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Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

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Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#81

Post by SamReidHughes »

gambiting wrote: post #78
ywnner_0001 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want a mechanical watch, and you want to have it mean / be worth something, I'd suggest saving up for a Rolex. Mechanical watches have (and this has been said before) the Rolex problem. On the lower end of the scale, a lot of mechanical watches will borrow design cues from Rolex (e.g., most dive watches will share similarities with the Submariner) and will fall far short of the quality of one. On the hi…

So funny you should recommend Rolex, because I actually know a few people who own them(and they all bought them brand new) and the prevailing opinion is that they are absolute crap at actually being a watch - they just drift a lot in short amount of time - one of my friends says his is can be as much as 10 minutes out every month(!!!!!) and that's a 5k watch!!! I'm personally saving up for an Omega, you can get a tim…

Um, what? Rolex is known for having the best accuracy and reliability in the mechanical watch market. 20 seconds per day is way out of spec, your friend needs to get it serviced. Omega is sometimes okay, but you still have to avoid certain movements, even on new models. Edit: But you're right that Omega is often a better deal.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#82

Post by SamReidHughes »

coldtea wrote: post #65
twblalock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

LOL. The R&D is an insignificant part of the cost. The margins are just sky-high because it's a luxury market, and suckers will pay anything.

Richemont group has something like 16% margins.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#83

Post by Antonio123123 »

dklsafhjskljfl wrote: post #74
Antonio123123 wrote: post #71

Let me voice my negative opinion: To me it looks worthy of a hobby, but to praise this as something exceptional it's kind of overstretch. The time required is very long to make the pieces by hand, but I feel any sharp person could do it. Nothing groundbreaking. So I don't understand people that find this fascinating, inspirational. Just buy a usual watch, and it will have the same pieces. It's cool that he makes new…

"i could have done that" "but you didnt"

Why would I manually do the pieces of a clockwork? It's been done manually countless times. Maybe If I would be in metallurgic industry it would make sense to do it as an exercise.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#84

Post by Antonio123123 »

orbifold wrote: post #80
Antonio123123 wrote: post #71

Let me voice my negative opinion: To me it looks worthy of a hobby, but to praise this as something exceptional it's kind of overstretch. The time required is very long to make the pieces by hand, but I feel any sharp person could do it. Nothing groundbreaking. So I don't understand people that find this fascinating, inspirational. Just buy a usual watch, and it will have the same pieces. It's cool that he makes new…

If you buy such a watch, you also buy a story. A single person producing a decently complicated watch from scratch is a pretty good story to tell. I image there are enough people in the world with the kind of disposable income required to buy such a watch, so he will have a pretty good business regardless of Chinese copycats.

Well I am not sure. It's a good story to tell if the person is someone important in the community that has for example written important books or invented something that is useful.

If it's just worker-bee man-hours I guess it would be better value-for-money to buy a seiko and tell the story of the factory and how it's made using such complicated processes and optimizations (not sure assumption about seiko factory using complicated processes is right).

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#85

Post by dagw »

Antonio123123 wrote: post #84
orbifold wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy such a watch, you also buy a story. A single person producing a decently complicated watch from scratch is a pretty good story to tell. I image there are enough people in the world with the kind of disposable income required to buy such a watch, so he will have a pretty good business regardless of Chinese copycats.

Well I am not sure. It's a good story to tell if the person is someone important in the community that has for example written important books or invented something that is useful. If it's just worker-bee man-hours I guess it would be better value-for-money to buy a seiko and tell the story of the factory and how it's made using such complicated processes and optimizations (not sure assumption about seiko factory usi…

not sure assumption about seiko factory using complicated processes is right

Depends on the Seiko. Seiko makes and has made a large number of complicated and historically interesting watches and movements with a story, but your average Seiko won't have that.

If you want a cheap mechanical watch that's a historical 'first' and has an interesting watchmaking story to tell in terms of processes and optimization, get a Swatch Sistem51. It's the first automatic movement that is simple enough and has few enough parts to be mass produced entirely by robot. Of course if that's a 'good' story to tell or not is very much up for debate.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#86

Post by blrhg »

ywnner_0001 wrote: post #73
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.…

If you really want a mechanical watch, and you want to have it mean / be worth something, I'd suggest saving up for a Rolex. Mechanical watches have (and this has been said before) the Rolex problem. On the lower end of the scale, a lot of mechanical watches will borrow design cues from Rolex (e.g., most dive watches will share similarities with the Submariner) and will fall far short of the quality of one. On the hi…

It seems my thinking about watch collecting differs a lot with you. I agree, its all about personal pref. I like Rolexes but I know I will never own them. They are too big for my wrist, and I honestly believe they are super over priced. I consider them like Apples of tech. They have super awesome band value, but does not mean they worth all the money you put into their pocket. That said, there are lot of other great brands with hell of horology. Like, Omega which is older than Rolex. Oris, Seiko, Tissot are great too!. JLC is like over-manufactured German car, you will never go wrong with it. But, for me watch collecting is all about a. enjoying the watch. b. Know the history of the watch. c. Have story with the watch you wear. So, yeah I enjoy my Timex Expedition as much as I love wearing HMT* Manual Wind Watch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMT_(company)

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#87

Post by coldtea »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #82
coldtea wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. The R&D is an insignificant part of the cost. The margins are just sky-high because it's a luxury market, and suckers will pay anything.

Richemont group has something like 16% margins.

What's the margin of the watch itself (factory, labor, etc vs cost) not their overall operating margins as a company?

And is that 16% margin due to "R&D" eating into them?

Or do they calculate their margins after hefty executive bonuses, lavish corporate offices, and other "expenses"? Not to mention that they also run all kind of boutique shops of their own and venture into various areas outside watches.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#88

Post by [deleted] »

jdietrich wrote: post #75
ryanlol wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a fact that when buying watches, you have to watch out for fakes, because people pass fake watches off as the real thing. Sure, but I don't think that this makes manufacturing, buying, or selling fakes immoral. Most fake watches are sold to people who know that they're buying a fake watch. >It affects the company being faked. I don't believe you. Rolex isn't losing any sales because of fakes. >And it's illegal,…

>Most fake watches are sold to people who know that they're buying a fake watch. Counterfeit watches are a serious problem; the American Watch and Clock Institute sell a DVD on identifying fake Rolexes, with the target audience being professionals in the watch industry. Innocent parties can (and frequently do) pay large sums of money for worthless fakes. https://www.awci.com/online-store/dvd/ It's one thing selling a…

[deleted]

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#89

Post by ryanlol »

jdietrich wrote: post #75
ryanlol wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a fact that when buying watches, you have to watch out for fakes, because people pass fake watches off as the real thing. Sure, but I don't think that this makes manufacturing, buying, or selling fakes immoral. Most fake watches are sold to people who know that they're buying a fake watch. >It affects the company being faked. I don't believe you. Rolex isn't losing any sales because of fakes. >And it's illegal,…

>Most fake watches are sold to people who know that they're buying a fake watch. Counterfeit watches are a serious problem; the American Watch and Clock Institute sell a DVD on identifying fake Rolexes, with the target audience being professionals in the watch industry. Innocent parties can (and frequently do) pay large sums of money for worthless fakes. https://www.awci.com/online-store/dvd/ It's one thing selling a…

>Innocent parties can (and frequently do) pay large sums of money for worthless fakes.

Are you talking about online or offline scams? The fake watch seems pretty useless if you're just scamming people online, you don't need to ship the buyer anything at all. A fake watch would only act as a temporary cover for such a scam possibly allowing the scammer to scam more people, but it's completely unnecessary for the scam itself.

Offline, how does that even happen? I guess maybe if you're a pawn shop operator.

>If the counterfeiters are so honourable and have no intent to deceive, why don't they discreetly engrave the word "REPLICA" on the caseback, case, movement main plate and bracelet?

Why would they need to do this? They aren't scamming anyone, a vanishingly small fraction of their customers are. If a factory started doing this they would just be unnecessarily putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

I don't know you, but I'd guess that you're probably demanding far higher standards from watch counterfeiters than the businesses you actually deal with. Unless you're the most conscious consumer ever you're almost certainly regularly doing business with companies committing far worse offenses than trademark infringement.

Re: Masahiro Kikuno, Japanese Independent Watchmaker (2017)

#90

Post by halbritt »

halbritt wrote: post #45

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…

It's probably worth clarifying why it's obvious that he was an adherent of George Daniels. In his book, and in every interview I've seen of him, he speaks at length about the value of a watch maker being able to make every component in a watch. Listening to him talk about how he learned every aspect of the trade in his is fascinating.
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