Made in China?

[gamingdoctor]

Originally Posted by deeman54

With that said we have faithfully disowned china made items for decades now.

Did you mean personally or statewide? I feel like Chinese products have taken over the market in the United States. 90%+ of the items on amazon or big box stores seem to be made there.

[ccubs21]

Originally Posted by alllexandru

If you source the steel from X country but you forge and stamp in Switzerland, how you call it?

Who cares if one or another is buying the screws from China? You can have a great manufacturing QC from them and quality as long you pay for it.

Im not taken any sides here but I think this is the last problem we have here....


IMHO

Idk - if Swatch/ Omega are so proud of their supposed Chinese parts why are they not publicly endorsing the practice?

Could it be a large part of the ability to sell a watch for $10k is the allure of Swiss heritage and this would greatly undermine that?

Sorry for resurrecting this thread.

[1William]

Originally Posted by ccubs21

Idk - if Swatch/ Omega are so proud of their supposed Chinese parts why are they not publicly endorsing the practice?

Could it be a large part of the ability to sell a watch for $10k is the allure of Swiss heritage and this would greatly undermine that?

Sorry for resurrecting this thread.

Good points.

[thegrandseirolexguy]

Originally Posted by ccubs21

Idk - if Swatch/ Omega are so proud of their supposed Chinese parts why are they not publicly endorsing the practice?

Could it be a large part of the ability to sell a watch for $10k is the allure of Swiss heritage and this would greatly undermine that?

Sorry for resurrecting this thread.

Probably. Lest we forget, all luxury brands have is their brand prestige & value, without it, they are nothing.

Would I pay the same amount of $ for an Omega or Rolex, built to the same exacting quality standards but without the brand logo?

No, I wouldn’t. I’d pay a lot less. I Probably wouldn’t even be willing to cough up 1/3 of the MSRP if they didn’t slap the brand’s logo on it.

Nothing wrong with buying Chinese made products. They can produce high quality stuff down to the cheapest, low quality knockoffs. In the end, you get what you pay for.

The Chinese market is the world’s most competitive marketplace, and Chinese manufacturers are masters of cost effective mass production.

Take for example, a slab of metal to be CNC-ed into a watch case, and Omega specifies that the watch case diameter must be 40mm +\- 0.5mm. You can bet the Chinese OEM will make 95-99% of the cases at 39.5mm , because the cost savings from that 0.5mm across a huge volume becomes substantial.

Even big box American retailers, to maintain a veneer of respectability and degree of separation / non-liability, use middlemen to source goods from countries with questionable practices. Whether we like it or not, reality dictates that businesses always want to maximise profits and manufacturing will in most cases always migrate to the lowest cost base.

Is anyone from a first world nation going to slog in a factory for 100 bucks a week? I doubt so.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Red

[Nyl]

Originally Posted by deeman54

Today I found out that the swatch group including omega have parts made in China 🤯.

So….. yeah wow….

It's not because the swatch group buys parts from China that Omega does too.

Omega is one of the brands that is using the least amount of China-made parts. If I'm not mistaken, they are only using some parts of the metal bracelet. All the rest comes from Switzerland.
And Omega is able to maintain "acceptable" prices because the coefficient between production costs and MSRP is lower than many other brands.

I guarantee you that you underestimate the amount of brands that are using China-made parts on very high-priced watches (10k+ CHF) but Omega is not one of them.

For you to have an explanation of why many brands are doing that: for example, a sapphire crystal made in Switzerland costs up to 200CHF whereas a fully finished case (with the same sapphire crystal) made in China will cost around 150-200CHF. And when you multiply that by the coefficient the brands are using (around 6-7), you can see why there are Chinese parts in watches, especially in the entry level. Still, many brands uses Chinese parts in high-end watches just to increase their profit.

And finally, a point on quality: I guarantee you that Chinese cases have the same quality (and, very often, a higher quality) than Swiss Made cases.

[HiDive]

I recently wanted to get another Ti buckle for my PloProf to use with a rubber strap. This is the first one that they sent me.



Ordinarily being made in Thailand would not bother me. So Thailand, not so much, except for two things. The buckle did not work well at all and it cost $540. $540 for a Swiss made product that works properly is acceptable. I had to send the buckle back to swatch, not once but twice and the second one still did not work. I sent it back and did not get another one. They suck.

[fozzyf18]

That would bother me as well Vincent. Made in Thailand wouldn't bother me either, if it fit and worked properly.

[RW16610]

Originally Posted by HiDive

I recently wanted to get another Ti buckle for my PloProf to use with a rubber strap. This is the first one that they sent me.



Ordinarily being made in Thailand would not bother me. So Thailand, not so much, except for two things. The buckle did not work well at all and it cost $540. $540 for a Swiss made product that works properly is acceptable. I had to send the buckle back to swatch, not once but twice and the second one still did not work. I sent it back and did not get another one. They suck.

Oh man, what a shame. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that and still not end up with what you wanted.

[HiDive]

It worked out, ok. I got a used steel one off Ebay for a couple of hundred $$, and it works perfectly. But SWATCH parts USA were really crappy about it as well.

[1William]

Good to know.

[Trogster]

I'm old enough to remember a time when 'Made in Japan' meant cheap junk.

Then came Sony, and Honda and Toyota and that all changed.

Will there come a time when 'Made in China' becomes desirable?

Perhaps, however I doubt I'll live long enough to see it.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Trogster

I'm old enough to remember a time when 'Made in Japan' meant cheap junk.

Then came Sony, and Honda and Toyota and that all changed.

Will there come a time when 'Made in China' becomes desirable?

Perhaps, however I doubt I'll live long enough to see it.

Agreed
You also left out CASIO and a number of others not really so well recognised to the average person.
IIRC, Denon may have made the first Compact Disc and the Japanese were the world leaders in making the very best solar panels not that long ago. Kyocera happens to be the brand.
Not to mention Seiko in it's various forms and wearing my newly aquired SLA077 as i tap which i'd currently pretty much back against a Rolex Sub all things considered.

Then the Japanese didn't win the war, so they'll have that certain stigma to shake off. Probably for as long as i'm around as well

The Chinese can make some good stuff i think, but it doesn't really come very naturally to them in the same manner that it does for the Japanese. IMO.

[Alex_TA]

Originally Posted by HiDive

I recently wanted to get another Ti buckle for my PloProf to use with a rubber strap. This is the first one that they sent me.



Ordinarily being made in Thailand would not bother me. So Thailand, not so much, except for two things. The buckle did not work well at all and it cost $540. $540 for a Swiss made product that works properly is acceptable. I had to send the buckle back to swatch, not once but twice and the second one still did not work. I sent it back and did not get another one. They suck.

It seems to me that I've already seen this pic
Where exactly have you bought it?

[martyjanderson]

the fact that one can't even tell from the quality tells you its all nonsense and fake snobbery ..

[HiDive]

Originally Posted by Alex_TA

It seems to me that I've already seen this pic
Where exactly have you bought it?

I bought the buckle directly from SWATCH USA parts department in New Jersey, USA. I got two of them there and neither one of them worked properly. Is that what you are asking?

It was very unexpected because the one the came with my Ploprof worked flawlessly and so did the used one I bought used. I also owned a steel Ploprof a while ago and that buckle work perfectly as well.

[HiDive]

Originally Posted by Dirt

Agreed
You also left out CASIO and a number of others not really so well recognised to the average person.
IIRC, Denon may have made the first Compact Disc and the Japanese were the world leaders in making the very best solar panels not that long ago. Kyocera happens to be the brand.
Not to mention Seiko in it's various forms and wearing my newly aquired SLA077 as i tap which i'd currently pretty much back against a Rolex Sub all things considered.

Then the Japanese didn't win the war, so they'll have that certain stigma to shake off. Probably for as long as i'm around as well

The Chinese can make some good stuff i think, but it doesn't really come very naturally to them in the same manner that it does for the Japanese. IMO.

Sony made the first compact disc player in the mid 1980's I bought one.

[OttoUnion]

Originally Posted by HiDive

Sony made the first compact disc player in the mid 1980's I bought one.

Co-developed with Philips N.V., yes.

[HiDive]

Originally Posted by OttoUnion

Co-developed with Philips N.V., yes.

Phillips format was different and the 1st player was the SONY CDP-101. I bought one in 1983 and it was about $500 which was a lot of money at the time. My wife was not happy.

[majidessa]

I just got a new bracelet from my Snoopy a couple of days ago, and it says it is made in France. Having said that, I also ordered some strap / bracelet parts for my other Omega watches that were made in Thailand as well, but I did not have any issues with them at all.

[1William]

Interesting the Made in France bracelet.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by OttoUnion

Co-developed with Philips N.V., yes.

Yep.
That would be correct IIRC.

[brandrea]

Omega farms out their bracelet /clasp manufacturing … they just won’t disclose which country they come from when you ask them

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by HiDive

Phillips format was different and the 1st player was the SONY CDP-101. I bought one in 1983 and it was about $500 which was a lot of money at the time. My wife was not happy.

Now i'm more than a little hazy on this, but i think the Philips format was refered to as a Transport.
Electrocompaniet have, or did have a Philips transport in their player
At least that's what EC refer to to it as being.

[Jets_fan44]

Originally Posted by majidessa

I just got a new bracelet from my Snoopy a couple of days ago, and it says it is made in France. Having said that, I also ordered some strap / bracelet parts for my other Omega watches that were made in Thailand as well, but I did not have any issues with them at all.

Smart decision, your Silver Snoopy will look sharp with the metal bracelet!

[HiDive]

Originally Posted by Dirt

Now i'm more than a little hazy on this, but i think the Philips format was refered to as a Transport.
Electrocompaniet have, or did have a Philips transport in their player
At least that's what EC refer to to it as being.

I don't remember the details, other than it was a big deal that the Sony had the 1st player on the market and I was really excited about it at the time. The sampling rate and DAC setup between Sony and Phillips was different but Sony got the jump on Phillips and had a big boost in sales from it. I did not have the Sony CDP-101 player very long because the technology changed quickly.

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by Jets_fan44

Smart decision, your Silver Snoopy will look sharp with the metal bracelet!

You would know

[majidessa]

Originally Posted by Jets_fan44

Smart decision, your Silver Snoopy will look sharp with the metal bracelet!

Personally, the Snoopy models 45th and 50th are the best moonwatch iterations that Omega has made being fun while at the same time have a real meaning with historical significance. It is also the first time I pay over retail to have one (50th edition)

The only let down with this watch is the strap and the tang buckle, Omega just went really cheap here by not using the deployment clasp at least. So the steel bracelet is a no brainer in my opinion since it will elevate the look while making it more wearable.