We hope all of you and your families are well and safe at this time. Over the past few weeks life in every corner of the globe has seen some radical changes. Here in Central Europe we are staying home to ensure that our elderly or those with compromised immune systems stay safe. For us at HORAGE we have worked together remotely for a very long time, however there still are a few adjustments needed to be made to this new way of living.
It’s without surprise that we have had to postpone our watch events for this spring where we hoped to connect with many of you. So many have said they were going to join, however we will just have to meet a little further down the road. Due to our inability to travel we have decided to extend the pre-order timeline until May 1st. However case number selection will not be available after April 1st as that was a primary driver for our early supporters to purchase early.
As always we are available to answer any question you might have either here, via email or on our social channels. All this time at home can be a little boring so why not spend some time talking watches 😉
Another update we have is our case back. The other week we had posted that we would be having to update the case back both for COSC certified and non-COSC certified watches. We were already working remotely at that time and we had a communication breakdown on what exactly was allowable on the COSC certified case back. Having discussed this with COSC we were informed we would not be able to write “COSC Certified” as we had originally hoped. However we could use “Chronometer Certified” as a few of you suggested and this is the naming we have now placed in production for the final COSC certified tourbillon case back.
For the regular case back we have include ADJ. 5 POS. +6/-4 SEC which meets COSC level accuracy within our own watchmaking facility in Biel, Switzerland.
Furthermore we have ran into a small obstacle with regards to the case back number. We had in our samples T000/000 as pictured on the case backs above, however we do not know the final number that will be produced and we do not want to guess as to the amount as a guess would mean we would have to over estimate rather than under. We could wait till all pre-orders are collected however we would not be able to complete the watches until December and that is too long to keep you waiting. We only want to produce what we receive from orders and to get your watches to you as soon as we can.
Our suggestion is to engrave “One Edition TXXX”. As and example, should you receive number 17 your case would then read “One Edition T017”. We will of course communicate the final number of watches produced when production is completed.
This past Saturday we were live on Instagram and had a great time walking everyone through our watch collection. This week we will be going live again and look forward to connecting with whoever is able to join in on the fun.
Until next time, stay home and healthy so we can all get out and see one another in the future months to come.
Landon Stirling
Great suggestion. Stay apart, stay safe and stay well.
Paul
Thank you Paul. Stay safe as well!
Thanks for the update. Sorry but personally I think it looks awkward to compress the fonts 'chronometer certified' and squeeze them into the limited space? Is it not possible to use just 'chronometer' without the word 'certified'? As I have seen it on many other brands. Or maybe use smaller fonts for all the words on the case back so that at least it looks more consistent/balance with one font size and style.
Thank you Jim for the feedback. This was the challenging part with the certification as we were looking to reduce letters as much as possible. Unfortunately there is only so much space on the case back. We will produce physical samples that will provide a better idea of spacing/sizing. For the wording we will keep Chronometer Certified as it is the clearest designation as without "Certified" it can be interpreted as a standard rather than an official certification.
@landonstirling Thanks Landon, I hope you guys can look into the fonts again... sorry for being so direct but I really want the watch to be perfect :-)
@Anson Jim We want it to be perfect as well and I think you will be quite impressed when you get to see it in person.
looking forward to the live chat again. I think it works very well
Hi Andy... when will you be live streaming next?
I had a great time in the Instagram live event last Saturday! Thank you for host the online event!
Great to hear Minson. We will be doing another soon.
Is it appropriate to have Swiss Made instead of Switzerland?
The adjustment positions for standard casing looks weird to me. Perhaps. it could replace with Sapphire as the caseback should be Sapphire crystal right?
As for 100m water resistant, may I suggest a consideration to use 10 ATM?
I think it would be nicer without the front zeros for single or double digits numbers.
Sorry to have made so many suggestions in my first post.
Thank you for joining in on the fun. Your might have missed it, but we have Swiss Made on the movement and doing so on the case back would be duplicating Swiss Made. 10ATM is a good suggestion and we can see how that looks. We will also discuss the T017 vs. T17. Thanks again!!
@landonstirling Thanks for highlighting the Swiss Made on the movement. I had also seen other Swiss watchmakers with Swiss Made on their movement and on their sapphire case back. Hence, my suggestion to use Swiss Made instead of Switzerland. :)
@surfers_ There is some method to our madness 😉. For all our other watches we include Switzerland on the case back, Swiss Made on the movement and Hand Made on the dial side or case back depending on model.
Fully agree with the above suggestions! I would support Swiss Made instead of Switzerland, 10 ATM instead of 100M and remove the first 0 for single or double digit numbers for the serial number!
Other than that, great update thanks!
Thanks for the feedback Damien. It is always good to have everyones involvement. Pease see the above comment where we have Swiss Made appearing on the movement. Thank you! 🙏
@landonstirling That's right, I forgot! Perfect then! Thank you also for looking into the 10ATM and T17 option!
@Damien Clz I have been chatting back and forth with the team in Biel this afternoon as we are all working remotely. I learned today that for tooling purposes we will need to write it as T017.
Very reluctantly going to have to back away from this watch simply due to the economic uncertainly of the next six months. Wish you all the very best with the project, both Horage and backers of the tourbillon. Would have loved to have partaken of this project. Can only hope you'll roll out something even more spectacular in less turbulent times in the future. Chronometer chronograph perhaps? :-)
Its a challenging time globally and we appreciate your support however it can be made whether it be a watch or something as simple as a comment. We will have some more updates for you soon so keep checking back. Thank you!
Hi, is there any further update on the case back design?
The case back is in production therefore it is up to date 👍
@landonstirling Would it be possible to show us some pictures?
@Anson Jim We will happily show some more images. There are still many travel restrictions in place which means that creating high quality images is not an easy task for me at the moment. It looks like I will finally be able to get to the office after June 15th (making it nearly 4 months since I was there last). Once back I can then make some new images of watchmaking in action. I asked our watchmaker Lenny to make some images with his phone today and once I have those I will share them with you. 👍
I do not want to be a naysayer, but what is the point of Switzerland on the case back when the very same view gives you "Swiss made" on the movement? I realize they needn't be both made in Switzerland but frankly the movement is key and I think you are well enough established that you needn't worry about multiple identifications. Doesn't that sort of undermine your significance? A $1000 Kickstarter watch may need that but you clearly do not. You need not inscribe every possible inch. I think less is more in your case as it implies you are a known entity.
Good question.
We have "Switzerland" appearing on all our watches case backs.
Therefore this is for us a standard design element to ensure consistency with our case backs. Simply take a look at Array, Autark, Ominium, Solar Wind and Multiply and they all have Switzerland etched on the case back.
On our K1 movement "Swiss Made" is tucked away near the edge of the movement and not always easily seen and as we do not have "Swiss Made" on the dial side it is represented with "Switzerland" on the case back. There is further reasoning as there is a difference between a "Swiss Movement" and a "Swiss Made" watch. Far east brands can purchase Swiss movements and place "Swiss Movement" on the movement and confuse the customer into thinking it is a truly Swiss watch, this further confuses one when they just see a Swiss reference on the movement. This means that having Swiss, Switzerland or Swiss Made showing on the case or dial ensures one that the watch is Swiss Made.
There are so many brands misleading the watch community on just how Swiss they might be, if at all and unfortunately this has a negative impact on younger brands like ours that are truly Swiss. Therefore communication is important and provides peace of mind.
In the image of the tourbillon case back in comments further up the thread I had focused primarily on Swiss Made and positioned the lighting so it really stands out, however when one see's the watch in person "Swiss Made" appears far more subtle.
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