In-house movement

Engrave the rotor and its in-house now. Its the cost mystery that makes them special. The Sellita s-200 cost is known so the watch can be valued by the cost of it's parts where in-house remains a mystery allowing a higher price to be justified

There is no actual advantage, it's just a way for people to pretend one watch is superior to another.

Depending where you live it can be a disadvantage, you might have a hard time finding someone to service it. Still I love the in house movements by Nomos 😁

And all this time I thought it just meant, "not to be shown in public."

The romance of the inhouse movement is supposed to be that you have reached the pinnacle of mechanical artisanship and craftsmanship that commands greater value. Now the phrase inhouse has been stretched to be nearly meaningless because you have some maisons add their own module to a third party movement and claim it to be inhouse. There is still a sense of romanticism around in house movements because there are a few great places like F.P. Journe that do everything in house and makes the watch feel extra special like a true piece of mechanical art. This is all my opinion only...

An Apple Watch is more accurate and functional than the best quartz watch. A mediocre quartz watch is more accurate than the best mechanical. And so on. Once you get to in house movement it isn’t a case of better advantages.

In the right hands an in-house movement becomes a work of art. The better in house movements use superior metals and components, are more finely decorated and finished, likely better calibrated, and in most cases better tested. You’re paying for the labor that went into it. Can a top grade eta that’s tuned right perform as well? Sure. But, one generally doesn’t look in house for the watch to just work.

A Honda Civic is generally all the car 99% of the world’s car driving population actually needs, but sometimes one wants to ignore logic and get the British car they know will cost more to keep running, but damn does it look great and makes the owner feel great when it does.

What if you are a Swiss watch manufacturer who has been using a certain brand of movement for 100 years and you get told next year they will no longer sell you any? The Swiss government steps in and makes them sell them to you for a few more years but you know that soon that source will be unavailable to you. You are Swiss and so buying a Miyota, Seiko, or Sea-Gull movement will destroy your "Swiss-ness".

This is the dilemma that many companies face. They can buy Sellita or Soprod movements that are based on old ETA platforms, but they will be behind the Swatch Group and Rolex (and Grand Seiko) in development. Until the 1970's they had more choices. Many have chosen to bring the movement side of the business under their control so that the big boys can't control what movements (and specs and size) go into their watches.

Rolex has been an island for decades. Swatch made the decision not to share ETA anymore. For some companies, an in-house movement is a adaptation to a changing business environment and isn't merely a vanity project.

It's mainly bragging rights unless the in-house movement actually does something special.

What do you think of a carmaker that doesn't make its own engines? You can argue that they are somewhat lesser than those that do. Off the top of my head there are several exotic carmakers that use engines from larger makers, either stock or custom tuned.

Do those engines have the character and prestige of some tiny race-bred maker? Nope. But they benefit from the huge research and development and manufacturing capacities that a larger enterprise has. And you're less likely to have to send it back to the home country to get it fixed.

Some people collect styles of watch others watches from a certain brand or with a certain complication and some collect interesting movements and in this case in house is generally more interesting than an off the shelf movement. The other reason is that brands tend to make their own movements a lot more docorated and fancy so I guess that appeals to some fancy people.

I won’t buy an in house movement as it’s not reasonable to pay four times for the service cost vs and off of the shelf or modified movement. Not worth the money or hassle. Rarely are they any better. Just marketing.

Its not a deal breaker for me but stems from anything,people say there making something the buyer expects them to make all of it,or they haven't made it have they.they made some bought some and mixed it together 😂

I will try to offer some perspective. In theory in house movements are supposed to be different than off the shelf ones. Also they should showcase the skill of the watchmaker.

None off the above statements mean that in house is better than off the shelf.

What those statements mean is that there are in house movements, especially ones from expensive and exclusive brands that offer a different configuration.

What is a different configuration that might add value to a watch? For example a different type of escapement, the most famous being Omega with the coaxial, or a tourbillon escapement, there are many more.

So if you take into account the escapement, the materials used, thinness or thickness of a movement, it's complication if any than you realizer that the further away the architecture of a movement is from an off the shelf one, the more exclusive it is.

Another point is how that movement looks. A nice golden movement sculpted by hand to perfection is obviously a more valuable asset in a watch.

So now you have architecture and looks. Do those things make a better movement? The answer simply depends on how you look at things. A more exclusive movement will cost a lot more to maintain and may require you to be more careful with your watch, while a simple ETA/Sellita/Myota etc movement will not and the performance of the watch will be similar.

I don't really care about in-house movements, but I do care if it's a good movement that happens to be in-house.

I personally prefer watches that have traversing balance bridges which usually are only found on in-house movements. If there was an updated NH35/36 movement that had a balance bridge I would be all over it. For the record, I'm already all over NH35/36's... I would just be more all over them.

If better than off the shelf then it is relevant, otherwise not. Also debatable what complys as inhouse but that is another pandora box