Tudor Movements

[maxxor]

What movements are the Tudor line using?......sellita or still ETA?.....im inclined to guess sellita......the ETA situation has been well documented and stories of rolex purchasing sellita have been around......bottom line is what movements are currently being used as of today in the Tudor lineup?

no ETA v.s sellita debate

[Dan Pierce]

Originally Posted by maxxor

What movements are the Tudor line using?......sellita or still ETA?.....im inclined to guess sellita......the ETA situation has been well documented and stories of rolex purchasing sellita have been around......bottom line is what movements are currently being used as of today in the Tudor lineup?

no ETA v.s sellita debate

I think both movement makers provide ebauches to Tudor. Swatch will still source movements for Tudor because Rolex is a manufacture. Swatch wants to stop providing to brands who do not make their own movements. Since Tudor is under the Rolex umbrella they should be good w/ ETA. Maybe buying Sellita just to cover all bets?
dP

[Mockingbird]

Originally Posted by Dan Pierce

I think both movement makers provide ebauches to Tudor. Swatch will still source movements for Tudor because Rolex is a manufacture. Swatch wants to stop providing to brands who do not make their own movements. Since Tudor is under the Rolex umbrella they should be good w/ ETA. Maybe buying Sellita just to cover all bets?
dP

Well actually Nicholas Hayek stated multiple times that he wanted a change in the watch industry, and for ETA to stop supplying movements to those outside of the Swatch umbrella. Of course, a more profitable conclusion was drawn (and Mr. Hayek unfortunately passed away) and for the moment Swatch will supply to ebauches themselves, but do not permit further work to be done on them. There are no more "modified ETA movements", the watch companies can specify how they want the movements to be modified, but all modification work on them is done at ETA.

As far as I know Tudor never made extensive modifications on the ETA movements anyway (such as IWC did) so this won't affect them much unless a new conclusion is drawn by Swatch. A new conclusion is very probable though, as much of the board sympathizes with Hayek and presses to reduce sales of ETA movements.

This change has pressed quite a few manufactures, for example Patek just developed their first in-house dedicated chronograph movement because the use of Lemania movements (also owned by Swatch) is being restricted. Even the Richemont group has become slightly worried, and purchased Frederic Piguet and incorportated it into Blancpain. IWC may begin to use Piguet ebauches soon as well if the supply of ETA movements is restricted. (this will be accompanied by a price increase of course) Of course thats just speculation though, so take it with a grain of salt.

This is actually a great change for the watch industry as orchestrated by Hayek. Many so called "manufactures" are now hard pressed to develop new movements.

However you'll notice that Breguet still seems unbothered by this and isn't currently working on developing a bi-compax dedicated chronograph because they remain part of Swatch. I find this specific example quite unfortunate, and in my mind Breguet needs to live up to its name-sake.

It appears that I've gone off on a huge tangent, so I'll get back to the main point. Tudor will be completely safe, and the movements will be the same quality. They just lose the ability to advertise their movements as being modified.

If I was wrong about the Breguet statement I encourage somebody to correct me, I'm operating on what I just heard from the boutique.

[Dan Pierce]

I thought I read in Watchtime that Hayek said Patek and Rolex didn't have to worry about being cut off. Since Rolex makes their own movements I assumed he meant Tudor would not have to worry as well. Either way Rolex will be sure to make the appropriate arrangements.
dP

[Mockingbird]

Originally Posted by Dan Pierce

I thought I read in Watchtime that Hayek said Patek and Rolex didn't have to worry about being cut off. Since Rolex makes their own movements I assumed he meant Tudor would not have to worry as well. Either way Rolex will be sure to make the appropriate arrangements.
dP

Nobody is being "cut off" per se. This issue has actually been getting a lot of publicity recently, and Patek debuted their new in-house chronograph to make itself completely independant. (the Lemania association brought Patek's image down)

Tudor is safe, they'll continue to recieve movements from ETA under this plan. Companies like IWC are under fire because they established a reputation on being the best modifiers of ebauches (Walt Odets declared their 7750 based movement unique enough in its extensive modifications to be a calibre of its own) and now they can no longer do that.

I'm not quite sure whether Tudor gets its movements from ETA or Sellita, either way they're safe.

[maxxor]

Originally Posted by Mockingbird

Nobody is being "cut off" per se. This issue has actually been getting a lot of publicity recently, and Patek debuted their new in-house chronograph to make itself completely independant. (the Lemania association brought Patek's image down)

Tudor is safe, they'll continue to recieve movements from ETA under this plan. Companies like IWC are under fire because they established a reputation on being the best modifiers of ebauches (Walt Odets declared their 7750 based movement unique enough in its extensive modifications to be a calibre of its own) and now they can no longer do that.

I'm not quite sure whether Tudor gets its movements from ETA or Sellita, either way they're safe.

.....thats 2 of us.....i have surfed the net.....asked AD's.....no one seems to be able to give me a correct answer.......is rolex using Sellita movements as of right now OR are they still using ETA???.....why is Tudor/Rolex keeping this such a big secret?

[Mockingbird]

Originally Posted by maxxor

.....thats 2 of us.....i have surfed the net.....asked AD's.....no one seems to be able to give me a correct answer.......is rolex using Sellita movements as of right now OR are they still using ETA???.....why is Tudor/Rolex keeping this such a big secret?

I'd imagine that they don't want to admit so openly that they're using ebauches. My guess would be that they are still using ETA movements as that's what they've used in the past, and I've heard nothing of them using Sellita movements.

[robsteve]

If you look in the latest Tudor catalog, you'll see that all the movement designations mirror the ETA models. They look like ETA as well. It is in the section of the catalog describing the movements.

I'll have to check, but the Heritage chrono may be the one that is not all ETA. Isn't the chrono a module on top of the movement?

Robert

[Alcan]

Tudor uses ETA movements, according to Bruno Meier:

.....an interview given by Bruno Meier (the new head of Rolex) to a Swiss newspaper, earlier this year in which he talks briefly about Tudor, but in so doing tells more about the brand, including production numbers:

I see that you are doing more promotion this year, particularly with your second brand ‘Tudor’. Why are they not more in the picture?

We have quite a large market share with Tudor in Hong Kong & China, even though the brand exists since 1926, we had never really put 100% effort behind it to promote the brand in Europe & the USA.

Now, with production running close to 200,000 watches, we are ready to provide the necessary funds to launch Tudor correctly in Europe and then later in the US. Our first move in this direction was to enter into a partnership with Porsche Motorsport.

Tudor continues to use movements from the Swatch Group’s ETA subsidiary?

This is currently true. We will never build a factory only for Tudor. We have very good relations with ETA.

I heard that you once made a request to build ETA movements for Tudor under a license from Swatch?

We once made a request, that's true. But after some thought, we put the project back into the drawer.


This is a cleaned up Google translation from the original interview.

[Nalk7]

thanks for sharin Al, ver interesting

[Mockingbird]

Originally Posted by robsteve

If you look in the latest Tudor catalog, you'll see that all the movement designations mirror the ETA models. They look like ETA as well. It is in the section of the catalog describing the movements.

I'll have to check, but the Heritage chrono may be the one that is not all ETA. Isn't the chrono a module on top of the movement?

Robert

I believe it's a Dubois Depraz module on top of an ETA 2892.

EDIT: I just noticed I made a huge mistake in my other response concerning Frederic Piguet movements and Blancpain. I can't go back and edit it, so I have to do it here I guess. Blancpain is part of the Swatch group, not a part of the Richemont group. Therefore Swatch aquired Piguet, and not the Richemont group.