On Deliveries And Lead Times

Today, we presented the MING 27.02 and were happy to see it received so enthusiastically. Our existing owners batch is sold out already and we’ll be opening Batch 2 for orders tomorrow at 1PM GMT.

Ahead of this, we’ve had some questions about the delivery estimates for the 27.02s that I want to discuss here. Deliveries are staggered with:

• 50x 27.02s shipping in June/ July 2021
• 150x 27.02s shipping in November/ December 2021

As most of you will know, this is an unusually long wait time for us and begs the question: “Why?”

When we signed off on 27.02 in May 2020, production was restricted to 50 watches because that’s the number of ETA 7001 movements we were able to find. However, it was clear from customer feedback that we needed to increase our volumes - so we continued to search for additional movements.

Luck smiled on us last October when a batch in the right specification and for the right price became available and allowed us to expand total production of the 27.02 to 200 watches. But anyone following along so far is probably still asking “Why the extended wait for delivery though?”.

Simply because it takes us at least 12 months from delivery of raw movements to produce and ship finished watches. As we only received movements in October 2020, there is no way to deliver watches sooner*.

Customer feedback also made it clear that between making fewer watches or a longer wait time (but larger production batch), the latter was preferred by a vast majority. And given the 27-series was scheduled to be retired after this drop, due to our plans for this year and next - a second batch later in the year was not an option.

I hope this helps clarify the unusual delivery schedule for the 27.02s and I’d like to conclude by saying that we’re working to reduce wait times and move to movements with more reliable supply in the long term. For now though, we will try to make as many watches as we sustainably and reasonably can.

Thank you for the patience, understanding and support!

- PRS

*Our current pandemic has also taught us that it's wise to factor in some buffer for an unexpected surprise or two.

‍

Published: January 2021