Ébauche

From Chinese Watch Industry Wiki

An ébauche (also known as 'movement blank') is a collection of unassembled parts used as the basis for assembling a watch movement. This can consist of anything from the plates and wheels through to a completely built up movement, so long as that movement is disassembled and upgraded by another manufacturer.

Traditionally, Chinese watch manufacturers tended to build entire watches in-house, with rare exceptions among the smaller enterprises in Shanghai, and few factories using the SN-2 ébauche sourced from the Nanjing Watch Factory. More recently, largely due to the influence of the Hong Kong watch industry, Chinese factories have increasingly turned to supplying complete movements and ébauches to other manufacturers. The most widely discussed example in recent times is the Swiss company Claro-Semag sourcing ébauches from Sea-Gull which, after finishing, are sold on to Montres Edouard Lauzieres as Swiss ébauches. Foreign-finished Chinese ébauches may be found in some very exclusive watches, for example the tourbillon watches of Cecil Purnell, Switzerland, whose prices start around $22,000.