BY RUSSELL SHELDRAKE
Telling a convincing story is a big part of selling a timepiece. Being able to link a watch’s design or function to some historic event/person/period is a large part of how these brand’s marketing departments convince us to part with our hard-earned cash.
And an easy way to attach a tale to a new watch is by placing an old movement inside – these new-old-stock (NOS) calibres can date back decades, and if they were made by the original company, then the story becomes even stronger.
Use of NOS movements is nothing new in the watch industry, these vintage calibres are often said to be found in a forgotten drawer or in a dusty attic, stumbled upon “by pure chance”.
While the reality is often far less romantic, there is a good case for making use of these older movements. Not only do they add a built-in sense of nostalgia and heritage to a new watch, but they can save the company a lot of time and money on R&D, bringing the advantages of buying a stock, third party, movement, with the added benefit of provenance.
Perhaps the most influential and horologically distinctive example of NOS movements being used is found at the independent watchmaker, Kari Voutilainen. The Finnish watchmaker has used vintage calibres twice in his own brand, once for his Chronomètre 27 and again for his Observatoire collection.
Both times, he was able to source, refinish and reassemble observatory grade movements to the level of those that he produces entirely in-house. While Voutilainen may be better known for his Vint-8 series, these two models hold a cult status among collectors for their rarity (only 50 Observatoires and fewer than 25 Chronomètre 27 pieces were produced) as well as the historic nature of their base calibres.
Interestingly, Voutilainen also used the same tactic when he recently partnered with Zenith and the auction house Phillips to produce the Calibre 135 Observatoire. Another example that proves how Kari views these NOS movements as worthy of special editions and rare creations.
A similar story, but in a different price bracket, comes from British micro-brand Fears who launched the Archival 1930, a pair of rectangular watches featuring similarly shaped movements made by the company in its past life.
Many have viewed the release of these two models – one with a small seconds, the other just minutes and hours – as the most successful and sought after release Fears has ever had despite it being one of the most expensive.
Being able to leverage the brand’s lengthy, yet often forgotten, history through the use of NOS movements helped these vintage-styled pieces to create the noise they did. But Fears’ managing director Nicholas Bowman-Scargill has previously said that these old calibres are not without their challenges.
Needing full services, reconstruction and replacement parts in order to reach modern requirements, they never come ready to go.
Gerd-Rüdiger Lang, founder of German watchmaker Lang 1943, is another horologist inspired by a deep respect for tradition and belief in the lasting value of mechanical timepieces, which is why the brand has committed to using hand-wound LANG 1943 calibre that are based on a 1960s Marvin 700 ebauche.
One of the widest uses of NOS movements happened at the turn of the millennium when four brands; Girard-Perregaux, Ulysse Nardin, Parmigiani, and Panerai bought a batch of decades-old Venus 179 movements.
These chronographs were made in the 1940s and 1950s, and were extremely high-quality examples of the rattrapante complication. All four of these brands released varying examples of a flyback chronograph using the Venus 179 as the ebauche.
These pieces are known to passionate collectors as more desirable today than other chronographs produced at a similar time, purely because of the vintage movements that sit at their heart.
Perhaps the most mainstream example of an NOS movement being used is at Omega. A historic brand with one of the best archives in the industry, it released the First Omega Wrist-Chronograph Limited Edition in 2018, making use of original 18’’’ movements that date from 1913 (pictured top).
Only 18 of these were ever made due to the lack of viable movements left. Extensive work needed to be done to these calibres that were over 100 years old to make them fully functional, from standard hand finishing to refining the profile of gear teeth.
Omega has also done something a little different with an old calibre by reintroducing the Calibre 321. Famous for being the movement inside the first watch to land on the Moon, the team at Omega even used digital scanning techniques on an original piece to ensure the highest levels of accuracy.
While there are not enough original movements left to be placed into the modern production line, the original architecture and functionality is still of a high enough quality.
NOS has also entered the realms of more reasonably priced watches. Earlier this year, Nivada Grenchen, the 1920s brand that was relaunched in 2018 by Guillaume Laidet, decided to build on the growing momentum surrounding its vintage watches, with the launch of a 10-piece limited-edition Depthmaster dive watch using NOS movements and dials.
The slightly faded, glossy orange vintage dials used Tritium for luminescence, giving the dials a more authentically retro, glow compared to the core collection version of the watch. The watches were also equipped with carefully sourced, period-correct, refurbished ETA 2472 movements.
While many of the watches that contain NOS movements are considered more valuable and sought after than their modern counterparts, it does raise the question: why do watch brands bother continuing to develop new movements, and spending all this money on R&D when all these old movements need is a little TLC and they draw such admiration?
There could be an argument made that the cost of restoring these old movements is never going to be as great as developing a new calibre from scratch.
One of the main factors is that what makes these NOS movements so desirable is their rarity. Not all movements made in the mid-1900s are still viable today; many would have been broken down and sold for scrap if they didn’t make it into a watch.
So, finding near complete calibres that can still function with a small amount of maintenance hardly ever happens. Combining this rarity with the sense of the in-built history that they come with, it is clear why brands are keen to find and use these old movements. But they will never replace the ease of use that comes with modern calibres.
Another concern that can arise from using NOS movements is the after-sales service. They may need specialist care as they age depending on how old they are, how they were constructed and what materials they use. This could land the owner with a bigger than normal bill when it comes time to give them a once over, or if anything were to ever go wrong.
I personally love to see these old movements brought back to life, and through them exploring more avenues of watch history, but I don’t think that their use will begin hindering the progress that we see across the industry as we develop new ways of telling the time.
Using these pieces as inspiration is key to helping build further into the future, whether it be taking a less-used escapement like the detent and making it viable for a modern watch, or understanding the archaic architecture of a rattrapante system.
All of these historic references can be used today for a myriad of possibilities to help make the current market all the more exciting.