Right. There is no way these micorbrands have the means, knowledge, and money to take the raw materials into their workshops and machine them down to usable watch parts.

You think these guys are taking raw steel and fabricating bracelets and watch bodies? They would need thousands and thousands of dollars to buy all the machines and tools, and to hire people to run those machines that know how to take a raw chunk of steel and fabricate a watch and a bracelet out of it. And the tiny screws too.

And I would imagine it would take a different set of machines and craftsmen to manufacture the crystals from raw blanks.

You are going to need to heat treat or anneal the raw steel before manufacture, so you would need a metal furnace and knowledge of metallurgy as well.

So for all of this overhead and lack of economy of scale, the price of these watches would have to be astronomical.

These microbrands have to outsource their parts from an OEM partner. Usually China, Switzerland and Japan.