> Can you get a similar, and perhaps even better constructed (machines are, after all, more precise than humans) watch from China? Sure. Is it the same watch? N

> Can you get a similar, and perhaps even better constructed (machines are, after all, more precise than humans) watch from China? Sure. Is it the same watch? No. As far as I can tell, the manual labor is roughly the same in both cases. Chinese mechanical movements are not assembled entirely by machines--in fact, in many cases the machining may be quite similar. (Many of the popular Seagull calibers are basically clones of ETA or Miyota designs, and I would guess use the same manufacturing process.) The main price difference is (obviously) some combination of a) quality control and tolerances (do you ship a marginal unit or do you throw it out?), b) conditions from the factory (do you adjust the movement to n positions before shipping it, or just ship it?), and c) brand, as you note. (a) and (b) have real economic costs. How much of a watch's cost comes down to those versus (c) is hard to say. I have an unbranded Rolex "homage" from China with a Seagull clone of an ETA 2824. The case is a bit rough around the edges--quite noticeably if you look--and the timekeeping is (from the factory) about +6s/day. (I don't have a timegrapher, so I can't tell you the positional variation.) So, definitely not a Rolex. But for about 3% the price I'm not complaining. ;) Edit: To add to this point, I am reminded of the similarity between ETA's different grades of movements (which are sold at different price points depending on precision/adjustment/quality) and the practice of computer chip makers to do similar (i.e. to sell CPUs at a lower clockspeed if they don't pass QC at the higher speed). This isn't exactly what ETA does; some of the grades use different material for the hairsprings. But Standard and Elabore are apparently the same material just adjusted to different tolerances, which sounds awfully similar.