Originally posted by darth-khips
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Bear in mind that Richmont or previously Vendome Grp only bought the rights to to use the Luminor & Radomir casing for commercial purpose in 1997.
The division in charge of producing watches & instruments for Italian Navy is still a privately own company that's not purchased by Richemont of anyone else, ever.
It's still churning out watches & instruments under full secrecy as it's protected by Italian secrecy laws that strictly prohibit any publications or reproductions or manufacturing.
The very fact that no watch can use the wordings "Marina Militare" without approval from Italian Navy is a proof of this.
PAM36, 217 & 267s, "Marina Militare" prints were approved by Italian Navy for public use.
If you speak of gap, mind you that between 1980s up to 1996, almost 2000 watchmaking companies & related support services Co. went bust in Switzerland no thanks to Quartz revolution that got started by ironically a consortium on Swiss watchmakers that was copied by Seiko, Citizen Orient, & Casio.
Only a handful of watch companies today are 100% manufacturer.
Even Rolex SA do not & has never claim in-house horlogerie manufacturer.
The links or bracelets for Rolex are made by ARTeLinks.
Hands & dials for Rolex are outsourced to ArTeCad.
Steel case for Rolex watches are made by SWATCH group
Rolex movements are made by Valjoux's secret assembly division that's protected under Swiss law & it's ebouche are loosely implemented by Dubuis Depraz.
Diamonds for Rolex are cut and polished by
FYI, ARTeLinks, ArTeCad, Valjoux & Dubuis Depraz are owned by SWATCH and shared by LVMH, Richemont & many others in a secret deal chaired by Swiss govt since 1997.
Everyone in the industry knows about this.
To add, except PP & VC, almost all of Swiss watch making industry share the SWATCH facilities which actually owned by Swiss govt and this included Audemars Piguet, Breilting, Zenith, BRM, Tiffacy, Mont Blanc, Chopard, Omega, TAG & many other brands.
The only thing that Rolex made in-house is the gold case in it's own foundries.
The reason everyone had to depend on shared facilities is due to many blueprints and watch making skills that were lost along with the passing of time, watchmaer, masters & craftsmans during these dark period of mechanical watches in 1980 & 1990s.
The situation is so bad that in 1990s, no one in Switzerland apart from ValJoux's ETA arm know how implement an ebouche.
So, after the revival on interest in mechanical watches thanks, ironcially to the our Japanese collectors who got sick of Quartz in mid-1990s, almost all of wathes & this include Rolex are actually made by Swatch till today.
These companies like Rolex, AP, GP, Omega & TAG cover up the story of facility sharing by using a stakeholdings as claim that that foundry on this location & this bulding belongs to them when in actual fact, the building has not sighboards and is SHARED.
Pls goto Valley of Joux to check my facts...none of the foundries are tagged.
Many watch companies like Omega, Cartier, Heuer, Zenith & etc had to be liquidated & put up for sale. Most brands that're viable are bought by Swatch, Richemont, LVMH & etc which explains this arrangement.
In fact, 2 yrs ago, BRM, Graham, Hublot, B&R & U-Boat up the ante when the sourced semi-complete parts from China using child & slave labour!
The fact that Panerai is clean & above this mess is the reason why it's so collectible even when it never or seldom make any case till 1980s.
It never make any mvmt till 2002!
Patek is used by royal dynasties worldwide since 1880s.
If you got $, then go buy PP & tell everone it's not overpriced.
Rolex is nothing but a mere watch trader till 1950s which print "Rolex" on peoples' product.
The very fact it was rejected by NASA for space missions & US Airforce test flight speaks volumes in 1960 & 1970s.
Rolex gave the stupid reason their USA sales dept agent was late to deliver the watches....I find this reason very amusing as how can you miss delivering all the watches for all the 19 Apollo missions?
Using Edmund Hillary who actually is not the 1st man on Everest but claimed to be so, reckless Pan-Am pilots that practically crashed so many planes that Pan-Am folded, LPGA tournaments, meaningless Regattas, mundane James Bonds films & ads blitz in every known maganizes & nations' dailies worldwide is the only good thing about Rolex & nothing else since 1940s till today.
Luckily James bond realized this and changed to Omega.
AP is only good in churning out same shaped & same mvmt watches under many material guises like rubber & carbon for it's ROO using losers like Juan Pablo Montoya, Rubbens Barrachelo & Shaquille O'Neil and serial rapist & mollester Arnold Schwarzenegger bereft of any real applications history.
I thanks heavens Panerai is the only brand that's free from any ambassador.
I shudder to think how much money actually went to team Alinghi, Michael Schumacher, Nicole Kidman, Kimi Raikonen, Uma Thurman, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Internation Space Station & many others than going into the watch.
In fact, I lost count how many brands sponsored Antartica expeditions.
The very reason why these brands had to use ambassadors & event or expediction to ply their watches if the very reason why so many like me are put off by these brands.
I rather pay USD30k for a watch that's worth USD300 like PAM341 because it's a hommage to the real people who use it in 1956 in Egypt than cheats like Edmund Hillary and losers like Juan Pablo Montoya & Barrachelo.
I've never lost any monies on Panerai.
I lost so much monies on Rolex that I lost count....
Lastly, no offense here, ALL WATCHES ARE OVERPRIZED....
Anyone who paid above USD100 for a watch is overpaying....
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