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Confessions of a Watch Geek

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Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#31

Post by falcolas »

tsunamifury wrote: post #30
falcolas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse the cost of skilled human labor, particularly someone trained as a watchmaker, is damned expensive. Supply and demand. Can you get a similar, and perhaps even better constructed (machines are, after all, more precise than humans) watch from China? Sure. Is it the same watch? No. These watches are luxury items - a status symbol. They are the Rolls Royce of watches: built by hand, damned expensive,…

My question was more at the level of "What if you could buy a Rolls Royce from China that was in ever way, practically identical and cost as much as your Dodge?" What would that do to the car market?

To the real Rolls cars? Probably not much. Mostly, I would see them putting a bit more effort to ensure their cars are easily distinguishable from the Chinese clones.

They aren't, after all, really that much better than regular cars in the first place. A simple $40,000 luxury model from BMW or Audi is quite comparable in terms of fit and finish. The types of leathers and woods will differ, but for the purposes of a daily driver, that would make no practical difference.

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#32

Post by exodust »

ansgri wrote: post #2

If you want a watch that looks like a Russian oligarch just curled up around your wrist and died, you might be interested in the latest model of Rolex’s Sky-Dweller. Beautifully written.

Very smooth writing, like a luxury watch.

I can't believe I've now opened a few tabs of watch manufacturers, looking at their goodies. Haven't worn a watch in years, but curious to see if any designs take my fancy.

I'm not a fan of classic, I'd prefer something sci-fi, dark, modern, hi-tech, unexpectedly cool with a comically over-the-top product video... https://youtu.be/R5aj53a1wQE

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#33

Post by CM30 »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #22

> receipt for $4,137.25 [...] by my own standards I had just thrown away a small chunk, roughly 4.3 writing days, of my independence Wow, this person earns a lot by writing o.O

No kidding. That's a few months (or more) worth of wages for a typical journalist, especially in more competitive industries.

The author seems to be a novelist though, so perhaps that money comes from the royalties on their books or something.

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#34

Post by hanklazard »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #28
tsunamifury wrote: post #23

Watches have become a bit like horses or combustion cars might become in a few years -- items that have lost most of their practical value attached to industries that need to focus on higher and higher prices in order to inflate their veblen good status. I enjoy watches, especially mechanical ones, and a bit of the marketing and story behind them, but even as a upper income individual, I find their prices to be compl…

As I understand it, the Chinese replica market buys essentially all their movements as genuine goods from Japanese manufacturers like Seiko. The movements (i.e. the really complicated parts to make) for expensive quartz watches cost less than $50. So the Chinese don't have to replicate the tricky part, they just have to build a mechanical case from mineral or sapphire glass and stainless steel that's pressure tight t…

Hmm, that's not my understanding.

Most higher-end replicas use "Asian" ETA clones (ie A2824 and others). The manufacturers have copied ETA parts over the years and now are able to create fairly reliable and, when they want them to, authentic-appearing Swiss movements, at least to the untrained eye. This brings the cost down much lower than the Seiko and Miyota automatics, which even purchased in bulk are much more expensive than Asian ETA clones. These Chinese movements look the part, but tend not to last as long, have larger tolerances, etc.

Source: a number of watch shops around my city where people frequently try to trade-in fake watches.

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#35

Post by hanklazard »

tsunamifury wrote: post #23

Watches have become a bit like horses or combustion cars might become in a few years -- items that have lost most of their practical value attached to industries that need to focus on higher and higher prices in order to inflate their veblen good status. I enjoy watches, especially mechanical ones, and a bit of the marketing and story behind them, but even as a upper income individual, I find their prices to be compl…

For the response from the European watch industry, see Haute Horology. While true that the replica manufacturers have become really good at making some of the most popular mass-manufactured watches out there (submariners, base PAMs, APs), they do not have the skill or craftsmanship to make the types of grand complications and finishing techniques that these artisans possess. A lot of Haute Horology brands also make their watches only out of precious metals, and this is something that cannot be cheaply replicated. Of course, these watches end up costing much more than most people's cars (A. Lange & Sohne being maybe entry-level haute at 25-30k).

I'm basically agreeing with you but just adding that I think the replica market has actually pushed the Swiss/Germans into even more amazing feats of engineering and finishing. I'm not sure that the business side will work out but here's a sample of some of the insane beauty and craftsmanship that has resulted:

FP Journe: https://youtu.be/0nJ0_TVdkmQ

Greubel Forsey: https://youtu.be/ShtL3rKPhQA

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#36

Post by blawson »

huhtenberg wrote: post #9
professorumbra wrote: post #6

I'm a big fan of mechanical watches, but I think the market nowadays is too much about limited editions and unnecessary flamboyance. How many different "limited" Omegan Moon Watches are there, for example?

The mid-to-high-end watch market (in the $1K-50K range) is going through a _major_ crisis right now. For past several years they've been aggressively raising prices due to steady Chinese demand, which now has been all but extinguished by a combination of several factors. So the watchmakers are now is a pickle of situation - watches are massively over-priced, their "normal" customers are well aware of that, but they c…

Do you have any thoughts on these other factors, on the drop in demand? Sounds interesting to me. I'm not a collector but do fall for the lustre of high-end watches.

I see a few articles on the crackdown on corruption, strong franc, and younger generations being poorer. But surely China is minting huge numbers of new solidly middle and upper-middle class customers all the time?

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#37

Post by eps »

professorumbra wrote: post #17
huhtenberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mid-to-high-end watch market (in the $1K-50K range) is going through a _major_ crisis right now. For past several years they've been aggressively raising prices due to steady Chinese demand, which now has been all but extinguished by a combination of several factors. So the watchmakers are now is a pickle of situation - watches are massively over-priced, their "normal" customers are well aware of that, but they c…

Interesting. It seems that the luxury image is more a burden than an advantage to many manufacturers. But the brand ownership is concentrated and the owners might not care about those kind of difficulties. I'm more of a fan of utilitarian watches anyways. Sinn for example makes very affordable tool watches that are also technologically on par with many luxury brands.

You say Sinn, I say Damasko :)

http://www.damasko-watches.com/

Very impressive line-up of in-house technologies for watches that retail for a couple of grand or less.

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#38

Post by md_ »

falcolas wrote: post #29
tsunamifury wrote: post #23

Watches have become a bit like horses or combustion cars might become in a few years -- items that have lost most of their practical value attached to industries that need to focus on higher and higher prices in order to inflate their veblen good status. I enjoy watches, especially mechanical ones, and a bit of the marketing and story behind them, but even as a upper income individual, I find their prices to be compl…

For better or worse the cost of skilled human labor, particularly someone trained as a watchmaker, is damned expensive. Supply and demand. Can you get a similar, and perhaps even better constructed (machines are, after all, more precise than humans) watch from China? Sure. Is it the same watch? No. These watches are luxury items - a status symbol. They are the Rolls Royce of watches: built by hand, damned expensive,…

> Can you get a similar, and perhaps even better constructed (machines are, after all, more precise than humans) watch from China? Sure. Is it the same watch? No.

As far as I can tell, the manual labor is roughly the same in both cases. Chinese mechanical movements are not assembled entirely by machines--in fact, in many cases the machining may be quite similar. (Many of the popular Seagull calibers are basically clones of ETA or Miyota designs, and I would guess use the same manufacturing process.)

The main price difference is (obviously) some combination of a) quality control and tolerances (do you ship a marginal unit or do you throw it out?), b) conditions from the factory (do you adjust the movement to n positions before shipping it, or just ship it?), and c) brand, as you note.

(a) and (b) have real economic costs. How much of a watch's cost comes down to those versus (c) is hard to say.

I have an unbranded Rolex "homage" from China with a Seagull clone of an ETA 2824. The case is a bit rough around the edges--quite noticeably if you look--and the timekeeping is (from the factory) about +6s/day. (I don't have a timegrapher, so I can't tell you the positional variation.)

So, definitely not a Rolex. But for about 3% the price I'm not complaining. ;)

Edit: To add to this point, I am reminded of the similarity between ETA's different grades of movements (which are sold at different price points depending on precision/adjustment/quality) and the practice of computer chip makers to do similar (i.e. to sell CPUs at a lower clockspeed if they don't pass QC at the higher speed).

This isn't exactly what ETA does; some of the grades use different material for the hairsprings. But Standard and Elabore are apparently the same material just adjusted to different tolerances, which sounds awfully similar.

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#39

Post by md_ »

CM30 wrote: post #33
rhaps0dy wrote: post #22

> receipt for $4,137.25 [...] by my own standards I had just thrown away a small chunk, roughly 4.3 writing days, of my independence Wow, this person earns a lot by writing o.O

No kidding. That's a few months (or more) worth of wages for a typical journalist, especially in more competitive industries. The author seems to be a novelist though, so perhaps that money comes from the royalties on their books or something.

0_o

Gary Shteyngart is a quite famous novelist. So, yes. ;)

Re: Confessions of a Watch Geek

#40

Post by professorumbra »

eps wrote: post #37
professorumbra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. It seems that the luxury image is more a burden than an advantage to many manufacturers. But the brand ownership is concentrated and the owners might not care about those kind of difficulties. I'm more of a fan of utilitarian watches anyways. Sinn for example makes very affordable tool watches that are also technologically on par with many luxury brands.

You say Sinn, I say Damasko :) http://www.damasko-watches.com/ Very impressive line-up of in-house technologies for watches that retail for a couple of grand or less.

Yeah, Damasko is another good example. Their metallurgy tech is really impressive.
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