Gucci Watches - worth it?

Gucci Watches - worth it?

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youngsyr

Original Poster:

14,742 posts

198 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
My girlfriend is contemplating buying a Gucci G-Class watch with a mother of pearl face and diamond hour markers. It's £650 on the high street and looks very nice, but apparently is water resistant to 30m, which effectively makes it only splash proof. The idea behind it is to buy a nice watch for her to keep for many years.

Are Gucci a reasonable make of watch, or just an over-priced fashion watch where you're paying for the brand name and the watch is just a cheap mass produced item?

Also, where's the best place to buy it from. Precisiontime.co.uk seems to offer a substantial discount, but is it a reliable site?

Pic of watch:


Papoo

3,757 posts

204 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
In a word, no. They are nice enough to look at (subjective), and are of reasonable quality, but you're paying purely for the brand, here.

Have a look at some of the Omega ladies options. I'm sure a quartz will be had for similar money, not to mention what you may find on the pre-owned market. That'll give her a genuinely quality watch, with a bit of watch prestige to boot.

Hope this helps..

grumbledoak

31,795 posts

239 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
What ^^^ he said. Fashion house, so you are paying for the name. I doubt they would risk their name with a crap product, but you won't be paying for quality as such.

toohuge

3,449 posts

222 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
That is serious money. Gucci watches are nothing but fashion items. It will probably last years, but then so will a casio.

Longines, Citizen, Oris, Raymond Weil, Seiko or Tissot would all be a much better choice and most would be considerably less.

hungry_hog

2,393 posts

194 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
If the brand on the watch said Next would you still pay £650 for it?

andy tims

5,593 posts

252 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
toohuge said:
Gucci watches are nothing but fashion items
What he said.

toohuge said:
Longines, Citizen, Oris, Raymond Weil, Seiko or Tissot would all be a much better choice
As would Sinn, Stowa, Fortis, O&W etc.

Edited by andy tims on Friday 8th May 22:19

andy_s

19,544 posts

265 months

Friday 8th May 2009
quotequote all
The Sinn 243 is a nice watch. Especially the black titanium. They all have an auto movement, waterproof to 100m, saphire face, good movement, light as air presumably, and one has a pearl dial with a choice of straps. Nice proper watch.

deejuic

396 posts

189 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
Nothing wrong w/ spending 650 on a Gucci. My wife did. She's had it for 10 years and it still works and looks fine. Just understand that you're not buying what watch aficionados would consider to be something worth spending money on.

They're fashion watches. nothing more, nothing less.


jshell

11,306 posts

211 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
The wife and I have Gucci watches. I'd never buy another, even if they halved their prices.

Mine: One of the bracelet pins from a link near the case (normally you can't see them as they're polished over) fell out when the watch was days out of warranty. I thought Gucci would do a repair FOC, but no, they wanted me to spring half the watch cost on a new bracelet.. GTF!

The Missus, battery indicator said the battery needed changing. Took to authorised dealer who wanted £50 - WTF? Not only that, when they opened it they said the problem was not the battery but one of the clips holding the battery was damaged and they'd need to send to to Gucci for a full £150 service - for a quartz?

They're sh!te.

Revs_Addiction

2,090 posts

237 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
The wife has had one for 10 years. It still looks mint, has never broken down, and keeps excellent time being a quartz.

She had her heart set on the particular watch in question for a couple of years, was aware gucci aren't a 'watch' company, but didn't care as she loved the design, (it's actually got a very unusal bracelet design which looks fantastic, and has a very high quality feel to it)...

Its done exactly what's been required of it, so I can't fault it. She had a very different set of buying criteria to me, for her it was all about the design of the thing. She couldn't give a monkeys about heritage or what's inside the thing - indeed she thinks I'm nuts going on about 'movements'! biggrin




youngsyr

Original Poster:

14,742 posts

198 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
Thanks for the responses, I thought that might be the case when the salesperson stated that she would recommend not wearing it in the shower!

Of course, there are quite a few watches out there that my girlfriend does like the look of and are made by quality brands, Omega, Rolex etc. The issue is that these watches are at least double the price and she's already struggling to come to terms with spending £650 on a watch.

I think it's either a case of she buys the Gucci at £515 (from precisiontime.co.uk) and accepts it's a fashion watch, or she comes to terms with spending a lot more to get a quality item.

filaborg

261 posts

212 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
To be honest most women dont really care what the make of the watch is that they wear as long as they like it is normally the rule of thumb. Thank your lucky stars that its only a £500 watch she wants.

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

232 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
filaborg said:
To be honest most women dont really care what the make of the watch is that they wear as long as they like it is normally the rule of thumb. Thank your lucky stars that its only a £500 watch she wants.
Never show your missus the Haute Joaillerie section of the JLC catalogue. It's full of things that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. And your missus will want them all.

Lil' Joe

1,548 posts

192 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
My missus has one. All been said really, fashion job for my missus who liked it regardless. Tried to charge us £150 to change the battery because it was 'pressure tested' Whatever mate, thats a lot so GTF. Now she's looking at Rolex's etc.

Could be an expensive sumer...

Maxus

1,013 posts

187 months

Saturday 9th May 2009
quotequote all
I have had a Gucci watch for 15 years now. The ranges at the time they had a more classic look about them (which they have now gone back to). It has been a great watch and I bought my wife one as well.

Between us we now have a selection of watches (mainly Tags) but still enjoy the Guccis.

As said, these are old models no longer made but are nicely built and look nice.


AlexKP

16,484 posts

250 months

Sunday 10th May 2009
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Years ago when at school a mate bought a fake Gucci (possibly the only thing worse than a real one). The "G" of Gucci fell off the dial, so he was forever nicknamed "Ucci" thereafter...

Stitch

933 posts

223 months

Monday 11th May 2009
quotequote all
As above - for that kind of money your girlfriend should be looking at something my one of the recognised Swiss makers.

Something like a Longines Dolce Vita should be within reach rectangular mother of pearl face, diamond hour marker.

Discounts of 10% to 20% are available on the UK High St - balance this against the additional savings and risk factor of buying from the internet.

nick lewis

37 posts

226 months

Monday 11th May 2009
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we got got our watches from AA time excellent service and good prices

jamoor

14,506 posts

221 months

Monday 11th May 2009
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Get a Seiko.

jshell

11,306 posts

211 months

Tuesday 12th May 2009
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www.glooks.com have some decent deals on Gucci, Omega & a whole load of others. I've used them, they're service was great!