Interesting thread from one of those "other" watch forums:
silent sam silent sam is offline
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I think we first need to decypher the term Flame Fusion, before we can understand what we are discussing. From my understanding, Invicta has coined another marketing buzz phrase to sell the watches that have this type of crystal. This is a standard Invicta marketing strategy. They frequently appropriate an existing material or watch componant with clever marketing hype. It's cheaper than actually paying to develop the concepts themselves. It's the same concept as they used when they built their fantasy Swiss watch factories and invested in all their other wide spread company controlled manufacturing facilities. (Their less than 200 employees must work their butts off to keep up with production demands). :)
These crystals are nothing more than mineral crystals with a thin coating of synthetic sapphire bonded on with heat. Seiko has been using them for years on their lower cost models. So have many other watch manufacturers and watch importers. So has Invicta. They quietly used them on the 2006/2007 43mm Aussie Pro Diver models and several other earlier models. They probably got their supply from Seiko or from Seiko's supplier.
The Flame Fusion hoopla and hype is a more recent developement that can probably traced to ShopNBC's hype and happy horse manure marketing department. It's typical of the scam language SNBC has been using to foist off their junk for years. A good example is their house brand Brilliante CZ and plated sterling silver jewelry line. CZ stones and sterling/vermeil settings have been used in inexpensive costrume jewelry for decades. ShopNBC has been trying to upgrade their line to a more expensive and more profitable one with pure 100% marketing BS. Typical. Suckers get regularly hooked. I LMAO every time I tune in and listen to the fools who call in and gush poetic about the frapping they just took when they paid $100 or more for a few bucks worth of glitter. Invicta has become pretty much just another ShopNBC house brand. So the hype gets piled on nice and thick. My advise is to don your hip boots when you tune in to buy a new Invicta Reserve model watch. Otherwise, you will probably get your own butt "Flame Fusioned". :)
Allow me to digress back to reality. Composite crystals are fine on economy grade watches. They do exactly what they are designed to do. The sapphire coating protects the mineral glass from abrasion. This allows the use of thinner, but tougher crystals. Synthetic sapphire is abrasion resistant, but is more brittle and more expensive than mineral glass. So sapphire crystals have to be thicker and heavier to be as shatter resistant as a thinner and lighter weight mineral glass crystal. Thicker sapphire crystals must also be made of extremely pure materials to remain optically clear. So therefore, a high quality, durable sapphire crystal is much more expensive to produce.
IMO, composite crystals have a place on economy grade watches like Asian made Pro Divers, etc. They do not belong on Swiss made watches. I much prefer thicker cut sapphire crystals on the more expensive Swiss made automatic and higher grade Swiss made quartz chronograph models.
So it seems Invicta and ShopNBC have teamed up once again to scam the suckers by offering a cheaper substitute material and claiming its an upgrade--typical Invicta/ ShopNBC BS. I applaude them for their chutzpa, but will not be buying any of their more expensive Swiss made watches w/ Flame Fusion crystals. I won't be fooled again. Live and learn. :)
https://www.watchtalkforums.info/forums ... 37531.html
which one of you guys was
Silent Sam?
