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What does the “fit and finish” of a watch actually mean and should I even care? What does the “fit and finish” of a watch actually mean and should I even care?

What does the “fit and finish” of a watch actually mean and should I even care?

Sean Roberts

“Fit and Finish”. If you search watch forums enough or eyeball videos on Youtube, you will undoubtedly run into this term. Initially, I had an inkling as to what it was referencing, but I hadn’t grasped its importance or whether I should even care. But as I started to dig deeper, I began to get a better handle on what fit and finish really means to a collector and when it should matter. This is what I’ve found.

Fit

Here is an assignment. Take your favourite watch that is on its stock bracelet. Spread it open between both hands and place it between a light source and your eyes. Focus in on where the bracelet meets the lugs. Do you see that light shining through? That’s an example of fit.

Fit on a watch directly correlates to the tolerances a brand is willing to accept during manufacturing. The smaller the tolerances are, the better the fit. Other examples of fit on a watch can be found in the amount of stretch you see in the bracelet or the amount of play when rotating the timing bezel (if you have one). Is there too large of a gap between the bezel and crystal where dust can accumulate? Are the markers perfectly aligned to the indices? These are all parts of a watch that should fit together nicely during assembly.

Finish

As for finish, take a close look at the case and the bracelet of your watch. Some of its surfaces may show polishing, brushing or blasted finishes. These are all different ways the surfaces on a watch can be treated. Move in closer and you can even see this same treatment on the hands, indices and movement. All of these are watch design choices made by the brand that eventually define the look of a watch.

When looking for a great finish, you’ll want it to look the same all around on that particular surface. On polished finishes, blemishes or buffer trails are a big no-no. On brushed finishes, you want continuous, unbroken lines; the closer together they are, the better. And finally, for bead-blasted finishes, you want a nice even finishing all around. If the watch has multiple finishes, look for a very well-defined line at the point of transition.

What does it all mean?

In my horological travels, I’ve found the term fit and finish to almost always be used in a comparative manner. X watch is better than Y watch because of the fit and finish. X watch has great fit and finish at that price. It is important to note that a watch that doesn’t have great fit and finish isn’t necessarily a terrible watch. A bracelet will still work with that small gap. Brushed lines don’t have to be extremely close to each other in order to get the brushed look. The overall function of the watch won’t suffer from average fit and finishing.

It wasn’t until I read an article about a similar topic, fit and finish on knives by Nick Shabazz, that I began to understand where this all fits in the grand scheme of watch collecting. The fit and finish of a watch increases in importance when you start visiting higher levels of watch making, where it plays a huge role in how a brand conveys its attention to detail. It shows the brand’s willingness to invest more to achieve those tighter tolerances, and those beautiful, sometimes hand-done, finishes. Because at those levels, where prices are high, such things are to be expected by a watch collector. Shabazz said it best: “For me, the biggest reason I look for fit and finish is that if I’m paying serious money, I want to see serious mastery.”