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Cloaca
1906
Dec 23, 2017
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Is Atlantic a legitimate Swiss watchmaker? I'm willing to listen to claims that it is, but it doesn't pass my quick sniff test.
1. They have SWISS MADE on the dial. As I have written elsewhere, this is meaningless. You get a rotor decorated in Switzerland and send it to China for the rest of the parts and assembly and you can meet the SWISS MADE 60 percent value standard.
2. My newer standard is to check whether the company is a member of the FHS, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. No Atlantic here. The FHS is pretty liberal in admitting companies, including fashion brands who do watches on the side. But they do ask questions, have standards, and require membership fees.
3. Then I look at the website for disclosure. Where is it? Is there a phone number that I can call. Names of company officials. Corporate status: where it's incorporated. Nothing. Then I look at the ubiquitous history summary, looking for ... "The Gap." Yep, here it is. Founded 1888, with many events and much progress through 1965. Then crickets. Then in 2015 Atlantic celebrates its 125th anniversary. Congratulations. What happened between 1965 and 2015? A half century missing. I'm guessing quartz crisis, out of business or moribund, bought by someone, Chinese? Italian? German?, then revived with Chinese manufacturing.
Update:
I found the corporate registration page (German) in Switzerland: https://www.zefix.ch/en/search/entity/list/firm/10490?name=atlantic%20watch&searchType=default
I found this YouTube video with some of their staff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9hMGuP9DU
Dec 23, 2017
Ferengi
41
Dec 23, 2017
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CloacaI too tried looking up stuff on this, and the only stuff I can find is there other watches are $100-200 range and "Atlantic" seems to be not a watch store but some kind of all-purpose store based off there Amazon page that sells desks, shelves, hoses, ETC.
Link to there Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Atlantic/b/ref=w_bl_sl_ap_wa_web_2528973011?ie=UTF8&node=2528973011&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=Atlantic
Massdrop has lately been selling overpriced junk at premium prices and kinda makes me wanna stay clear from here (Prime example is a $80 at best Chinese mass produced knife being posted as a $1400 knife that was marked down to $140? forgot the price but was a complete joke)
Dec 23, 2017
Cloaca
1906
Dec 23, 2017
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FerengiThat Atlantic has nothing to do with Atlantic the watch company. Atlantic sells watches that at retail at $350 and up, sort of in Glycine's range as a lower-end Swiss seller. But I think Atlantic's Swiss origins are tenuous, compared to Glycine, or or at least "discon-tinuous."
On Amazon Atlantic watches are sold by, for instance, Dexclusive, an online watch seller:
https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=&seller=A1UCZ1H86VJ5FG&tab=&vasStoreID=
http://www.dexclusive.com
Dec 23, 2017
ConchitaTurtle
11
Dec 24, 2017
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CloacaIts movement is a Sellita, so isn't a rebadged Seagull with a Swiss rotor and blue screws. Case, sapphire crystal, hands... may be chinese, as (I am sure) all or almost all Swiss Made watches at their price range (and highers). Another question is that Swiss Made conditions are not serious, I prefer your "Made in USA", "all or virtually all".
Dec 24, 2017
Flypanam
249
Dec 25, 2017
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CloacaAtlantic does have an actual swiss pedigree, though. The company was founded in 1888. The company actually renamed itself Atlantic because they produced some of the earliest waterproof watches. They survived the quartz crisis by withdrawing from many markets and focusing on selling upscale swiss mechanical watches in Soviet bloc countries with little exposure to Japanese quartz. That's why there is little brand recognition in the US and to an extent western Europe, but if you go to somewhere like Poland or Romania people would recognize the brand pretty readily. They're one of the few truly independent swiss watch manufacturers left, except for the fact that they don't currently have their own movements.
Dec 25, 2017
Cloaca
1906
Dec 26, 2017
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FlypanamWith a history like that I wonder why they are not a member of the FHS?
http://www.fhs.swiss/eng/watch_brands.html?letter=A
I'm reading now on Wikiepedia that the FHS represents more than 90 percent of Swiss watch manufacturers, over 500 companies, but I guess that leaves 9 percent or so who aren't members. You'd think that those 9 percent would be the smallest companies or those that only make minor components though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_the_Swiss_Watch_Industry
The FHS took the side of tightening the SWISS MADE requirements in 2012, and some companies fought back. The previous requriements specified 50 percent value Swiss content and the new requriements specify 60 percent. Most FHS members wanted the Swiss content requirements raised to 80 percent. So I would expect that companies that were anti-FHS were companies with more Chineses content.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/business/global/swiss-watch-industry-seeks-to-tighten-requirements.html
Classic quote from the article:
"Vincent Chan, Golden Hawk’s director, makes no apologies for Swiss Mountain’s methods, or its watches, whose top-of-the-line model sells for $450. Even if everybody in Switzerland isn’t perhaps happy about what we do, there’s nothing they can do about it because we follow the rules,” Mr. Chan said in an interview last month at Baselworld, the world’s biggest watch fair."
Mr. Chan? Mr. Chan?!
Neither Golden Hawk nor Swiss Mountain are listed as FHS members, so the 9 percent may mostly consist of Chinese interlopers who incorporated a paper company in Switzerland. So I'm not sure where that leaves Atlantic, and I'd like to know more about outside investments and stock ownership changes during the 50-year gap in their company history timeline.
Dec 26, 2017
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