The Swiss are "cunning" by using our mechanisms, bought for $ 30, in their watches, which sell for tens or even hundreds of thousands of francs.
Information about the frauds of Franck Muller, which purchased 20,000 mechanisms of the well-known Russian trade mark "Polet", was leaked in 2005, and then a serious scandal erupted, since it was almost the favorite brand of the Russian political elite.
However, if you think that all this is the work of bygone days, I assure you, you are deeply mistaken. In a recent article “What Switzerland buys from Russia. Unexpected figures”I cited information from the Rosstat website, according to which, in 2018 Switzerland bought goods from Russia in category 18: Instruments and devices, watches (and mechanisms) worth $ 303 million. So I think there are still many surprises in store for us.
And here is a commentary on this topic from one of our readers, which seemed interesting to me:
Pavel Priima:
I don’t know how it works now, but in Soviet times Switzerland bought massively watch movements, tested them carefully, calibrated, tuned and inserted them into their cases and sold them with their advertising and packaging. Then, after the collapse of the USSR, when Japan began to crowd them with its quartz movements, Switzerland adopted the "SWISS MADE" standard.
According to it, most of it must be made in the country, designed in the country and assembled. But there is also a loophole here. Watchmakers buy spare parts for mechanisms (China, Germany, Russia) and these wheels insert them onto their mechanism frame.
The purchase of Soviet watches is needed to warm up the market with an assortment. For example, in the store at the entrance there is a China clock, a little further Germany is more expensive, a little deeper into the Russia hall. And quite in the back of the shop there are very expensive boilers with bruliks and turbion-skeletons.
Promotional video:
In kind for natural "SWISS" the price is from 1 million rubles and more (in Swiss francs, of course). Even if 90% of buyers buy watches from the first 3 shelves, then 1 is the only sucker who will buy a watch for 10 lyam, which will have a cost price of 10,000, and the remaining 9,990 thousand will be for a "name", this will pay off this shop for years forward.
Switzerland does not manufacture or sell watches. Absolutely! She sells the brand and the buyer's affiliation with ostensible legend. Mythology is also a commodity.