Quote:
Originally Posted by SearChart
Oh their modern work is good stuff, but the vintage steel used for pivots is something else. Nothing like pulling a 565 apart and having a 50+ year old rotor axle without wear, gears that are pristine, etc.
Same goes for vintage Rolex, Patek, Jaeger, they all made incredible movements back in the day, with burnished steel. Now the steel pivots are all electropolished steel, which is quick and cheap in manufacturing but not even in the same league when it comes to durability.
If modern movement technology was combined with some old school methods the movements would be truly incredible.
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Have agree Bas the old Rolex and Omega movements were fantastic but IMHO in their hay-day even Longines made some very fine movements, take the Longines twin-barrel movements were something I wish had survived in current production a brilliant movement but very expensive to make. Calibre 890, 892 & 893 had stacked twin barrels where calibres 990 to 994 had side-by-side barrels in a movement only 2.95mm thick.Now back in those days the power reserve of 44 hours was respectable but not particularly impressive for a twin-barrel movement. Although I'm sure that if R & D had continued on this movement this would have been substantially improved,and would have put many a modern movement to shame,from any manufacturer or brand today.Back in the late 1950s 1960s Longines made some fine movements. I had one of the first flagship Longines with the Cal 30L a very nice movement,it went on to be developed into the Cal 340 and its variants up to the cal 345 12-line 19800BPH.But at this time many Swiss manufactures were in trouble, owing to the influx of cheap quartz watches,which almost destroyed the Swiss mechanical movement industry. And sadly the movement side of the many of the Swiss movement makers now long gone but not forgotten by some.