Hello Jeff,

Thanks for bringing this discussion to a more suitable forum.

I am a watch enthusiast as well as a watchmaker (after sales service and repair for my day job with the occasional restoration or special project at home) and have written somewhat extensively about movements for TimeZone and ThePuristS/PuristSPro (quite a few years ago now) but have never really been a collector per se.

I do understand to some extent the less-rational side of watch enthusiasm when it comes to my affection for the Breguet Cal. 582 for example. I love this movement from a watchmaker's point of view AND as a movement guy above all, even though it (the Cal. 582) is a ridiculously over-complicated mess and knowing full well the kinds of weaknesses it has. To me, the mess that it is contains the history of a host of other Lemania developments and Breguet continued to push it to the point that it is barely tenable anymore. A few other watchmakers might "get it" the same way I do, but plenty of others probably think I''m nuts.

For an educated collector to have great affection for the Lemania 5100 is understandable in the same manner from my perspective. If it so far from a finely finished testament to craftsmanship and horological skill that it is probably perversely appealing for exactly that reason. It's also been used in some very cool watches, mostly due to the time period when it was released and the old stocks of them getting used up by interesting companies. But when Chuck Maddox championed that movement as evangelically as he did, I think he inspired a large number of semi-educated collectors to have an unrealistic view on the movement.

I don't think any watchmaker could look at this picture from Chuck's site and not be at least a little bit surprised to see so much plastic in a movement found in watches that retail for more than a $100 or so. It's shocking frankly. Plastic is not a highly stable material as a generality and one has to wonder how well this movement will hold up over the coming decades. Perhaps it will be as collectible and rare as the old Pierce chronographs because it will be similarly challenging to find them in good running condition?

Some collectors may think, "Who cares how it holds up after 50 years?" To me though, longevity is one of the very few defensible reasons to choose a mechanical watch over the alternatives, so I don't want highly disposable parts in the movements. The other two reasons being craftsmanship and prestige (the latter being shallow of course, but let's not ignore it completely), and the 5100 doesn't hold up well by those metrics either.

The movement is an artifact of its times. The Swiss had to adapt as radically and aggressively as they could to try to compete with the less expensive quartz watches flooding the market and this caliber is evidence of that, I'll say it: desperation. That makes it quirky and interesting and historically significant and certainly it demonstrates a certain kind of engineering prowess that I can respect. It's is glaringly free from the kind of craftsmanship, quality materials and horological artistry that I find most appealing in mechanical watches however.

_john