When Swatch Attacks
Much of this video is pure cringe --- PERSONALLY, I LOVE THE SWATCH GROUP! --- and it suffers from the typical YouTube disease of stretching a five-minute explanation into a half-hour drag, but it might be worth your attention.
If you don't like watching videos, here's the scoop: The great people at Vortic take pocketwatches from the World War I era, fix them up, then put them into Colorado-made wristwatch cases. I am a Vortic owner, I've visited the tiny workshop in which they do their work. I'm a fan.
The Swatch Group is not a fan. Swatch, which owns a variety of brands like Omega in addition to, ah, Swatch, is now the owner of the Hamilton brand. They use "Hamilton" as a skinsuit brand beneath which they sell watches made from Swiss and, ahem, overseas components. They're pissed off that Vortic re-cases Hamilton pocketwatches. They don't think that a watch made in the United States by the original Hamilton factory should be permitted to retain the brand. That should belong to the modern globalized conglomerate known as Swatch Group.
Wednesday morning, Vortic will be defending itself in Federal court. This is the most one-sided contest humanly imaginable. Were I a billionaire, I'd fund Vortic's defense. Since I'm not, I'll be voting with my pocket: no more Swatch group stuff for me.