Clarkson has a pop at Rolex

[Variomatic]

Yeah, it was the early 90s stuff that built their reputation - ETA 555 / 955 movements in well finished, 200m stainless steel cases at prices that other brands were still selling splash-proof plated brass at.

Movement for that shouldn't cause any problems for him to track down, but the old one should be repairable unless it's suffered leakage (battery or water) or damage by someone digging round inside. Contrary to popular belief, good quality quartz movements can be serviced reliably if non of the above has happened

[Buster73]

My submariner cost me £1290 many moons ago , been worn most days since I bought it , never had it serviced or polished.

Just wish I'd bought 10 more and packed them away , a better return than many other investments available at the time..

[michael gould]

Variomatic said:

michael gould said:

[...] you should never worry about buying a good watch (modern Tag and modern Breitling not included in good watches) because people might be wearing a fake version of it, because you know its real and that's all that matters

Apart from the qualifiers in bold, agreed.

Early TH were well built, decent movements and exceptionally good value for money at the time. Similarly, vintage Breitlings are very nice watches and well worth considering

totally agree ......but you can only extract massive profit ( and extract the piss) for so long before you destroy the reputation and good name of a brand

[ds666]

o/t but I've got 3 tag's - a Carrera twin time c 2003 , a Kirium 97/98 ??and a 6000 series c1996 ? They all still work very well - do they have decent movements ?

[Nigel_O]

I've read this thread with interest - for quite some time, I suppose I fell into the aspirational camp - my previous most expensive watch was under £200 until I swallowed (for me) a brave pill and bought a new no-date Sub in January this year (thanks Dom...)

However, since then, despite wearing it for 99% of the time, precisely nobody has noticed it (including Wifey, which is lucky....). I think my boss may have twigged it, but he wears a Tag, so he hasn't mentioned it.....

Its taken a few months, but I now realise that this is just fine and I'm perfectly satisfied with simply knowing what's on my wrist, rather than other people knowing

I guess the next step will be for something even better, but less instantly recognisable, so that nobody but a hard-core watch enthusiast would recognise it

Clarkson is (partly) correct. Remember in the 80's when the Guards Red 911 became the de-rigeur status symbol for aspiring yuppies? The image of the car suffered badly, but the car was still bloody good. Perversely, the car is now keenly sought - I bet the vast majority of owners wished they still had it now. Maybe the 'Goldsmiths window watch' will eventually follow....

I watched an episode of TG on Dave yesterday - they were having their usual argument about the Cool Wall - the Ford GT came up and Clarkson freely admitted that it was deeply un-cool, simply because he owned one. Can the same now be said for Omega?

[Sheepshanks]

SlimJim16v said:

Sheepshanks said:

They get given the watches.

Do Rolex really want to be associated with people like that?

I guess it's no different to Mercedes making Wayne Rooney (and his whole family apparently) Brand Ambassadors.

[Murcielago_Boy]

Sump said:

That's why I like Patek Philippe so much.

[okgo]

Murcielago_Boy said:

If they want to maintain their image they should really cut back a bit on the advertising, they're all over the place in magazines, airports etc, its not becoming of a brand of that ilk...

[SlimJim16v]

Sheepshanks said:

SlimJim16v said:

Sheepshanks said:

They get given the watches.

Do Rolex really want to be associated with people like that?

I guess it's no different to Mercedes making Wayne Rooney (and his whole family apparently) Brand Ambassadors.

[turboslippers]

Well I'm knackered then as just about to buy my mates Rolex off him as a 40th present to myself and bought a Porsche 911 last year. I guess that makes me utter aspirational wannabe scum

I haven't bought either because I'm a clueless trinket grasper...the 911 was the only 'toy' that the missus wanted that was convertible, could house our twins, was auto and a sports car. The Rolex has just came about 15 years after my mate first bought it and I like it then...why not as a present to myself.

But, yes, I live in Essex, now drive a 911 and just about to buy a Rolex...maybe I need a stint in the Cotswold's to re-integrate into normal society

regards
Ben

[michael gould]

turboslippers said:

Well I'm knackered then as just about to buy my mates Rolex off him as a 40th present to myself and bought a Porsche 911 last year. I guess that makes me utter aspirational wannabe scum

I haven't bought either because I'm a clueless trinket grasper...the 911 was the only 'toy' that the missus wanted that was convertible, could house our twins, was auto and a sports car. The Rolex has just came about 15 years after my mate first bought it and I like it then...why not as a present to myself.

But, yes, I live in Essex, now drive a 911 and just about to buy a Rolex...maybe I need a stint in the Cotswold's to re-integrate into normal society

regards
Ben

you stereo typed yourself as an Essex boy !.....but who cares .......enjoy your toys

[Chris Stott]

I have a 911 and 2 Rolex's... but I'm not from Essex, so I must be OK, right?

[Murcielago_Boy]

okgo said:

If they want to maintain their image they should really cut back a bit on the advertising, they're all over the place in magazines, airports etc, its not becoming of a brand of that ilk...

Hmm - I'm not sure.

Thing is, the "entry level" Calatrava is about £14,000 RRP from memory, and a chronograph is over £50,000 - with discounts hard to come by, I can't see the brand getting diluted out or cheapened...

...maybe

[okgo]

Quite, but they seem to advertise in quite a few places where I doubt most people reading have £14k knocking about...!

[jshell]

I have/had a love/hate relationship with Rolex. I hate the branding, the advertising and the aspirational issues, but I love the classic design, rugged-ness and the wholly-machined clasp on the SD4k is a joy. It's accurate, tough, subtle and having paid £5,500 for it new, it'll never depreciate. I've left Omega never to return, they've killed that brand for me. AP was amazing, but was a dress watch movement inside a monster case that could be scratched by a feather.

[tigerkoi]

okgo said:

Quite, but they seem to advertise in quite a few places where I doubt most people reading have £14k knocking about...!

Hmmm, not sure about that...
[Ruminating here, not challenging or arguing!]

Disposable personal income for the UK in the past three years to January '15 went up from a smidge over 230000 million (sterling, 2012) to a shade under 280000 million. That's an extra £50bn swimming around to spend on Haribos, new iPhone 6s, pet bills, Hermes ties and Pirelli P-Zeroes. That's not even heterodox economics. It just is.

Of course there are lots of people who can't afford some extra niceties, and there we are. The haves and the have nots. But there is a lot of disposable income out there. It just is.

So zooming out from little England full of little Englanders, then look at China. China has about 220 dollar billionaires. Second to the US. And in around 8 or so years, disposable income per capita in China has risen 200%. 200%

So then there becomes an obvious confluence point from the following: searingly rapid rising incomes, availability of luxury goods, internet pervasion that influences information and knowledge and almost the most important thing - changing views toward the display of wealth. It's more accepatable in the quasi socialist/capitalist state to wear that flashy gold watch. Buying power is migrating down the economic and social classes in turn creating a bigger market to chase: 75 million Chinese households are considered in the 'upper middle class'. So one economic class is 1.2 times bigger than France's entire population. Sort of pisses all over our micro debate about immigration, GP waiting times, and that extra 10 minutes on the commute to Telford some old fool is moaning about since he started his job 20 years ago...

LVMH Moët Hennessy, as an example, will analyse what that does to the female population, and they will only concur, after a nice AGM, "....guys, there's loads more handbags and perfume we can sell in Shantou and Jiantin. Let's get cracking!"

Patek make 40-50 thousand watches a year. They actually cap production. I mean Thierry Stern just says, "...let's keep people wet for some PP". But in reality they could probably flog their whole stock four times over in China solely, and starve the rest of the world of the wonderments of the latest 5990/1. And HYT, Armin Strom, Harry Winston, Jacob & Co etc...wouldn't miss a sales beat either.

And China is a third the size of the market for Swiss watch exports to Hong Kong. It's not even the big bully on the block!

In the whole scheme of things, the UK isn't even a top 5 market for swiss horological output. And regardless of reality that we're a very narrow and blandly conservative bunch - it's either a Rolex, or a Rolex, or an Omega, or a Tag, or a Rolex, or a Longines, or an Omega, or a Brietling or a Tag etc...[you get the picture ] that we buy - and the likes of Greubel Forsey are more likely to see St Barths as a core market over the wider UK, then you just recognise that overall (with the case example of the extra £50bn swimming around the UK economy in the past 3 years - imagine what there is in the rest of the world), then there is loads of free space for the luxury players to play in. Loads. And that's not discounting of course the wealthy widows, idiot sons who inherit, and the silver generation dumbly chiselling open their pension pots.

All that lovely M1, M2, Mx money coming alive...

What's of more significance, I personally think, is changing attitudes. Some might say that a Rolex is a as good as cash in the hand. Well good for them. Just in case you're at a loss for readies at the Chad border, then you can always reflect your Datejust in the border patrol guard's mirrored sunglasses. But, like Jim Collins said, "The Mighty Can Fall". Schiaparelli were huge in 1925. However, they were dead from the end of the war until Diego Della Valle bought the name in 2009. A massive brand in the Jazz Age, that had just wiped out until someone wanted to resurrect them.

Back to China, in 2008 across the the categories of luxury clothes, leather goods, jewellery and watches, the predominant buying factor was '...superior craftsmanship'. In 2015 it is whether it's made by an internationally recognised brand. Attitudes change. And quickly. That's more important to a market player than if there are enough people to buy their goods.

[turboslippers]

Chris Stott said:

I have a 911 and 2 Rolex's... but I'm not from Essex, so I must be OK, right?

Depends if you wear one on each wrist at the same time

Yes, Yeti...I've just labelled myself. The good news is that because my local hospital didn't have two neo-natal beds for our premature twins, the missus got shipped off to Epsom. Therefore, my two sprogs can rightfully claim not to be essex boy/girl on basis they were born in Surrey.

Off topic of watches but colleague was on train from Basildon the other day and overheard lovely Essex family convo. 12 year old daughter was telling parents what sort of tattoo she wanted. Mum says you don't want anything too big because you have to think of your career. 'just look at ant and dec, you don't see any visible tattoos on them'. Class!

[michael gould]

Chris Stott said:

I have a 911 and 2 Rolex's... but I'm not from Essex, so I must be OK, right?

I sold my 2 Rolex's and have never owned a Porsche ....i own an Aston Martin and a couple of JLC's ....does that make me very "Cheshire" ?

[PJ S]

michael gould said:

Chris Stott said:

I have a 911 and 2 Rolex's... but I'm not from Essex, so I must be OK, right?

I sold my 2 Rolex's and have never owned a Porsche ....i own an Aston Martin and a couple of JLC's ....does that make me very "Cheshire" ?

Michael, you can be whatever you want to be, but to us, you'll always be just our resident .



Sorry, couldn't resist – you left yourself wide open for it.

[audidoody]

Buster73 said:

My submariner cost me £1290 many moons ago , been worn most days since I bought it , never had it serviced or polished.

Just wish I'd bought 10 more and packed them away , a better return than many other investments available at the time..

Amen to that. My year 2002 16710 cost £1950 in 2003 and is showing a notional return of 8 per cent a year for the last 12 years (circa £3,850 now private sale).