The model with best movement's finishing?

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was thinking of the Il Destriero Scafusia and trying to figure out how & where to get a photo. Happily, I just saw one yesterday on a new IWC friend we met!!!!!!

Thanks for posting!

More views of the movement finishing of the VC Portofino, also a hand wound with the 98800 movement. The Geneva Strips, perlage, and anglage are evident and spectacular.

I would wear it display side out, if possible.

Paul
With all respect my friend since the 70s people could get a different than a mechanical movement for their watches at a significantly lower cost.
Since low cost and quality have never been walking together I don't see why (even for practical reasons), IWC should stop pursuing 1st class finishing on movements. The game is called Haute Horlogerie and it's a marathon not a 100m race. It takes time and skill and involves high cost or justifies it if you prefer. If you want to make relatively good watches then you stick with relatively good finishing and call it a different name or procedure.
But one day it ll backfire.
Pure engineering is neither a panache in an artisan world nor is unjustifiable high pricing. It hurts to say but mecaquartz is not the answer, never was actually.

Hi Argiris,

I don't quite understand your answer. The question was about the best movement's finishing. I answered by what I like about the finishing of my latest watch, a kind of engineered look. No mention of quartz, pricing etc. by me, and I assume the 89365 is a superior movement, very IWC. The movements of IWC are quite good and look nice enough, well finished. But if my interest was in an absolutely beautiful movement from beginning to end, I'd rather buy a Lange or a Jaeger LeCoultre. But I don't, because the whole character of the IWC watches appeal more to me. Like the Spitfire Chrono or the Portuguese Perpetual Calendar.

Kind regards,
Paul

Whilst there is not a lot of (or as much as some others) hand finishing, I would also have to go with the IL Destriero - it is simply stunning to look at!

While I'm still uncertain whether to choose, I would like to share my amazement for some IWCs (whose following pictures are just an example) and their incredible standards.

Take this calibre 83:

The picture is well taken ok, but, look at the overall harmony, the perfect balance between contrasts, shiny and glazed.

A hint of a reentrant bevel (the most difficult, not achievable - still nowadays - by machines) on the center wheel bridge.

Pictures, courtesy of this site: ninanet.net/watches/others16/Mediums/miwcwww.html

The wonder of this bridges, with a perfect anglage and black polished screws on their heads.

It's an incredibile standard for this tipology of watch.

Ca va sans dire, thanks for all the comments!

Roberto, I was told by someone at IWC that Calibre 83s have stamped anglage rather than hand-filing, and in fact that is why c.83 watches cost less than, say, Vacheron back in the 1940s. Whether that is true or whether that is true for all production I don't personally know. But it may cast a bit of shadow on hand-finishing.

I'm not much of one for skeletonized dials, but this one is a contender in my opinion - besides being one of the best sounding repeaters (again, my opinion only) IWC has.

I have only been with it once - and am craving to try it on again.

Have we forgotten the Jubilee?

(I know there are better pictures than mine of this gorgeous movement)

or the 5240?

Larry

Shing,
I agree. I tried this one on at the Vegas boutique and, while it is not my "cup of tea", I certainly appreciate the finishing work.

Michael,

thanks for the precious info.

I've looked for some further pictures as I don't have enough data to determine differences within the production of the same calibre.

The following is the first I've found inside the forum. I circled some parts that, to my knowledge look impossible to be the result of a simple stamping process.

Can't do 45° angles simply stamping, nor the cote de Geneve made by cote (maybe) mecanique I see. I couldn't even tell it's made by just one passage or the adoucissage took more than one.

Link to the original post: "IWC caliber 83 –steel" www.iwc.com/forum/en/discussion/30197/?page=1#post_329311

Roberto --look at Ardoise's 98000 photo at the beginning of this discussion. The 3/4 plate has a rounded section and a sharp angled section. Why would those not be stamped?

Michael,

I don't know if that calibre 98000 plate had been stamped, as there are many ways to achieve nowadays that result.

For what I see, I can guess the plate has been stamped or processed by a CNC machine and after it must have passed through some further developments.

There's no really anglage, as the parts show 90° surfaces, the borders of the plate have been probably polished by a fraise, the lines are uncertain and the result is approximate, given the best standards.

I don't really see signs of manual work on that plate but the result is absolutely agreeable anyway.

The first calibre 83 I've posted (I take this one just because it's the best represented by the pictures) clearly shows manual work.

Take the circled part on the picture below. I can see an "coin sortant" anglage and that's impossible to produce by a machine, even nowadays.

Moreover, this calibre was produced decades ago, when most of the current techniques weren't available.

With respect but...
I have a different opinion on hand finishing and (decoration). While I am moved by the beautiful decoration and engravings of the watches shown by Heiko ( I ow them too), for me the real hand finishing and timeless hand work are "hidden" in those movements (cal. 52, 65, 71), which are called "Quality Extra".
Here Geneva Stripes are not necessaryly present, nor abundant curling decorations. But among the hundreds of thousands PW's made by IWC, year after year, the company's best watch makers and "Régleurs" selected a few hundred movements about a century ago of which the parts had such low tolerances that one could say : these parts are born for each other. After a very accurate assembly was performed, followed by a testing program lasting for weeks at different temperatures and positions, such watch was declared : finished. All of this work was done by hand and the balance spring was of all parts the most important one. After the testing, these watches were submitted to the Astronomical Observatories in Europe : Neuchâtel in Switzerland and Kew in England. There, they were subject to extremely demanding testing programs, awarded the "Chronometer Certificate" if successful, proving that the best of these movements deviated less than a second per month.PER MONTH!
So, what I am trying to say is this. If you have in your hands an IWC PW "Quality Extra" awarded with a Kew or Neuchâtel certificate, you will not see the hundreds of hours handwork( how ironic) spent by IWC's best watch makers on it as there is hardly any visible difference with an ordinary IWC PW movement! But knowing the difference, imaginating the extraordinary labour to finish it and appreciating it, my vote goes to these superb timekeepers, rather than to the decorated ones.( If you like I can post some of these movements and its Chronometer Certificates).
Kind regards,
Adrian
(alwaysiwc).

Thank you Adrian for this view on finishing. It is indeed amazing how much time was spent in the process of producing such precise timepieces. With the current salaries and other costs, these timepieces would probably cost as much as highly complicated watches like Tourbillons or even Minute Repeaters.

Please share some pictures here with us, it would be a great pleasure.

Kind regards,

Clemens

Haven't forgotten those two. I'm with you. Simple, but magnificent.

Larry's post.

OK, here is a cal 66 from 1907 ( not my watch).
There is nothing special to observe, only "quality extra". But this watch was awarded the "Bulletin de Marche" or chronometer certificate from the Astronomic Observatory in Neuchâtel, more than a century ago. Many hours were spent to assemble and regulate the watch, all by hand. There was a time, after the period of Jones, Seeland and Tschopp that IWC had no top watchmaker to regulate these extremely accurate mechanical time pieces. During that era the expert "regleurs" were traveling throughout Europe as "artists" of horology. These experts were hired or employed by Zenith, Omega, Vacheron Constatin, and many others, IWC hired them too, in order to deliver to the Astronomical Observatories their outmost finest timepieces for time testing. Every serious Swiss manufacturer needed these watches and their performances for advertising reasons.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).