Raising the Bar: An Overview of Wristwatch Quality Standards

by Jason Heaton

“If I tell you I’m a good guy, you might not believe me,” says Mauro Maggiore, International Training Coordinator at Omega, “but if someone else tells you that, you’re more likely to.”
Maggiore isn’t trying to win friends. He’s using the metaphor to explain Omega’s Master Chronometer certification, a mark of quality that is confirmed by a Swiss government agency. It’s all well and good to say your company’s timepieces are robust and accurate, but if an independent third party verifies this, it carries far more credibility.
The concept isn’t new. Watch companies have been seeking validation for centuries, dating back to the accuracy competitions and certifications handed out by observatories in Kew, Geneva, Neuchâtel and Besançon. And while the mechanical watch has been largely rendered as a fashion accessory in an age of atomic clock-accurate smartphones, brands still tout the precision and durability of their creations.
But even within the rarified air of the accurate timepiece, there is room for further distinction, which has led to multiple standards, all of which go beyond mere accuracy to prove a watch’s resistance to shock, water and magnetism, and some its provenance and attention to detail.
COSC

The most widely known quality standard in the watch world is the one upheld by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, or COSC. This Swiss independent agency was formed in 1973 to oversee the standardized testing of watch movements for accuracy, with those that pass having the distinction of being called a “chronometer,” a previously generic term that applied to highly accurate timepieces suitable for celestial navigation.
COSC tests individual uncased movements for fifteen days, fitting them to a generic dial and hands while checking their average daily rate, variation and stability (in five positions), resistance to minor shocks, and stability at three temperatures. Movements that pass the test must maintain an average daily rate of minus 4 to plus 6 seconds over a 24-hour period when compared to two atomic clocks. These successful movements are then worthy of the chronometer certification, the resulting documentation of which is stored at the manufacturer’s archives and can often be requested by a watch’s owner.
Many of the top Swiss brands submit their movements for COSC certification, the largest being Rolex, followed by Breitling, and several others. The British marque Bremont submits all of its movements for chronometer testing, including its latest creation, the Solo 32, a ladies’ wristwatch that debuted at Baselworld 2016. It is more difficult for smaller mechanical movements to maintain accuracy, so the achievement of the new 32-millimeter Solo is something about which Bremont is particularly proud.
Superlative Chronometer

If “chronometer” is a household term, much of the credit can be given to Rolex. Since the early part of the 20th century—in effect, at the very beginning of the wristwatch— Rolex has been focused on distinguishing its watches as both reliable and accurate. In fact, the brand bears the distinction of having made the first wristwatch to be awarded the prestigious Swiss Certificate of Chronometric Precision by the Official Watch Rating Center in Bienne, as well as a class A precision rating from England’s Kew Observatory.

By the 1950s, most Rolex watches bore the term “Superlative Chronometer, Official Certified” on their dials, and to this day the greatest number of movements certified by COSC are from Rolex. But in an effort to separate itself from the rest of the chronometers of the world, Rolex upped the ante, creating its own “Superlative Chronometer” criteria. After achieving COSC certification, a Rolex movement is then cased up into a complete watch and then retested. Only after additional temperature and position testing does a Rolex watch earn the “Superlative Chronometer” rating.
Master Chronometer

Just down the road from Rolex in Biel, Omega is doing its own battery of tests to separate its own watches from the COSC herd. In fact, the company’s Master Chronometer rating may have the most stringent testing protocol in the world.
Like Rolex, Omega starts on an already high level with a cased-up COSC-certified movement and then tests it in six positions, regularly checking its accuracy at different points during its power reserve, as well as its water resistance. But the biggest distinction of the Master Chronometer testing process is the use of extreme magnetic fields. OMEGA measures the watches’ accuracy and function both during and after exposure to 15,000 Gauss (1.5 Tesla) of magnetism, roughly the equivalent of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) medical device. After this battery of tests, the watch must still be able to achieve a mean daily rate between 0 and plus 5 seconds in order to be called a Master Chronometer.
While these extreme tests are carried out in labs at Omega’s headquarters, they are overseen by onsite representatives of the Swiss Metrology Institute (METAS), a government agency that regulates standards such as units of measure. This third party oversight lends authenticity to Omega’s claims of extreme. Omega encourages (dares?) other brands to seek Master Chronometer certification, but given the fact that the criteria were developed by Omega, it’s unlikely that any will outside of other Swatch Group brands.
The first watch to achieve Master Chronometer status was the Globemaster, which debuted at Baselworld 2015 and was a fitting choice for Omega as its flagship. The Globemaster takes its name from a historic watch in the Constellation family that was renowned for its chronometric precision. The center of the automatic winding rotor bears a medallion depicting the Geneva Observatory where chronometer precision awards were bestowed in the 1950s and 60s.
Grand Seiko Standard

While the majority of attention for accuracy goes to Swiss brands, Seiko in Japan has its own standards for quality.
The word, “Seiko” actually means “precision” in Japanese, and the company takes its name very seriously. During the 1960s and 1970s, Seiko submitted a few of its top watches for chronometer certification, but more recently developed its own, more stringent, criteria.
The “Grand Seiko Standard” is a label give to those movements produced under the high watchmaking arm of Seiko. Movements are subjected to a longer period of testing than COSC performs, mainly because Seiko tests in two additional positions and one additional temperature, which adds an extra two days to the process. Additionally, the average daily rate is held to a stricter range—Seiko doesn’t allow for a loss of time over 24 hours and mechanical movements stay within five seconds gain per day.
Grand Seiko Spring Drive and quartz watches, like the new limited edition SBGV019, are also tested under the same criteria and are some of the most accurate watches in the world, achieving astounding accuracy within only a few seconds per year.
Qualité Fleurier

While the accuracy tests done for the certifications by COSC, METAS and Grand Seiko focus on the functioning of the watch movement and how it is protected by its case, the Qualité Fleurier testing expands the criteria to how the rest of the watch functions, its provenance and its maker’s attention to manufacturing detail.
The Fleurier Quality Foundation was established in 2001 by a joint project that included Chopard, Parmigiani, Bovet and movement manufacturer Vaucher Fleurier in order to affirm certain technical and aesthetic principles representative of this important region of watchmaking.
To be certified to the Qualité Fleurier standard, a watch must be wholly manufactured within Switzerland—case, dial, hands, movement—and meet a number of technical movement requirements such as the extent and degree of refinement of all finishing, when viewed from a distance of 30 centimeters as well as under a microscope. This includes all plates, bridges, wheels and even screw heads. Any burrs or rough edges or unpolished screws or improper chamfers will disqualify a watch from consideration.
In addition to the aesthetics of a movement, cased watches are subjected to the rigorous Chronofiable test protocol that mechanically simulates the aging process of a watch. This includes the wear and tear of crown, bezel, and push-piece actuation, as well as water, magnetic and shock resistance. This “real world” simulation is not unheard of in watch quality control but it typically is not included in any certification requirements.
The final criteria for Qualité Fleurier certification is the so-called Fleuritest, which goes beyond the Chronofiable protocol to place a cased watch on a machine that simulates seventy different common movements or gestures, from a handshake to running to swinging a golf club, possibly made by a person wearing a watch. A camera records the watch’s functioning during and between these tests, and the watch’s rate analyzed. In order to pass, its rate must fall within the range of 0 to plus 5 seconds per 24-hour period.
Only after all of these stringent tests are performed and passed does a watch achieve the Qualité Fleurier certification. One such timepiece is the Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda 1950, whose slim, elegant appearance belies the tough testing it has overcome.
Poinçon de Genève

Another quality standard that is tied to a specific region is the Poinçon de Genève, or Geneva Seal. This stamp of approval was initiated in 1886 as a way to distinguish the high standards for watches only made within the Canton of Geneva.
Rather than a measure of a movement’s accuracy, the Geneva Seal focuses only on provenance and aesthetics. The strict criteria to which watches are held include arcane technical details such as the types of jewels used and the thickness of the hairspring to the minutiae of polishing and chamfering of sinkholes and pinion leaves. The sum of these arcane parts is a watch movement that upholds the high quality for which brands like Vacheron Constantin and Roger Dubuis are known, even in a watch as exotic and avant-garde as the latter’s Excalibur Knights of the Roundtable II.
Patek Philippe Seal

As arguably the most revered of the high watchmaking brands, it stands to reason that Patek Philippe would develop its own standard, raising the bar to a point where only its own watches can achieve compliance. The Patek Philippe Seal encompasses all aspects of complete watches from the Geneva-based brand, from accuracy to how precious stones are set to how the flanks of movement wheels are finished.
Some criteria are measurable by precision equipment, such as the mean accuracy rate of a movement, while others are more subjective; for example, the acoustics of all repeaters are personally assessed and approved by either honorary president, Philippe Stern or his son Thierry, the president.
In addition, unlike other quality standards, the Patek Philippe Seal incorporates a customer service element, vowing to stand behind its watches for its entire lifetime and stock repairs parts for them, or manufacture service parts if none are available.
The Patek Philippe Seal applies to the entire line of mechanical watches the company manufactures, from the most basic Aquanaut to the latest masterpiece, the Ref. 5930 world time chronograph.
Beyond merely telling the time, watchmaking is about the quest for precision and aesthetic excellence. And it is reassuring that, at a time when the relevancy of the wristwatch is being challenged, the companies who make them are continuing to raise the bar higher than ever before. It may seem ironic that industry standards have recently served as methods to differentiate watch companies’ timepieces instead of standardize them, but there’s no question that the real winners of all this competition are those of us who buy the watches.

Original article from: Raising the Bar: An Overview of Wristwatch Quality Standards