# Quality Chinese



## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

I probably spend more time than is healthy studying "new" technology,and what I have noticed is; anything Swiss and there is always a huge flurry on the various online review sites, whereas, Chinese, very little other than posts on the favourably biased forums. So rather than dismiss all Chinese horology as junk, here's a couple of movements that interest me.

Liaoning Peacock SL6601, 70 hours power reserve, 31 jewels, 28,800 bph, quickset date , small second's at 9 and a power reserve indicator.










and, the Beijing Watch Factory SB18 (allegedly based on a Miyota 81200). Manual wind, hacking, 21600 bph,










Watches equipped with these movements seem to fall into a price range of £300-£350, and special limited editions can be much more. Like this 38mm Maison Celadon for around £850 plus import duties etc.



















Its too easy for the unqualified to dismiss all Chinese products as junk. So anybody got one with either of these movements ? Incidentally the manufacturer of the "Celadon" offer a ten year global warranty, confidence, or factored in to the purchase price ?


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

Having tinkered with all sorts of watches and movements from cheap to a bit more pricey I would say that regardless of how good looking these movements are they will not match the quality, finishing and finesse of swiss movements. Not only that but they also won't last you for 50 years even if unserviced like many Swiss movements will.

They are specifically made to look nice and interesting and copy the swiss movements (or the japanese high end ones) but they're not the same thing.

There's a reason one costs (talking about actual costs not the inflated retail price) 50$ and the other costs 1,000$.

You can buy a 3$ chinese bamboo spatula and it'll perform identical to the one in Ikea that you get for 15$ but watches are a lot more complicated than that.

Both a cheap and an expensive watch will tell the time the same way but will they both function unscathed for a long period of time ? :tongue:


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

gimli said:


> Both a cheap and an expensive watch will tell the time the same way but will they both function unscathed for a long period of time ?


 This may well be. In the case of some other products,Chinese manufacturers will supply quality in relation to price, meaning, if you want quality, you will get it if you pay for it. I had a lengthy discussion on this very topic with a retailer, whose take on it was that the Chinese are more than capable of producing quality comparable with anything coming out of Switzerland, but what they lack is brand image and heritage, which is possibly closer to the truth in terms of marketing. Another worrying/interesting trend I've noticed is that the replica market that were selling fakes boasting genuine Swiss movements are now using "high grade" clone, Chinese movements.


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## miroman (Dec 12, 2011)

Hi,

About the SL6601 - let me show my Chinese sub-forum watch, project 2016, variant "Classic".



Due voting three variants were selected for production. They are so different, that I'd say they are three different models, than variants of one model (like previous projects, where the difference was only in color of the dial)



All they are equipped with Liaoning Peacock SL6601. It's a new movement, larger than usual (36 mm). All the watches with larger cases, but with smaller calibers, suffer the 'strange' date window position, too far from the edge. Here the date window is in normal position at 6. The bigger size also let the power reserve to be increased dramatically, up to 72 hours. Of course, this has to be shown , so the power reserve indicator took place at 3, while the small seconds hand is at 9.

As usual, the design is custom, chosen with many votes. The combination of the white 'spirograph' dial, elegant font 'Berlin' (especially with red 12), and vintage-styled hands creates a beautiful retro feeling. Strange for me, a modern case was chosen, but fortunately there was no problem my classic example to be swapped with the 'pilot' case, which looks much more vintage. A wristshot:



The glass is slight domed sapphire, without anti-reflex (or if there is, it's not noticeable  ), which prevents the beautiful guiloche dial from being seen. But at the evening time it looks really amazing.



Well, here's the movement, so beautiful, and pity it can't be visible all the time 

 

What more to say? About the longevity of the Chinese movements, the ST5 from Seagull is an excellent example, developed 50 or 60 years ago, but still working precisely and reliable (even it was used in Project 2014).

Regards, Miro.


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

miroman said:


> the ST5 from Seagull is an excellent example, developed 50 or 60 years ago, but still working precisely and reliable


 Agreed, I have two which are excellent, and older DongFeng's The project "SL6601" is one I have read and very interesting/positive it is, but is "sold" to a positively receptive audience, which is not a bad thing. The main problem I have with buying anything more expensive Chinese is what happens if it goes wrong ? A lot of watchmakers don't want to know, and there are a few horror stories of watches disappearing, held up in customs, etc etc that have been sent back.


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## ZenArcade (Aug 17, 2016)

The Beijing watch movement you posted was reviewed quite well on WUS some years ago I was going to get one when they were about £120 as I was keen to try out something different and a supposed in house movement.

What I soon started to discover online though was the movement may well be Citizen or at least based on a citizen movement. Secondly the number of QC issues just seemed to mount up which soon put me off buying.

Pity really but this is the major problem with Chinese movements and watches the QC issues are numerous.


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## Garry (Feb 25, 2003)

Funny,

I've had and still have, a number of Chinese watches. Never had a problem with any of them.

Some of the movements are Seagull, some are a cloned 7750, and some are a cloned 2824-2. I've yet to have one fail, and no servicing whatsoever.

As inferred previously, the Chinese are more than capable of making quality items. Cheap does not always mean poor quality with Chinese goods.


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

Garry said:


> Cheap does not always mean poor quality with Chinese goods.


 The ones I have were bought on the understanding that if they were no good, then they would go in the bin. I have had one bad one, but the rest, all Shanghai manual wind, have been good, well finished, and accurate. The straps are rubbish though.


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## The Minute (Dec 24, 2017)

To many people are prepared to slag off Chinese products, but many of them are a carrying an I phone, and half their electronic equipment is made in China. The Chinese will make you what you want. If you want a quality watch, they will make it, if you want a cheap bit of [email protected] they will make that as well. Most of the reason Chinese products are cheap is because the labour costs are cheap. There are Seagull movements that are absolute replicas of ETA movements, to the point parts are interchangeable. I own several Chinese watches, and swear by Parnis. They are well put together, they look fantastic, and the movements are accurate and reliable. It's true to say that you can't compare a £60 Parnis with a £5k Omega, but what would you expect. However, in my opinion a £60 Parnis is significantly better than a £60 Seiko or Citizen. Others will argue this. It's true that if I decided to wear one of my Parnis watches every day for the next twenty years, they would either die or look awful, but as I only wear any of my watches no more than once a month, I can see them all outliving me :huh:


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## The Minute (Dec 24, 2017)

WRENCH said:


> Agreed, I have two which are excellent, and older DongFeng's The project "SL6601" is one I have read and very interesting/positive it is, but is "sold" to a positively receptive audience, which is not a bad thing. The main problem I have with buying anything more expensive Chinese is what happens if it goes wrong ? A lot of watchmakers don't want to know, and there are a few horror stories of watches disappearing, held up in customs, etc etc that have been sent back.


 Funny you should say that. I have bought several watches from mywatchcode.com, and recently had a problem. To be honest, it may have been partly my fault. Anyway, I contacted them, and after sending them the tracking number, they refunded me the return postage. The watch was repaired within a week of them receiving it, and it is now on the way back. It's a shame I have been without it for a month or so, but that can easily happen when you by a product from a UK supplier.


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## Sophy (Dec 31, 2013)

To be honest, more than 80% watches & components are made in China. generally we have 3-levels quality on prodcutions market.

- 1st level is the big factories who produce branded watches, they mainly manufacture the parts such as case, dial, hands, strap, packing etc, as the brand need to be Made in swiss / UK /Japan, the movt and assemble must done by local country, material covers 316L /titanium G5/ Brozne / Carbon. has more than 200 employees, the quality are quite good and stable.

- 2nd level is the middle factory and Chinese brands. offer OEM Service and produce their own brand. mainly are steel,around 50-150 employees.afforadble price and accepteable quality

- 3rd leavel is the small factories making alloy /Bamboo/ wood etc fashion watches, hard to say the quality, because some factories are really few people and no quality control but some are combined with middle level factories the quality is not bad at all.

Hello from China and Have a nice day to all !


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## Always"watching" (Sep 21, 2013)

What an interesting thread. My own contribution is hardly significant compared to the knowledge and wisdom expressed here by various Forum members. I have found that in the world of quartz analogue chronographs, it took a surprisingly long time before the Chinese were using a domestically manufactured movement that could compete with the Japanese calibers. Also, in my experience of buying cheaper Chinese watches, it is evident that when even the more standard Chinese movements are incorporated into watches produced and marketed by decent companies, they can be produced to a suitably high standard and function fine.


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## Sometimes its Gus (Feb 22, 2018)

There is good quality coming out of China in many products these days.


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

Another from Celadon, "Yue Fei".










https://wornandwound.com/review/hands-on-maison-celadon-yue-fei-diver/


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## stdape (Mar 9, 2018)

Even if they are cheap quaility, a fiver for a watch is nothing. It tells the time, and if it packs up get another. Most of people would love an expensive watch, but to some like myself, could not afford to. Even a fiver watch is, pushing my budget


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## spinynorman (Apr 2, 2014)

There's a long history of "Swiss make better movements" going back to the likes of Sir John Bennett at the end of the 19th century. That level of belief would take a long time to shift, even if it was no longer true.


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

spinynorman said:


> There's a long history of "Swiss make better movements" going back to the likes of Sir John Bennett at the end of the 19th century. That level of belief would take a long time to shift, even if it was no longer true.


 The only problem I have encountered with decent ? Chinese watches is inconsistent quality control, and no real service back-up outside of China. I have a few 30+ year old Chinese watches, that I got serviced as soon as I received them new. Their performance so far, has been faultless.


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## ry ry (Nov 25, 2018)

Service when you got them? Just to confirm they're not borked up?

And more relevant I guess, who do you use to service potentially slightly weird movements, or are they using miyota/eta? I have a fledgling interested in some of the Chinese products but wasnt sure if I would be getting them looked at over here for less than the cost of the watch.


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## WRENCH (Jun 20, 2016)

ry ry said:


> I﻿﻿﻿ have﻿ a fledgling interested in some of the Chinese products but wasnt sure if I would ﻿b﻿﻿e﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿ ﻿getting them looked at over here for less than the cost of the watch.﻿﻿﻿


 Seagull ST5 movements have been reliable in my case, and accurate. Servicing costs are probably not economic if your rational. I've had mine serviced a couple of times. The seller I bought them from in Shanghai, advised, although new, they should be oiled etc, as they'd been lying around for years. The watchmaker confirmed this.


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## JayDeep (Dec 31, 2016)

Fiyta is quality Chinese.

Shanghai is quality Chinese.

Beijing watch factory is quality Chinese.

Sea-Gul is quality Chinese.

I use Good-Stuffs for Chinese quality timepieces. There's more than you might think.


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## JayDeep (Dec 31, 2016)

WRENCH said:


> I probably spend more time than is healthy studying "new" technology,and what I have noticed is; anything Swiss and there is always a huge flurry on the various online review sites, whereas, Chinese, very little other than posts on the favourably biased forums. So rather than dismiss all Chinese horology as junk, here's a couple of movements that interest me.
> 
> Liaoning Peacock SL6601, 70 hours power reserve, 31 jewels, 28,800 bph, quickset date , small second's at 9 and a power reserve indicator.
> 
> ...


 Yeah, I really like these movements a lot. I looked at a couple with the 70 hour power reserve, just nothing quite what I would want, but someday I'm very sure I'll have a watch with this movement.

Thanks for the info!


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## Volt56 (Feb 8, 2019)

Sophy said:


> To be honest, more than 80% watches & components are made in China. generally we have 3-levels quality on prodcutions market.
> 
> - 1st level is the big factories who produce branded watches, they mainly manufacture the parts such as case, dial, hands, strap, packing etc, as the brand need to be Made in swiss / UK /Japan, the movt and assemble must done by local country, material covers 316L /titanium G5/ Brozne / Carbon. has more than 200 employees, the quality are quite good and stable.
> 
> ...


 I have to say, many thanks for clarifying that for me too Sophy. I have owned a few of the 1st and 2nd level watches you mentioned and the quality was excellent. Not sure about the long-term durability compared to other brands as I only had them for a few years.


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## Lampoc (Oct 31, 2010)

megalith said:


> Chinese watch


 There is a section on the forum for promoting your own god-awful looking watches you know.


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## DJJazzyJeff (Apr 2, 2020)

megalith said:


> Chinese *****


 Megalith - is that because it would look better under a large rock?


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## Caller. (Dec 8, 2013)

Intellectual property theft goes a long way in China.


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