Jody's Erebus Origin

I don't have the watch but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of your post.

I do like the purple, and my wallet is seemingly agreeing!

I agree. Far better fit and finish than I expected.

I’m contemplating that one too.

It has been so hard not to buy the white or red one for all of the above points. Great write-up.

I've seen worse. The flat/printed dial rather puts me off, but otherwise it seems like a good solid first effort - but time as ever will tell eventually.

👍glad your enjoying your helm Vanuatu homage

I think it's a well known fact the Chinese factories can produce amazing quality for reasonable money. San Martin and Cronos produce watches who's fit and finish are on par with Swiss and Japanese watches costing considerably more. I personally like the NH series of movements and am yet to have a bad one. That just leaves design and QC to be done by microbrands to produce a quality product at reasonable money. Long may this continue.

The flat dial is by far my biggest complaint--I have no idea how much cost applied or raised markers and/or a chapter ring would have added but it would have upscaled this immensely.

It's worth adding to your point that a big reason Chinese factories are producing watches on par with Swiss brands is because they're making watches FOR many Swiss brands and sending them off to Switzerland for final casing and finishing.

Cheers brother!

I was very much on the fence between the black dial and the white. Looks great!

It was white, black or blue for me. I don’t have many white dials and I really liked the black and white look with the orange accents

I wish they would offer a version with a Swiss moment for a couple hundred more.

Mine arrives Monday! Jealous of those already enjoying it. Can’t wait!

Mine should be here Friday ... And for the record, it was $369 for the watch and strap pack, shipped. Nice.

Eh, wear em if you got em.

A spindly 6.5" myself.

The Komodo is the smaller option though.

One of my ONLY hangup's is actually the brand name. Any Warhammer40K fan will understand. (The other is drilled lugs) IFYKYK.*

*Maybe a horrible reason, but it is what it is. 😅😬🤏🏻

Your post is 100% poignant here and it would be delusional to disagree with any of it. Yes, this is the true cost of Chinese labor and I think we all have to be eyes-open when we take advantage of that. I wrestle with it often as so much manufacturing has moved there that it's impossible to exist in modern society without supporting it—the laptop I'm typing this on, the phone in my pocket, the appliances in my home...we could go on.

As it relates to watches specifically, my biggest issue is that most of the watches we're TOLD are made in Switzerland are still made in China and only sent to Switzerland for the minimal finishing that qualifies it for the "Swiss Made" branding. It's a minor victory but at least Jody is transparent about where the watch is made. There are Seikos we know are 100% Japanese made (which I am a huge fan of), some US-based brands that attempt to keep Chinese-sourced parts to a minimum, and certainly some very high-end Swiss watches that are truly made in that country... but, personally, I feel we all need to be realistic that a Hamilton or Tissot "cased" in Switzerland most likely contains the same amount (if not more, given the higher-end components and finishing) of Chinese parts and labor as Jody’s watch in the price tag. To me, it feels doubly distasteful to not only participate in the practices that allow China to operate as it does, but to pay a luxury tax on top of it to brands lying to us about where our money is going.

We will all have our alibis and rationalizations, but I believe strongly in at least being honest with ourselves when we lean on them. Thanks for bringing this into the conversation.

Great-looking watch, and I hope you enjoy it.

I find it interesting to read complaints about Swiss watches being partially assembled or manufactured in China. It is not a secret; in fact, it is widely disseminated public information available to anyone who can surf the internet.

The Hamilton example is the most perplexing, at least to me, because it begs the question: What do you want? Stricter Swiss rules? Which companies do you think would benefit most from tightening rules around the meaning of Swiss Made? The answer: conglomerates like the Swatch Group because of their resources. The losers would be the small Swiss makers that heavily rely on parts from Asia and use the Swiss Made label for branding purposes. I get it — they may be accused of lying, but are they really? They're just operating within the bounds of Swiss law.

I think many consumers realize that 'Swiss Made' doesn't necessarily mean 100% manufactured and assembled in Switzerland, and they're fine with it.

Speaking only for myself, yes, I think there should be full transparency about where parts and products originate. The Swiss law is, to me, the problem not the excuse. The “Swiss Made” designation is intentionally vague to protect Swiss brands and I think that Swatch would be hurt more than anyone if the “Swiss Made” mark was held to the same standard as, by comparison,“American Made.”

While it’s understood amongst the most serious enthusiasts willing to do the deep research that Swatch/ETA have factories all over the world and source many components from China and Southeast Asia, they overtly market their products as being “Swiss Made” with no consumer-facing transparency as to the true origins of their parts or points of manufacture. A Hamilton watch says Swiss Made on the dial, the movement, and caseback. The Hamilton website, even in response to its own FAQ prompt of “where are Hamilton watches made?” hides behind this ambiguity and makes no mention of any parts or assembly occurring outside of Switzerland. By contrast, the definition for “American Made” is so strict—demanding that “all or virtually all” parts are of American origin and all assembly happens in America—that brands like Shinola have to state on their products that their watches are merely “assembled in America” from “imported parts” while their Swiss competition are allowed to simply (and in most cases,disingenuously) state that their watches are “Swiss Made.”

The result is that we look down on Shinola (as just one example) for being overpriced and dishonest when they sell $700 “built in Detroit” quartz watches while Hodinkee, ablogtowatch, Time & Tide, Chisholm Hunter, and every other press outlet of note praise TAG Heuer for their “innovative” $3000 solar quartz Aquaracer that quite literally uses Citizen’s cheapest eco-quartz movement Swiss-washed by it’s parts being assembled at the Citizen-owned La Joux Perret factory in Switzerland. The watch press, unwilling to call this out, parrots TAG’s claim that this movement was “developed in collaboration” with La Joux Perret (despite neither company ever creating a quartz movement), and the designed-in vagaries of the Swiss trade laws allow TAG to market the watch as “Swiss Made” despite its Chinese parts and Japanese movement. At its core, its unfair competition—Swiss brands are held to a far lower standard for domestic content and manufacturing than American Canadian, Japanese, or English brands and consumer perception reflects this.

I’d prefer that everyone play by the same rules. If for whatever reason people want a Swiss watch, they should pay whatever it costs to actually make a watch in Switzerland. Same for Germany, Japan, America, China, England, or Canada. May the best watch win. But it ain’t a fair fight as it stands.

Late last year I tried on a Pelagos FXD that was available at my local AD. I wanted to love that watch. I wanted to convince myself to buy it. But I HATE THE SNOWFLAKE HANDS.

I bought an Origin instead. I love it. Completely satisfied.

Ha—yeah, those snowflake hands are clunky as hell. I kinda dug the 39mm Pelagos but it struck me as a soulless thing—like it was designed by an AI scrape of comments on a watch blog and when I saw the Origin part of my initial reaction to it was that it gave me everything I dug about the Tudor but at 10% of the price and without the snowflake hands. I’m not pretending the Erebus is the same quality inside or out, but in this case, none of what comes with the Tudor is of much value to me. I do still look lovingly at that BB54, though…ain’t gonna lie.

Watch lovers often forget that luxury watch brands are luxury first, watches second. You are paying for the "luxury" nor for the watch. Same way Chinese fakes can get so close despite being a fraction of the price, and still be making a huge profit

Not dissing on luxury watches, I aspire to own one some day, its just the nature of diminishing returns, same in any market, especially any luxury market

That’s a really interesting take—I wonder if that’s why I never thought of Cartiers as being overpriced; they’re overtly a luxury fashion brand and make no pretense of their watches being anything other than fine jewelry. But when luxury watch brands market their products as practical, professional tools, it creates a kind of cognitive dissonance (“luxury/tool”) and opens up comparisons to much cheaper and more capable products. Citizen makes a $300 dive watch that outperforms a Rolex submariner in every use case EXCEPT as a piece of luxury jewelry, but Rolex insists that the submariner isn’t a piece of luxury jewelry, but rather an “underwater survival tool” with a design “entirely dictated by the practical needs of divers.” Watch first, luxury second, which comes off as dishonest when compared to Cartier’s “luxury first, watch second” as you say…

Thoughtful response David - cheers my friend. On other social media I’ve been attacked and called a racist, for lesser statements, (despite an Asian spouse and lots of Chinese-Canadian friends.).

100% agree with you - I take huge exception to the “Swiss Made” watches that are anything but.

Swiss made currently is “60% of the total value” 😂. And in many cases I suspect that 60% of the value was a highly paid Swiss guy screwing on the caseback of a not Swiss watch. 🙄

That’s a fascinating analysis- worthy of its own post 🤔!

Totallly—and you could literally satisfy the total value of parts requirement by attaching a Swiss-made rotor to an otherwise entirely Chinese movement given the vast difference in manufacturing costs. The decision to base the percentages on cost rather than quantity is pretty telling about the intent of those regulations.

My hot take on your reply:

A quick search on Google reveals that watch conglomerates have factories outside of Switzerland and utilize foreign parts. I don't think you need to be a serious enthusiast to perform this basic research.

Regarding your points on Made in the USA and Shinola, I would add the following:

This is a US problem, in my opinion, which Congress can solve. The standard for using the "Made in the USA" label is that all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced in the United States. The US Federal Trade Commission has not issued bright-line rules or guidance as to what satisfies the "virtually all" standard. That is unfortunate because this lack of clarity leads to a regulation through enforcement (i.e., litigation) model, which is usually ineffective in my experience at providing greater consumer protection or transparency. (The civil fines are a nice revenue stream for the federal gov't I suppose.)

That said, the FTC does allow US companies to make a qualified claim. Here are examples: “Made in the USA of U.S. and imported parts” and “Couch assembled in the USA from Italian Leather and Mexican Frame.” US watch companies can, therefore, use the label if qualified appropriately, aligning with your call for transparency. I am not saying its easy but it is certainly doable.

In my opinion, people look down on Shinola for three reasons: (1) the name, (2) the brand's product line, and (3) the pricing model. I own two and do not have a negative opinion of the company. I particularly like some of their recent releases. However, it is easy to see that some models are overpriced compared to offerings from US and non-US brands.

I can't really comment on press bias, but I would say that watch journals, YouTubers, and brands have a symbiotic relationship. I am not at all surprised at some of the hype. However, if you're telling us that a journalist can't describe a particular use of a quartz movement as innovative because "neither company ever created a quartz movement," I think you are being a bit puritanical.

I agree that there is unfair competition. In this instance, however, US rules have set the conditions that have led to an uneven playing field, to the detriment of the US watch industry.

No real argument—I think we just disagree on some philosophical commerce practices—but I’ll clarify my point regarding the TAG example: it’s not the reviewers calling the movement innovative that I take issue with, it’s that by parroting TAG’s lie about the movement being developed and made in Switzerland (something that, as purported experts and “journalists” I think it’s fair to say they could have easily sniffed out given the commonality of the eco-drive) and taking it a step further by hyping it, they play a role in preventing even an informed consumer from seeing through the Swiss made claim that the brand uses to bolster its luxury price and positioning.

This relates to my larger hangup and perhaps our point of disagreement. You’re right that anyone with interest in the topic and access to google can learn that Longines is owned by Swatch, Swatch has suppliers and factories all over the world and Swiss trade laws allow a great deal of imported parts and labor under the “Swiss made” designation. However, If they limit their research to the brand’s own website, YouTube and blog reviews, what they see on the product, and what they’re told at the AD, which I believe is a more common experience for non-collectors just looking to buy a nice watch, there’s no transparency.

Philosophically, I’m of the belief that product claims should be subject to clearly written and equally enforced regulations to protect consumers and level the field of competition among brands. It sounds like you believe that responsibility is with the consumer to do their homework before making that kind of purchase. I absolutely respect that stance and, hey, these are discretionary luxury purchases so perhaps the legislative energy is best focused on more critical issues, but reasonable folks can disagree on this stuff. That we’ve put this much thought into the issue at all is a sign that we’re taking this stuff too seriously;)

Good discussion my friend. Lol..maybe a bit too seriously but nice to think on our shared hobby. Have a wonderful day.