Issue 162: COSC Wants To Be Relevant Again
Exclusive details from COSC's CEO on how and why it is making big changes after half a century of chronometer certification
Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that’s giving you something different this week. In fact, I’m writing the kind of piece I’d normally try and turn into a magazine or newspaper article. Why do it this way? Because you deserve it, that’s why. And because long term, this is what I want to do much more of - so I thought I’d start increasing the number of stories like this. What is the story? In one sense it’s inside baseball - an interview with the head of a testing agency - and in another sense, it’s a crucial insight into the direction of travel for mainstream brands. You can call it a doubling-down on measurable quality in a time when products really will have to fight to stand out (what the brands will say) or you can call it the latest acronym-heavy attempt to justify price rises for over-specced tool watches that aren’t bought for their mechanical attributes. Personally I’m holding my judgement; I habitually put up with relatively unreliable watches because they have other strengths, but I don’t think the idea of specific, independently-verified levels of quality is a waste of time or money. For a lot of people, it’s inherent to the entire appeal of watches. Let me know where you stand after you’ve read the interview below.
Thanks to those who replied to my poll on some kind of Fourth Wheel print anthology. It looks like there just aren’t quite enough of you who’d be up for it right now - but who knows. Maybe my ego will get the better of me and I’ll do it anyway.
Chris
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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently
Certifying Excellence: COSC’s Great Reinvention
Andreas Wyss has been running COSC, the Controle Officiel Suisse des Chronometres since 2010. For most of that fifteen year span, I had no idea who he was - and I expect the same would go for pretty much every other watch journalist, collector or expert out there. That was deliberate - institutions like COSC tend to have no public face, allowing the brands they certify to reap the benefit of certified chronometer status without COSC itself getting in the way. Who wanted to hear about watch testing, anyway? But with the advent of METAS-backed Master Chronometer certification at Omega and lately Tudor, in addition to the proliferation of in-house accuracy standards that went beyond COSC’s ISO-dictated level, the idea of COSC certification had become less relevant than ever. Long-standing readers will know I’ve been critical of the apparent lack of desire to modernise the notion of chronometer certification; as recently as last year I requested an interview and was met with total silence. That all changed earlier this year, as COSC went on the front foot, hired a PR agency and set about trying to reverse the position of a lifetime - going from a silent partner in the industry to a vocal advocate for Swiss quality. In a press release in April, COSC announced that it would be creating a new, higher standard of certification, to arrive on the market next year.
Established in 1973, COSC is a not-for-profit organisation that tests and certifies Swiss watch movements, both mechanical and quartz, for daily accuracy, at a range of temperatures and in varying positions. Its testing takes 16 days from start to finish, and costs a relatively small fee (in the region of CHF 10 per movement, per other reports).
You might have seen interviews with Andreas in Hodinkee and Monochrome. I spoke to him last week and went a little deeper, talking about why COSC felt the need to change, the shifts he’s observed in the market, what the new certification will mean for prices and why he doesn’t see it as a rival for METAS. And of course, I tried to get as much detail as possible about what a so-called ‘Super-COSC’ standard could look like1.
TFW: Why have you decided to become more outspoken after so many years?
AW: In the past we were closed, we were like a black box. Nobody knew what we did or how we did it. But the market is changing. Rolex has the superlative chronometer certificate, Omega has its master chronometer certificate. We knew that the ISO standard that we use today is old, maybe too old, but it's difficult to change that. So we decided to take control, to communicate more, and to do something new. Next year we will propose a new certification as well as keeping ISO chronometer certification.
TFW: What prompted this new step?
AW: We asked our customers [the watch brands COSC certifies] their perception of COSC and the value of it. Almost all of them said COSC’s image is dusty. So that’s why we’re communicating more, why we have a new website and social media. Besides this, they said that the ISO certification is good, but it’s not sufficient. That the end customer demands more.
TFW: I have to say I agree - chronometer status has been met or exceeded by so many brands. Is it simply a case of manufacturing standards improving over time?
AW: Sure, it has improved, but our failure rate [for movements submitted to COSC] has remained quite stable, between 3.5 per cent and 5 per cent. Materials are better, the machines are better, the concepts are better, and we’ve doubled our volumes, but that percentage has stayed the same.
TFW: So it hasn’t necessarily got any easier to regulate a watch to chronometer standard. Brands use the chronometer designation as a marketing tool. Was the feedback from the brands that it no longer carried as much importance because it was so universally achieved?
AW: It’s not so easy for me to answer this question, but I think when COSC began, customers were grateful for it because there was nothing like it before. It unified the methodology. But now, everyone is going their own way alone again. To say that a watch is chronometer certified isn’t sufficient; they have to be able to differentiate themselves from their neighbours. That’s why Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe have their own standards. I will say this: in the Seventies, the marques were led by technicians. Today they are led by marketeers. That’s why ‘chronometer’ is no longer sufficient.
TFW: Tell me about the new certification and what criteria it will include.
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