are high end watches really worth it?

Blue Jays said:
Hi All-

Automatic mechanical watches of extremely high quality are absolutely worth the investment. The money spent on an Audemars Piguet, Jaeger LeCoultre, Breguet, IWC, Glashutte Original, Vacheron Constantin, or similar timepiece today will be a wise one for tomorrow.
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OK, but between the Omega and the high-end Seiko is there that much difference?
By the way, with $200 today, you could buy yourself a $100 watch every 20 years for eternity. Buy yourself a $100 watch and put $100 in anything getting at least 3.5% interest (very low for anything long-term); within twenty years the money in savings will have doubled. (Of course, watch prices might go up, but if you put the $1500 into mutual funds gaining 12-20% per year it should pay for a hell of a lot of watches.)

Sorry to be so crude...I just want to show you all the options. :D
 
Hi johnniet-

It's not purely a dollars and cents formula. A high-quality automatic watch purchased today will last for HUNDREDS of years with scheduled maintenance. The satisfaction and imagery that I gain from owning the gold watch owned by my great-grandfather is worth much more to me than a few dollars that could have been passed down...or not...depending on how the financial markets fared.

My employer pays me a good salary to make ends meet. It's the memories from generations past that are impossible to purchase with greenbacks. That is where a quality watch is the ideal heirloom. It measures the passage of time and becomes a part of it as well. Enjoy!

~ Blue Jays ~
 
allenC said:
I think that any watch costing more than $500.00 US dollars is just plain silly.

Allen.
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Silly and a status symbol. If you want or need a status symbol - fine just realize that is what it is. Don't fool yourself into the supposed great mechanical engineering. I'm not sure your Rolex would even impress me I've had too many people proudly showoff their fake Rolex. My thoughts would be more along the lines of "what a sucker".

Yeah it might last a 100 years but I'd put money on one of the following prior to the 100 years being up - stolen, broken in an accident, lost, etc etc.

I suppose if you make an extremely good living you could rationalize it somehow saying you didn't spend any more as a percentage of your gross income than another person with less income that bought a less costly watch.

Allen this is directed at you because we seem to be of like mind (i.e. we’re the oddballs around here). :rolleyes:
 
I like my watches the same way I like my porn collection, Cheap or as close to free as possible.
Only suckers pay full price for porn.
that being said, you're asking this forum we think an expensive watch is worth it? of course, there will be people that will rationalize it.
I've never met anyone who was impressed by a watch or judged anyone by it.
It may be lost in a 100 yrs and found passed from bunghole to bunghole, remember Butch's watch in Pulp Fiction?
 
Hi GBaker-

It's not really a status symbol if nobody else recognizes the watch. In my case it's simply a high-quality timepiece purchased for myself with plans to pass it down to family. Everybody has a Rolex (or a Fauxlex...) if you look at enough wrists...but when was the last time you saw a knockoff Vacheron Constantin?

~ Blue Jays ~
 
johnniet said:
By the way, with $200 today, you could buy yourself a $100 watch every 20 years for eternity. Buy yourself a $100 watch and put $100 in anything getting at least 3.5% interest (very low for anything long-term); within twenty years the money in savings will have doubled. (Of course, watch prices might go up, but if you put the $1500 into mutual funds gaining 12-20% per year it should pay for a hell of a lot of watches.)

Sorry to be so crude...I just want to show you all the options. :D
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Alright, but just to keep the argument fair, you must also consider that I can sell my used Submariner today for about four times its original purchase price. Try that with a Seiko.
 
Wait, I'm getting mixed signals here,
One poster says they are not good investments financial wise and another posts one can later sell an omega and fetch four times it's orig price?
which is it? Is there a market that tracks this? How quickly can you convert a watch into cash?
 
TiberiusBkirk said:
Wait, I'm getting mixed signals here,
One poster says they are not good investments financial wise and another posts one can later sell an omega and fetch four times it's orig price?
which is it? Is there a market that tracks this? How quickly can you convert a watch into cash?
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ANY Rolex can be converted to cash in seconds at any decent jewelers.
 
TiberiusBkirk said:
Wait, I'm getting mixed signals here,
One poster says they are not good investments financial wise and another posts one can later sell an omega and fetch four times it's orig price?
which is it? Is there a market that tracks this? How quickly can you convert a watch into cash?
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Nobody said you could sell an Omega and fetch four times it's original price. He specifically said Submariner which is a Rolex. There's just something about a Rolex. That's why Rolex sells almost every watch they make.

Any sane person knows a watch is ALMOST NEVER a good investment. You buy it for yourself. Just like you buy a nicer car. Just like you buy a nicer house. Better furniture. Nicer knife. If you can afford it, why not?

This is why there is a market for custom knives, a market for a Sebenza, a Strider or even a Busse. All of these knives have cheaper alternatives which can perform just as well but people still buy them.

So to answer the original question...are high end watches worth it? Yes if you enjoy expensive watches and the workmanship and the history and the fact that your grand child might one day be wearing that very same watch. But NO if you're thinking of it as an investment.
 
For those of you that eschew the pricy watches do you only have cheapy knives? Do you also sneer at Sebenza's Or Microtech or hand made knives for that matter?


We all make our choices on what we will go to excess on. $60 jeans, $400 knive, that will never be used to cut anything:eek: . At least with a pricey watch you get to use it for what it was designed for.


Look in the survival forum, we have guys spending $1000's for a bug out bag for EOW scenario...

For some a Kia RIO will do, for others its a Vette Z06.

I like cheap watches, I like expensive watches, but lifes too short to wear an ugly watch.:D


Paul
 
TiberiusBkirk said:
Same with my guns at the dealer, but at a great loss.
I'm sure it's the same at the watch dealer.
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No, its not, you will get more than you paid for your Rolex whenever you sell it.

I got my Explorer II in the UK in 82, list price was 1,100 Pounds. Its 2,250 today. If I bought one today second hand I would have to pay more than the original 1,100.

Some people just don't get the Rolex thing. Its not their fault, just that they wern't brought up properly. :D
 
I have a $10 Timex i-Control that keeps time just fine (well, it sells for $65, but I got it on clearance). Is it worth it? You bet. Every day that I realize that the $1500 I saved by not buying a Rolex is accruing interest.

There's a sharp point of diminishing returns when you start talking about high-end gadgets. There's little they can do that a gadget a fraction of the cost won't do just as well.

An $80 Spyderco in S30V cuts just as well as a Sebenza in S30V, and a $400 Remington/Winchester will often shoot as well as a much more expensive Browning or Sako. I tend toward Spydercos and Remingtons/Winchesters.

EDITED TO ADD: The only real exception I can think of here is optics. A Simmons scope is not a Leupold scope, while a Leupold is not the equivalent of a Swarovski or Zeiss. Same goes for binoculars. The other day, I looked through a pair of $500 Steiners that I know I'm going to have to own at some point.

I readily admit that a finely crafted instrument--be it a watch, knife, gun, compass, etc.--provides the owner with a pronounced sense of satisfaction. Some of it is aesthetic. Some of it has to do with class consciousness. Sometimes, they're the same thing. That's why you pay the big money. Any other rationale is just kidding yourself.
 
pcnorton said:
For those of you that eschew the pricy watches do you only have cheapy knives? Do you also sneer at Sebenza's Or Microtech or hand made knives for that matter?


We all make our choices on what we will go to excess on. $60 jeans, $400 knive, that will never be used to cut anything:eek: . At least with a pricey watch you get to use it for what it was designed for.


Look in the survival forum, we have guys spending $1000's for a bug out bag for EOW scenario...

For some a Kia RIO will do, for others its a Vette Z06.

I like cheap watches, I like expensive watches, but lifes too short to wear an ugly watch.:D


Paul
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Probably since its only a $40 knife. I do intend to purchase a Benchmade 710, which to some is an entry level knife and to others a high end high quality knife. Currently I have a Kershaw leek, which I doubt is the Rolex equivalent in a knife. For what it is worth the first knife I ever owned is a rusty old 2 inch 2 bladed pocket knife of unknown origin my grandfather gave me. I wouldn’t trade it for any number of watches (or any other knife). I guess I’m subject to irrational feelings in these things as well so I’m not trying to come off as a holier than thou crusader against expensive watches. I'd have problems justifing the purchase of a Sebenza - but heck I don't even think it looks that good.

For the past two months I've not even used a watch. Been outdoors to much which tends to get them scratched. I've just been using my cell phone.

Maybe I'm just cheap.
 
pcnorton said:
....I like cheap watches, I like expensive watches, but lifes too short to wear an ugly watch.....
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Ahhh - a voice of reason in the wilderness. :thumbup:

That's why I no longer get involved to any degree in threads about watches. You simply will not get a rational discussion between a watch collector who thinks you're nuts for spending $3,000 on a forged bowie and a knife collector who thinks you're nuts for spending $3,000. on a Breguet.

"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." :)
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Hi Guyon-

Your "exception" for optics also applies to watches, oil filters, wine, furniture, automobile tires, food, motorcycle suspension components, clothing, ski equipment, camping gear, bicycles, cigars, audio equipment, and a whole host of consumer goods where there is a marketplace demanding the highest quality...

~ Blue Jays ~
 
Thanks guys, all great points. But im still confused, and i guess you could justify anything in life. I might as well buy one, its 1,500 not 15,000. Its nice and it is quality. Thanks again guys.
 
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