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Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

watchesbysjx.com

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Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#41

Post by SamReidHughes »

vernie wrote: post #35
_skel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically there has never been a better time to buy an affordable mechanical watch than now. Quartz won because the mechanical watches that most people could afford in the 1970s were very inaccurate. A cheap quartz watch was more accurate than any mechanical watch and anybody could afford one by the late 1970s -- although they were very expensive at first. Affordable mechanical watches on the market today are much m…

They're still nowhere near as accurate as quartz, even on the high end, and accuracy also varies depending on the orientation of the watch.

The Zenith Defy Lab watch has accuracy of -0.5/+0.5 seconds per day, which matches and/or beats quartz watches (that aren't thermocompensated). Rolexes, which have a classical movement design, are pretty close, promising -2/+2 spd. Quartz watches' accuracy also varies depending on orientation, for what it's worth. (It has an effect on the order of 1-2 seconds per year.) Related EEVBlog link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILwgQhjC_Q

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#42

Post by ryanlol »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #38
ryanlol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a measure to combat counterfeit watches or to separate OEM crystals from third party ones? It's usually not very hard to source OEM crystals, so to me it seems more likely that this would be about third party crystals and not counterfeit watches. Can you think of any other supposed anti-counterfeiting measures besides the laser etched crystals? If this is something that the watch companies actually pursued it w…

They're going to put this conversation in a chapter about motivated reasoning someday. Seiko 5's had laser etched crystals as an anti-counterfeiting measure, and then, because counterfeiters copied that, they switched to open casebacks, an anti-counterfeiting measure that is used across the industry. "Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year." - Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group.

>They're going to put this conversation in a chapter about motivated reasoning someday.

It's hilarious that you're so invested in this that you resort to attacking my character.

>they switched to open casebacks, an anti-counterfeiting measure that is used across the industry

I would assume that open casebacks are used because they look cool, not to prevent counterfeiting.

>"Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year."

>- Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group.

I think this is bullshit, I doubt you can find any data that would support this claim. I can't. I'd bet he just took some estimate of replica industry total revenue and decided that's how much it costs the legit watchmaking industry.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#43

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

KyleBrandt wrote: post #12
shawnps wrote: post #10

For anyone interested in purchasing a mechanical watch, there are plenty of brands making affordable mechanical timepieces today. Hamilton, Seiko, Tissot, Swatch, Orient, and Timex are a few that come to mind for the sub-$1000 category. It's a fun hobby with a nice community of enthusiasts. Some advice: * If possible, wear the watch before buying it. Seeing a watch on your wrist is different from seeing photos of it.…

One other common terminology, any additional features are often called "complications". In particular others like me might enjoy the UTC/GMT complication, which often has a hand that goes around the watch once every 24 hours and can be set to another timezone like UTC. On another pro-watch note, I've discovered that a non-smartwatch has an pretty amazing feature: the ability to check the time without seeing any sort…

Now I know why Apple watch features are called 'complications', thank you.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#44

Post by halbritt »

twblalock wrote: post #21
SamReidHughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say, don't avoid the gray market. You'll get lower prices, and you probably won't need to use the warranty. It's a net win, if the price drop is good enough. Many popular watches (e.g. JDM or non-USA-market Seikos) are only available gray-market in the USA.

That's fine for cheap watches, but once you get into the $500+ price range you are taking a big risk. If the watch has problems you'll need to pay out of pocket for repairs, and parts and service can be difficult to obtain for a watch not normally sold in your country.

Warranties cover defects which are few. A $500+ watch will need servicing after a few years, which is not covered and will generally run a few hundred dollars.

Not really a "big risk".

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#45

Post by halbritt »

This guy is obviously an adherent of George Daniels. His story is fascinating. He produced likely one of the only significant inventions in mechanical watches in the last century, the coaxial escapement. The book shown in the OP is wonderful and here's a documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nsh8llV5dE

Daniels' apprentice and now watchmaker Roger W. Smith has carried on making watches with his escapement and like Kikuno-San makes all of the components by hand and in-house.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#46

Post by mikekchar »

paradoxparalax wrote: post #27
ryanlol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* Avoid replicas and fakes ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHgKMA6Bh6U ) Why? These days chinese factories are pushing superb 4130 clones for the price of a decent seiko. This guy in the video seems to know nothing at all about the chinese watch industry.

Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft, some people spent A Lot of money in design for some malicious smartass chinese guy to come and copy and sell by 10 times cheaper....This is Absurd. Some people are loosing their jobs , see , maybe me myself, i am loosing a job because of Falsification... Besides, Is not really necessary, Come one, people should come…

> Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft,

I just want to respond to this because we see a lot of the same comments in the software industry and I think it dilutes the meaning of the law to speak imprecisely.

If you make a watch and put a brand name on it for which you have no license, that is a trade mark infringement. It is illegal in most countries. It is not theft. Theft is where you take something that belongs to someone else, thereby depriving them of it. Infringement is where you use something that belongs to someone else, often without depriving them of it. They are different things, both legally and morally.

There are design patents, and I suspect that there are probably design patents for watches (although I've never looked). If you copy a design that is patented for which you have no license, you are infringing the patent. This is illegal in most parts of the world (but probably different parts of the world than trademark infringement). It is also infringement, not theft.

Fashion designs can not by copyrighted under most (all?) international treaties. If you make a watch that looks similar to another watch, but that does not infringe the trademark, nor infringe any design patents, then you are not infringing at all. It is neither illegal, nor immoral (IMHO anyway) to do this. However, it may be fraud if you try to pass it off as something it is not, which is illegal, of course.

Karl Lagerfeld, the famous designer had an interesting comment about look-a-like copies. When prompted in an interview (unfortunately I can't remember which programme it was on) for his opinion about people who buy knock bags he replied something to the effect of, "Those people are not my customers. None of my customers would buy those bags. Neither would customers who are happy with a knock off bag want to buy my bags. It makes no difference to me". As much as I realise that not everybody will have such an expansive point of view, I've always thought it to be an incredibly wise position to take in the fashion industry.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#47

Post by twblalock »

Pristina wrote: post #31
paradoxparalax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft, some people spent A Lot of money in design for some malicious smartass chinese guy to come and copy and sell by 10 times cheaper....This is Absurd. Some people are loosing their jobs , see , maybe me myself, i am loosing a job because of Falsification... Besides, Is not really necessary, Come one, people should come…

If some 'smartass chinese' guy can provide the same thing for 1/10th the price, then clearly the original maker is overcharging.

It's easy to make cheap stuff when somebody else invested in the R&D and you just steal their designs.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#48

Post by mikekchar »

KyleBrandt wrote: post #11
AtomicOrbital wrote: post #7

In traditional Japan the custom was each day had 12 hours of daylight and 12 of night time so to accommodate this the length of hours shifted day by day ... Masahiro was inspired by an ancient clock which implemented this idea such that he decided to craft by hand a watch to perform this as well ... incredible master and some impressive video documentary taboot

The time system was one of the real interesting things from the documentary to me. This Seiko page explains the time system well: https://museum.seiko.co.jp/en/knowledge/wadokei/huteijihou/ 12 hour day (what is 24 hours in modern time). Daytime is always 6 hours and night time is always 6 hours. The absolute length of the hours changes with the seasons.

There's an android app for it even: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aragaer.jtt/

I just started using it recently and I really like it. My mood is very much affected by exposure to daylight and it really helps to plan my day around the sun, rather than arbitrary numbers on a clock.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#49

Post by sho »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #38
ryanlol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a measure to combat counterfeit watches or to separate OEM crystals from third party ones? It's usually not very hard to source OEM crystals, so to me it seems more likely that this would be about third party crystals and not counterfeit watches. Can you think of any other supposed anti-counterfeiting measures besides the laser etched crystals? If this is something that the watch companies actually pursued it w…

They're going to put this conversation in a chapter about motivated reasoning someday. Seiko 5's had laser etched crystals as an anti-counterfeiting measure, and then, because counterfeiters copied that, they switched to open casebacks, an anti-counterfeiting measure that is used across the industry. "Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year." - Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group.

> "Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year."

I take this with the same giant heaping of salt that I'd take with claims that the record industry loses billions per year because of mp3s, or movie companies because of bittorrent. They were never going to see those sales. The market size at price $0 is much, much larger than that at anything higher. Wishful thinking at its purest.

I second, with emphasis, ryanlol's rejection of your ideas about counterfeits being somehow immoral. I don't buy counterfeits but would have zero moral qualms about doing so - it doesn't even enter my mind. To be honest I have difficulty believing anyone seriously believes buying a counterfeit watch is truly immoral. If you actually do believe that - wow, we live in different worlds.

I find it hard to take seriously anyone who outsources their morality to whatever the law happens to currently be wherever they currently are. Laws vary wildly across both time and space. Anyone claiming their morals just follow "the law" is actually admitting they don't have their own morals at all.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#50

Post by SamReidHughes »

sho wrote: post #49
SamReidHughes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're going to put this conversation in a chapter about motivated reasoning someday. Seiko 5's had laser etched crystals as an anti-counterfeiting measure, and then, because counterfeiters copied that, they switched to open casebacks, an anti-counterfeiting measure that is used across the industry. "Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year." - Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group.

> "Counterfeiting costs the watchmaking industry billions each year." I take this with the same giant heaping of salt that I'd take with claims that the record industry loses billions per year because of mp3s, or movie companies because of bittorrent. They were never going to see those sales. The market size at price $0 is much, much larger than that at anything higher. Wishful thinking at its purest. I second, with…

I'm not outsourcing morality to the law at all. It's not breaking the law that makes it immoral, it's supporting organized crime that is immoral. That is just one reason why wearing fake watches is immoral.

Even if it was legal to violate trademarks and commit fraud, you'd be paying people who are sneaky, lying sons of bitches.

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