World’s most complicated watch
I’ve been started to look in to the art of watchmaking lately. It is fascinating that the watchmaking business is almost identical to the sports cars business where there are only a few manufacturers of engines.
Most brands are using off the shelf components, the so called movement in most brand watches are made by a company called ETA SA. These brands have ETA movements in most of their wristwatches:
Baume Mercier, Bell & Ross, Breitling, Bucherer, Bvlgari, Baume Mercier, Corum, Ebel, Eberhard, Fortis, Hermès, IWC, Jacob & Co, Maurice Lacroix, Montblanc, Movado, Panerai, Paul Picot, Rado, Sinn, Tag Heuer, Sinn, Tissot, Tudor, Tissot and almost all other brands except the ones listed below.
If you are passionate about wristwatches, choose one of these brands: Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, Cartier, FrédériqueConstant, Roger Dubuis, Girard Perregaux, Jaeger LeCoulture, Jaquet Droz, Franch Muller, (most) Omega, Parmigiani, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Zenith.
They all make the movements themselves and in some cases for other brands as well. Some of them do not make the best watches, Cartier and Piaget are mostly about beauty and design.
If you want top of the line choose Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger LeCoulture or Girard Perregaux. They compete on making the most expensive and complicated watches.
The most complicated watch currently is the Tour de l’Ile from Vacheron Constantin with 16 complications including a tourbillon, minute repeater, dual time zones. It has 834 parts and took over 10,000 hours of research and development.