Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelerFan65
Actually - they are hand assembled and hand finished and if you go to their website you will find info attesting to that. In fact better yet here is the link below. There clearly is a reason their watches are considered the top in the world as you don't get there by chance. Have a great day all!
http://www.patek.com/contents/default/en/design.html |
Not trying to be funny here but the link takes me to a single statement that says Patek use hand finishing. Interesting that there's no further information about exactly what that entails.
I have both the hardcover catalogue and the "Patek Seal" book and there is no elaboration on exactly what hand finishing is applied.
This is in stark contrast to Lange who go to great lengths to show what is actually done by hand. The lack of detail provided by Patek is illuminating.
The view of old men hunched over the movement polishing with bits of wood is certainly not correct. If they are truly producing over 20,000 manual movements a year they would need an army of staff to hand finish the watches.
A 10x loupe view of the anglage on my 5296 shows marks left by the powered dremel type tool used. Why are they considered the best? Well the anglage on my 1943 ref 96 is mirror polished, before dremel tools even existed. It was this hand craft that made Patek's reputation.
I'd love to know what hand finishing is applied to a 'normal' Patek like a Calatrava or Annual Calendar. Are the perlage applied using cnc controlled equipment similar to the way geneva stripes are applied?
I love my Pateks but it annoys me when I hear about hand finishing but it's never explained exactly what is done by hand.....