High quality movements

What makes a high quality movement? If nothing else, it is pure interest of mine, being curious, to find out what makes a good movement, and if I own some.

For instance, in the period a watch is being built you can make a difference in a movement being well designed, a movement being well built, a movement having high quality parts. And in the period a watch is being worn you can make a difference in how well a movement performs on the short run, being accurate with only a very small deviation, how well a movement performs on the long run, keeping its accuracy and reliability without breaking down, and how well a movement behaves under undesirable circumstances, like shocks and different temperatures. Quite some of these aspects may be interlinked. Maybe I forgot something, but these aspects may give an impression what I mean.

I wonder if anybody, institutions, Internet sites or even magazines, examines the watches and movements produced on these aspects. Like photo cameras and cars are tested, with test results published so the public may have a clue as to what they are buying. These kind of reports would tell about craft and what it leads to. Knowing to own a watch that has a movement that is first class on a whole range of sensible aspects is very nice. Keeping my feet on the ground, the old saying "trust but verify" expresses this well, and I am quite sure IWC would classify among the best.

Does anybody of you have a clue, or has a tip to redirect my question to increase my chance of getting an answer?

Kind regards,
Paul, wearing steel VC Pilot's watch

there's much on the Internet...

...although some of it is valid and some not: it's difficult to find watchmakers who understand finesse (beyond mechanics) and engineering design, and then who have skills in writing, photography and web presentations.

One such person is Walt Odets., who I previously mentioned. An example of one his articles --but using Patek as an example-- is at
www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/240/index.html

There are others --John Davis, Jack Forster, among them, who contribute on other sites about watches generally. Many are friends and they sometimes, under pen names occasionally, have contributed here.

But --we digress. I would like to keep this forum's discussions and references about iWC specifically. I appreciate,. though, that one should understand about what you wrote to understand and appreciate IWC fully.

High quality movements - you probably own 1 or 2

Paul, of course what you write and the aspects of the movement you list, are probably all correct and valid "weighting" criteria for what constitutes a "good" movement. Please allow me to add my 2 cents worth here. All the things you list, could probably boil down to "money" and if enough time and money are invested in something, in all likelyhood a good movement could be produced (if your aspects are all taken care of by the watchmaker). However, I would argue that you need to seek not "good" but "great movement" - and then the criteria possibly change. I would present that, for a movement to be great, it needs to be 1) mechanically sound / durable 2) keep a reasonable level of accuracy 3) affordable 4) "service friendly" and last and not least be able to be produced to some volume, with each and every movement having the same level of quality. The IWC Calibre 85 was just this (and you probably own a watch or 2 with an 8541 movement in it!). A manufactures ability to meet these criteria - will see them produce "good" movements - some of which will turn out to be great movements.IWC have a knack of doing so...