer" from the face label and bypass Cosc, not sure who even knows enough to care.

But why? Why would a manufacturer use COSC as an excuse to limit supply when they could, you know, limit the supply the old fashion way: Just not make as many?

Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711. The most sought after steel sport watch on Earth. In the midst of a 10 year wait list and valuations that doubled and even tripled retail prices, Patek just says, "We're not going to make it anymore."

It's not COSC certified. It's super popular, even at a ridiculous (for a steel watch) price. Patek just decided they were only going to make so many every year (and then none at all). No reason needed.

I mean, I'm sure Patek has their reasons. They only produce a little more than 60,000 watches every year total. Of those, less than 25% are steel. Steel watches, despite their incredible popularity and demand in the market, just aren't Patek's focus as a watchmaker.

Maybe it's to protect the value of existing 5711s?
Maybe Patek thought that rabid demand for the 5711 detracted from their focus on precious metal watches?

Who knows, but none of it stopped Patek from limiting the number of 5711s they produced each year.

I am not 100% sure, but it is an opinion I heard, and it does make some sense that you have to jump through an extra hoop if you want to change your mind about exclusivity / production limit one day. It may not be relevant if the brand is successful but if it is not, then the company may be desperate and try to increase production for short term gains.

 

[gmh101358]

I'm not trying to argue either, but at the same time I have spent a lot of time studying this stuff and putting into practice, so in a sense I'm challenging your statement.

Here's my "long answer" as to why, and I know some of this stuff is basic information, but bear with me.

A typical watch movement has 5 gears in constant mesh, or "wheels" in watch parlance. Although not often called a "wheel" the first of these is the mainspring barrel, which of course carries the torque of the unwinding mainspring.

This meshes with a wheel traditionally called the center wheel. Historically, the center wheel was quite literally in the geometric center of the movement, and directly drove the minute hand. Consequently, it makes one complete rotation once per hour.

Moving on down the train, you have the 3rd wheel, which has no fixed rotational speed, and then the 4th wheel, or sometimes called the "seconds wheel". Again, this traditionally drove the second hand directly, and consequently rotated once per minute. There again, from the center wheel to 4th wheel, there is a 1:60 increase in rotational speed.

Meshing with the 4th wheel is the escape wheel. This wheel, in combination with the pallet fork(in a lever escapement watch, which is most everything now outside the Omega Coaxial), both stops and starts the train, and also transmits power from the train to the balance wheel. Typically the escape wheel has 15 teeth, and advances forward by one tooth for every oscillation of the balance. You can do the math on its rotational speed-on the 18,000 bph watches I normally work it rotates once every 3 seconds.

I go through all of this for a reason. The correct sideshake(spacing) of all of these wheels is critical on set-up, and ideally they "roll" over each other without the teeth bottoming out. None the less, though, expansion or contraction of these with temperature isn't particularly significant because rotational speeds are so low and torque is(relatively speaking) quite high.

If the escape wheel does change appreciably in size, it can affect the pallet stone engagement which does affect balance amplitude, but I quite literally have never seen that become an issue on watches of any size.

You then, by means of the pallet fork, get to the balance wheel. This is the harmonic oscillator in combination with the hairspring that is the ultimate timekeeper in the watch. The "beat rate" of a watch describes the oscillation frequency of the balance wheel-i.e. 8 times per second in a 28,800bph watch. The balance wheel, for most of its rotation(generally 220-240º in each direction-this is a design parameter of the watch and is called the amplitude) is completely free spinning. It ONLY interacts with the balance wheel through a few degrees of rotation(called the lift angle, BTW) by way of the roller jewel or impulse jewel. During this period of interaction, it "kicks" the pallet fork over, which allows the escape wheel to advance by one tooth, and as the escape wheel advance it feeds energy back into the balance wheel. This allows it to reach a steady frequency.

I've gone through all of that because, again, the oscillation frequency is key to timekeeping, and in particular having a consistent, repeatable oscillation frequency. It is the fastest spinning wheel in the watch, and as it is mostly freely spinning on just its pivots, a lot of things can affect its velocity, or more importantly the amplitude. One of the first goals is to have the balance wheel be isochronic, or have the frequency remain constant regardless of amplitude. I'm ignoring the temperature elephant in the room now, but things like varying friction across positions, a balance wheel out of poise(not balanced around its perimeter) or a lot of other things can affect amplitude, and isochronism is largely kept in check by properly formed hairsprings. Some hairspring designs are better at this than others. The helical hairspring is the gold standard for this, but it's far too thick for wristwatches, or even most pocket watches(I do know of helical spring pocket watches). It's mostly seen in things like deck watches and true chronometers. Next down the list is the overcoil hairspring, which is still used some(by Rolex in particular). Flat hairsprings are worst, but careful forming and newer tricks like the "dogleg" terminal curve are better than a plain, simple flat spring. Conventional regulators are a huge issue as well, as the interaction between the hairspring and regulator pins can be problematic. Consequently, freesprung designs, or designs without a regulator, are preferred but are more difficult to adjust the timing. Rolex almost universally uses freepsrung designs, and regulation is accomplished by tiny nuts on the balance wheel(called "Microstella nuts") that change the moment of inertia and are adjusted with a special wrench.

In any case, temperature does affect the balance wheel. The oldest watches used a carbon spring steel hairspring and a monmetallic flat balance wheel typically made of steel or gold. There are two big issues with this-thermal expansion of the balance whee and change in the spring constant of the hairpsring. At high temperatures, the wheel expands and the spring becomes less elastic, both of which slow the rate. At low temperatures, the opposite happens-the spring becomes more elastic and the wheel smaller, so the watch speeds up.

The first attempt to fix this was the split bimetallic balance wheel, which is laminated steel and brass(usually). At high temperatures, the ends of the arms curl inward decreasing the effective diameter, and at low temperatures they curl outward to increase the diameter. The idea is to counteract the change in spring elasticity. This was a complicated process that often involved moving weight around the rims(using brass or gold screws) to find the right spot, and it still left residual "middle temperature error." Adjusting a split bimetallic watch to temperature is not one of my favorite things to do.

Back in the 1930s, the Swiss developed a material called Elinvar, or short for "Elastically Invariable." As the name would suggest, the spring constant stays more-or-less the same regardless of temperature. This was used in combination in some cases with Invar, which is an alloy with a low coefficient of thermal expansion. Middle temperature error still hangs around but it can amount to a couple of seconds a week. The late George Daniels tried a few different techniques, including a few designs of bimetallic balance. He finally settled on using a set of four bimetallic "fingers" facing inward that would iron that error down to a second or so a week. That's really splitting hairs, though.

In any case, the long and the short of it is that modern mechanical watches really aren't affected by temperature, or at least normal temperatures to which they're likely subjected. IIRC, COSC does include temperature testing also. The rate of change in temperature is not going to be different enough to matter cased or uncased. In fact, the case can add enough thermal inertia that temperature swings will be less extreme and conceivably a movement COULD(not necessarily will) rate better cased than uncased. I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where an uncased movement would rate worse than the same movement cased.

Although it seems to me that with so many dissimilar metals and masses there exist the capacity for something to change enough to be meaningful about the case vs movements especially when the mainspring is mostly unwound.

It may be that temperature differences between the movement and the case may not really effect anything much of all.

It would be interesting to learn a little more about why some chose to test cased vs uncased movements.

Id rather know the reasons behind eth choices than be "right" about was only one assumption as to why.

Too many things to learn, to little time to learn them.

Ive loved mechanical watches my whole life since I got a Helbros dive watch in junior high in 1969 then a Rolex Sub in high school....i learn something new all the time...one of the few watch brands im not interested in is Jacob and Co...dont care how much they cost...to look at them on display yeah sure ....like one with the sun and planets.... but to wear one .....no.

 

[gmh101358]

I am not 100% sure, but it is an opinion I heard, and it does make some sense that you have to jump through an extra hoop if you want to change your mind about exclusivity / production limit one day. It may not be relevant if the brand is successful but if it is not, then the company may be desperate and try to increase production for short term gains.

Rolex might be trying the same thing...i went buy my friendly AD and asked about "when are you getting new subs in?" I would be 118 on the wait list.....they had some DJ's but zero sport watches ....take that back one gold YM and a YM2.

 

[allepunta]

COSC does use "generic" dials/hands, and I could potentially the actual ones causing issues.

With that said, when I've encountered dial/hand issues affecting timing, it's essentially immediately obvious. It will be things like the dial rubbing the canon pinion and causing the minute hand to drag, or the hands clashing(easy to find if you just spin the hands around a full 12 hour cycle after you've seated them). The canon pinion issue causes errors of minutes per hour, so again it's not something that's going to creep up as a few seconds a day.

JLC's casing thing sounds a bit marketing as much as anything, and also seems to focus on pressure testing during the timing. That's something that really won't change timing any appreciable amount unless there's water ingress, but then timing is the least of your concerns.

COSC gives gidelines about how the hands and dial must be for the test. Is up to the watch company to get those and assemble them for the test.
I do not believe any company sending movememts to cosc by the thousends is gonna run in any rubing problem with hands, canon pinion etc. Those calibers are long past the "prototyping" period, even if some small changes "on the run" are sometimes common

 

[bunnspecial]

COSC gives gidelines about how the hands and dial must be for the test. Is up to the watch company to get those and assemble them for the test.
I do not believe any company sending movememts to cosc by the thousends is gonna run in any rubing problem with hands, canon pinion etc. Those calibers are long past the "prototyping" period, even if some small changes "on the run" are sometimes common

That wasn't really what I was saying in my rambling.

I more meant post-COSC that that stuff could happen by someone who was careless in assembly, but again I don't see that happening especially with new parts.

 

[gmh101358]

That wasn't really what I was saying in my rambling.

I more meant post-COSC that that stuff could happen by someone who was careless in assembly, but again I don't see that happening especially with new parts.

Speaking of careless...I had sent in my 36mm explorer 1 some years ago to the Rolex Dallas service center....when i got it back it had a bad scratch on the bottom left lug and inside you could a large dust particle....I was not happy since they charge an arm and a leg for service....plus i waited almost 5 months to get it back.....had to send it back in and seven weeks or so later i got it back....this time it was OK.....but wasted several months .....oh and i got an offer for me being so patience that on my next service i would get 15 percent off! wow!

 

[UncleDave]

Speaking of careless...I had sent in my 36mm explorer 1 some years ago to the Rolex Dallas service center....when i got it back it had a bad scratch on the bottom left lug and inside you could a large dust particle....I was not happy since they charge an arm and a leg for service....plus i waited almost 5 months to get it back.....had to send it back in and seven weeks or so later i got it back....this time it was OK.....but wasted several months .....oh and i got an offer for me being so patience that on my next service i would get 15 percent off! wow!

The beverly hills store gets lots of traffic with similar wait times.

I'd rather give my money to certified independents anyway.

I only had one problem with a fingerprint inside once.

On rolex polishing the chamfer goes away after a few trips for service.
Rolliworks will laser weld new metal on and work it to new specs- hugely difficult.

 

[UncleDave]

Worth clicking through.

904L Laser welding/Case Repair 126600 Deep Sea Dweller

Rolex is famous for their line of utilitarian time pieces such as the Ref 12660 Deep Sea Dweller. This deep sea diving watch is popular with many for its robust design and larger size. This guy is built like a tank and can really take a beating (and often does). For that reason it's quite common...

www.rolliworks.com

 

[gmh101358]

The beverly hills store gets lots of traffic with similar wait times.

I'd rather give my money to certified independents anyway.

I only had one problem with a fingerprint inside once.

On rolex polishing the chamfer goes away after a few trips for service.
Rolliworks will laser weld new metal on and work it to new specs- hugely difficult.

Yes ive found a local who charges about 30-40 percent less takes about 6 weeks and seems to do just as good work as a Rolex service center

 

[UncleDave]

Yes ive found a local who charges about 30-40 percent less takes about 6 weeks and seems to do just as good work as a Rolex service center

These guys usually do well up until they need parts then the dealer network chokes them.

 

[allepunta]

I believe in the US many independent watchmaker have a rolex account, they get parts served. Huge investement in a couple of machine a a few tool needed tough

 

[bunnspecial]

Rolex has restricted parts accounts a lot compared to ~20 years ago, but folks with the right training, correct Rolex-specific tools(like their currently approved case back opener), appropriate timing machines and water testers, etc can get one. It's not EASY but there are plenty of independent guys out there. I use someone in New Jersey.

One of the biggest issues has been Rolex cutting off independent access to movement parts for older calibers, and case parts for older references. A few years ago it was the 15xx series movements, and now 3035 material is being phased out. There again, the guy I use in NJ, who I trust since it is how he makes a living, said that he's getting cut off sometime in 2022 on 3035s. He quit taking them at the end of 2019 since he has to offer a 2-year warranty on on repairs.

The 3035 one is a big deal since that covers late 70s to sometime in the 90s, and there are a lot of excellent and affordable watches in that date range. The 3035 movement itself is what I'd call a thoroughly modern movement and still in ways better than contemporary comparable ETA movements. The only real criticism I've heard of it was Rolex choosing to use a bushing rather a jewel on the pillar plate side of the center wheel, although they did make it easy to replace. The 3135 is more advanced, and in particular the 3035 uses a balance cock as does nearly every other movement out there, while the 3135 has a balance bridge with slick little adjustment nuts to set endshake. (BTW, for anyone who wants to get nitpicky and correct in their watch plate terminology, a cock is anchored at one position, while a bridge is anchored at two or more positions).

The 1530 and related one is an even bigger deal for collectors. If you send a watch to Rolex, it will come back as close to perfect as they can make it. That means that if you have a yellowed dial or bezel, they'll refinish or replace it. That's good in theory since you can unbox your 50 year old watch after it comes back and say "This really does look brand new." What's bad is that to a collector, that rare marking variant on the dial even with the dial yellowed is a $50,000 watch and not just a generic old $3K 60s Sub with a recent service.

When my much-beloved Datejust is in need of service again(I had it done last year even though it didn't really need it) I don't know what I'm going to do. My friend who serviced it said that if I wanted to keep wearing it, I might need to budget for a new bracelet in the future since he saw enough stretch that if he'd been at a Rolex service center, he would have probably been expected to replace it. Stainless/18K two tone Jubilees are, I think he told me, $2500 or so if Rolex supplies them with service. There are a few folks out there who claim to fix "stretch"(which really is primarily pin wear) by completely disassembling the bracelet, cleaning every single link thoroughly(and there are a lot of them in men's Jubilee bracelet) and then reassembling with new pins. The results I've seen look great, but who knows if Rolex would okay it. Ultimately, my friend said that he knows I like this watch, and that I might be better shopping for a newer one and just keeping this one around for special occasions. My ideal "complimentary" watch would be a stainless/silver dial/fluted bezel. Somewhere in the back of my head I have it that fluted bezels always come with Jubilee bracelets, but for simplicity sake I'd prefer just a standard Oyster bracelet. Oh well...

 

[gmh101358]

Yes... I like the DJ with fluted bezel/Jubilee combo and smooth bezel with oyster combo....my DJ is 2 tone white face is an "A" serial number so 1999 and will continue to be one of my fav models .....DJ 2 tone/BlackSub/GMT2 Pepsi is my top three.

 

[ofelas]

Mobil-1 vs Royal Purple, anyone?
Asking for a friend.

 

[allepunta]

I also think the 3035 is a great caliber.
Pitty about the parts. Rolex probably want we to buy new watches and stop fixing the old ones

 

[gmh101358]

I also think the 3035 is a great caliber.
Pitty about the parts. Rolex probably want we to buy new watches and stop fixing the old ones

I've read once a watch gets 20 years old they may or may not still make parts for that movement....I ran across this with a guy that had a 1985? Rolex Date 34mm it needed a part and Rolex said we dont make anymore... sorry. He found a local watch repair guy who
used a part from another watch..... But yes its Rolex's way of saying its old .....you must buy a new one.....but there is a six month wait time on that sub you want.
I wanted a green bezel sub for 2 +years and gave up.

 

[bunnspecial]

I also think the 3035 is a great caliber.
Pitty about the parts. Rolex probably want we to buy new watches and stop fixing the old ones

Like I said, I consider the 3035 a better design than a lot of current ETA calibers that are all over the place.

AFAIK, Rolex will still stock parts for them and will be able to fix them for a while-you just have to go directly to them.

 

[wtd]

I've always admired the Rolex Submariner and Seadweller and priced new ones back in 2004. I believe the SD was $3,800+ and the Submariner was $3,600+. Looking at the current prices for both of these, I wish I had bought one back then.

As much as I like both of these, I just can't get myself to pay the new prices these command.