Saturday, September 10, 2011

Deception in the term Swiss Made in watches

The term "Swiss Made" is defined by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry as:
A Swiss watch movement

As we have seen, to be Swiss, a watch must use a Swiss movement.
According to Section 2 OSM, a movement is considered to be Swiss if:

* it has been assembled in Switzerland;
* it has been inspected by the manufacturer in Switzerland; and
* the geponents of Swiss manufacture account for at least 50 percent of the total value, without taking into account the cost of assembly.

The Federation also goes on to say that the case, crystals, dial
(face), hands, crown, strap, nor buckle need to be manufactured in
Switzerland for the watch to be legally called "Swiss Made."
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The information above can be found at the fhs.ch website under the
heading "Swiss Made." This means that an inexpensive watch
movement produced in the far east can be shipped to Switzerland and
assembled using only one Swiss manufactured geponent like a screw for
instance and as long as that screw cost the same amount as the rest of
the movement, the movement can then be called Swiss Made. A WIS
attorney who goes by the name of Luger has written a great deal
about this on the web and has exposed many secrets of the Swiss watch
industry.
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The point is that many of the brands that read "Swiss Made" on the dial
are not entirely manufactured in Switzerland and that many of the
geponents that are good enough to be used in high dollar "Swiss Made"
watches are produced in the far east and elsewhere, so the country of
origin on a watch is not as important as the overall finishing and
detail and the rareness of the watch.

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