I don’t understand why VS is making these so-called free-sprung movements. If it were a genuinely free-sprung movement, that would be one thing, but the factory has even released a fake free-sprung version. What is the point of that?
The fake version does nothing more than hide the regulator arm so that the movement looks free-sprung visually. That feels misleading to consumers. And on top of that, it costs several hundred more than the previous version. It really feels like the factory is playing games with buyers and squeezing more money out of them.
Because the factory’s next step may simply be to add regulating weights to the balance wheel. If they could have done that from the beginning but deliberately split the upgrade into several stages, then what else would you call it besides milking the market?
Some time ago, VS released a free-sprung version of the 3235 movement, which was first used in the titanium Yacht-Master. This time, the factory has introduced two Daytona models with free-sprung 4131 movements. One is the latest Daytona with the white enamel dial, and the other is the white-dial 126500 Panda Daytona.
Of these two Daytonas, the former has an exhibition caseback, while the latter has a closed caseback. If someone really understands movements, they will immediately notice the difference around the balance wheel, because there are no regulating weights on it.
As for watches with closed casebacks, I have always felt that whether the movement is free-sprung or not really does not matter that much.
Facing competition from factories such as QF and Rich, was VS simply not fully prepared, or did it deliberately choose a different path?
We know that the free-sprung movements used by QF, Rich, and some other factories have balance wheels fitted with regulating weights. Visually, they can be said to look almost identical to the genuine movement.
But the movement from VS is in a somewhat awkward position. The factory calls it a free-sprung movement, but visually there is still a clear difference compared with the 4131 movements from QF and those other factories.
Perhaps when facing competition from QF and others, VS was simply too eager to keep up with their pace this time. Maybe VS felt that during this wave of free-sprung movements, having something was still better than having nothing at all.
