Geneva Seal - new rules

Geneva seal, also known as the Poinçon de Genève or Geneva hallmark is the quality seal of the Geneva School of Horology, often mentioned in my articles. Here and there I give you a brief description of what is it all about, but today Geneva seal comes into center of our attention for two reasons: the Seal of Geneva just turned 120 years old and there have been some major modifications on the hallmark criteria.

As you may already know, the Poinçon de Genève is awarded by a commission of seven members from the Geneva Watchmaking School. The Office for the Voluntary Inspection of Watches from Geneva, located at the renowned school, goes as far back as the first awarded piece, made by a watchmaker C. Dégallier - to 30 November 1887.. Ever since then the quality seal of the City and Canton of Geneva had been awarded to wristwatch movements made exclusively in Geneva. Among the Geneva watchmakers who regularly submit their watches for the voluntary inspection are Vacheron Constantin, Roger Dubuis, Patek Philippe, and Chopard. However, things have started to shift last year when Patek Philippe announced its own quality award – the Patek Philippe seal.



Until yesterday, Geneva Seal applied only to watch movements, and it generally designated the highest quality movement of superior excellence, value, accuracy, durability and horological expertise. However, on November 9, 2011, the Geneva authorities announced modifications on the hallmark criteria. Now the Geneva Seal doesn’t apply only to a movement, but to a piece as whole. The new rules apply to links between movement and case, various tests on cased watch, and watch controls.

Links between movement and case

should comply to a certain number of criteria regarding their finish. This includes all parts used to connect the case to the movement .

Tests on cased watch

Water resistance: A water-resistant watch must be water resistant at last to a pressure of 3 bars or negative pressure of 0.5 bars. If the watch is not water resistant, this must be specified in the certificate.
Testing of the function throughout one complete cycle: each of the watch’s functions are tested over one cycle - the functions are verified as a whole. The cycle depends on the type of a function (for example, 30-day cycle for a calendar).
Accuracy: The accuracy is tested over seven consecutive days. Manually wound and selfwinding watches are tested on a machine simulating the movements of the wearer. The watches move through a cycle of one revolution a minute for 14 hours and are then stopped for 10 hours in any position. At the end of 7 days the position of the minutes hand is compared with its position at the start of the test. The criteria for accuracy is less than a minute after seven days.
Power reserve: The power reserve is checked with the watch dial up and the result must equal or exceed the claim made by the maker.

Monitoring plan

Timelab Staff will regularly visit applicants and subcontractors according to a monitoring plan. The “Poinçon de Genève” personnel must have access to all production facilities and equipment of the applicants as well as the inspection data.



Author: Marina Milojević
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Source: TIMELAB – Laboratoire d’Horlogerie et de Microtechnique de Genève