COSC

Watchbore investigates the only organization in the world that decides whether a watch is a chronometer or not.

There are three questions that dominate the forums at TimeZone: How good is my watch? Is it really worth all the money I paid for it? and, Am I mad?



Watchbore also gets a lot of email asking the same three questions, and his invariable answers are: It’s as good as you think it is; No, and Probably.

For all its flaws, there is one organization that provides some sort of standard by which to judge a watch. In his constant search for choice trivia with which to thrill his readers into a definitive stupor, Watchbore succeeded in infiltrating the secretive COSC organization, and with the help of his Albanian associates, secured some valuable confessions from the high priests of this obscure cult.

But first, some exciting facts based on documents that were recently handed to Watchbore anonymously by an unknown woman in the street.

They reveal that COSC stands for contrôle officiel suisse des chronometres (official Swiss chronometer inspection).

Furthermore, in 2001, COSC’s three laboratories in Geneva, Biel and Le Locle, individually tested 1,315,752 horological movements, almost all for compliance with international chronometer standard ISO 3156 for mechanical wristwatches, and issued 1,255,515 chronometer certifications worth at least USD4.5 million. This is a 23.3% rise on the previous year.

Mechanical Movements (ISO 3156)
TESTED    PASSED    FAILED    % FAILED
1,254,248    1,198,043    56,175    4.5%
 
Quartz Movements (COSC Standard)
TESTED    PASSED    FAILED    % FAILED
61,504    57,442    4,062    6.6%
 
The Rolex Factor
These documents, secured at great expense by Watchbore, also rip apart the veil of secrecy surrounding the exact annual production of Rolex mechanical watches.

Out of 77 brands and a handful of watch schools submitting movements for chronometer certification, Rolex is by far the biggest contributor to COSC. It sends almost their entire output of mechanical movements to COSC and in 2001, 761,601 of them were given chronometer certificates — a 20% increase over 2000. "All the mechanical watches Rolex sells are officially certified chronometers," intoned a bimbo in charge of misinformation at the Geneva company headquarters.

The Geneva and Biel laboratories are almost entirely devoted to testing Rolex movements. Interestingly, Geneva, where 96% of movements tested are from Rolex, shows the lowest failure rate at 2.2%. It rises to 4.5% in Biel (86% Rolex) and to 5.7% in Le Locle where virtually no Rolex movements are tested.

Watchbore estimates that at least 15,000 Rolex movements failed in 2001. According to Rolex, the rejects are fixed and sent back to COSC until they pass. "We don’t use COSC to tell us how good our movements are," said a source deep inside the Wilsdorf foundation. "We test them ourselves. All we want is the chronometer certification. It’s for marketing."

Further information about COSC in Mondani Editore's books