Movement decoration (82110 Calibre)

Hi All, 

I recently saw a video of the 82110 Calibre assembly (screenshot shown below) because I am interested in acquiring the ceramic Ingenieur, but for a watch that costs €22k I was a bit let down by what seems to be cost cutting in movement finishing. For example, why not do perlage across the whole base plate instead of just parts that are visible? I've noticed this to be the case with Panerai as well, so I assume that Richemont Group have implemented this across multiple brands in their portfolio. 

I am curious to hear your thoughts on this topic.  

I guess that the movement finishing is very well determined by cost/benefit analysis, and saving the labor on the finishing of unseen movement parts was seen as a necessary financial decision. I bet the costs savings over hundreds of thousands of movements is quite substantial. 

IWC have seemed to focus more on tool/technical elements of the movement rather than finesse/finishing. It comes down to what the customer values and is willing to pay for. I feel that IWC has reasoned that the majority of their clientele do not want to pay a premium for more extensive movement finishing, and that has never seemed to have been a priority. 

Sure, but for a watch that costs over 20k I would expect that certain cost cutting measures wouldn't apply. 

The first IWC watch without movement decoration was the Mark XII.

Cost wasn't the problem at that time. JLC probably had supply problems at the time, which is why IWC accepted undecorated movements.

Wow, that looks bad…Thanks for sharing. I love neo vintage IWC references and Ocean 2000 is one of the most worn watches in my collection. With new  Ingenieur references IWC could’ve put a bit more effort I think.