Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

unkel wrote: »

You seriously reckon a Milgauss will be worth less in 16 years than it is now? What do you base that on? Pure wishful thinking maybe?

I hope you'll still be around anyway. Not so sure if boards will survive that long though

These things go in cycles U. The current fashion/trend for men's watches could go either way and most likely downwards. Oh there will always be a small gang of people who will vie for the very top slot rarefied stuff, but that's the case with all collectables and luxury items, but the mass of people not so much. Watches are mass produced items produced in their millions, we're not talking renaissance grand masters here(and even they fluctuate). The hobby and trend simply couldn't exist if they were actually rare and limited in number. Indeed I've seen some of the very rarest examples of actual horological significance go for buttons*. Now there is a shortage at the moment, but it's an entirely artificial one and the market is buying into that, but it may not buy into it for long. And it won't take much. The interwebs which fomented the enthusiasm has a short attention span and disillusionment travels faster than ever. 16 years ago people would consider us mad for paying more for a steel case over a solid gold one and yet today... 16 years ago vintage IWC were worth more than today. 16 years ago military issued watches were barely on the radar, but today are way more pricey, but the market has stagnated with few selling compared to even five years ago.

But appreciate the well wishes for my survival U.


*two years ago I spotted one of the first truly waterproof watches(along with the Tavannes "Submarine") designed and made in 1917 with only one known to survive. I didn't bother putting in a bid because I figured it would go for thousands. 500 quid. I still have kick marks on my back.... You can get a Tavannes "Submarine" for around the same money when they come up.

Fitz II wrote: »

My advice to anyone is buy the watch not the promise of profit.

This. A thousand times this.

unkel wrote: »

You'll be proven wrong on the Milgauss though Wibbs

It's underrated, undervalued (still worth less than retail as one of the very few steel Rolex), yet generally considered a classic and most likely to be discontinued in the next few years and never made in huge quantities. One of the likeliest currently available Rolex watches to go up in value (don't take my word for it, several dealers have recently stated this)

Dealers can be comfortably ignored U. The vast majority live in the moment and the very near future. If they didn't they wouldn't be very good dealers, or last for long.

They're also crap at telling the future, or very knowledgeable about the past. read any blog or watch any video on dealers and one of the consistent themes is how they missed out on Watch X that was a bargain two years ago and now is worth bazillions. The average buyer and even the clued in one can make similar regrets, hell I've done it myself, but that's far more understandable than so called expert dealers. Basically beyond the flash surface and reference numbers rattled out the same expert dealers have as much clue as the rest of us. 20 years ago dealers were saying invest in IWC and where did that go... Breguet another. Hodinkee's first vid with the John Mayer chap had the vintage Rolex going on, but one of the big takeaways was his IWC big pilot and again today they and IWC itself barely pop up on the radar of buyers, or blogs or vlogs. They're just another watch in the pantheon. Heuers have stagnated too and not just in the vintage realm. Remember the 90's and well into the noughties when a TAG Whooer was the "good watch" for people. They had huge brand recognition in the mainstream. Hell back in the day of the Boards beers I can recall three occasions when because of the forum people asked my advice on watches and TAG was the brand every time.

Collectors who are flippers are similar to dealers with a similar short term viewpoint and both tend to buy into each other and love the buying and selling and many dealers started out as same. I was reading a recent Hodinkee article on advice on buying into the vintage market and the author without blinking, or a sense of awareness stated While I'm far from a dealer, or even a true pro when it comes to vintage watches, I have bought and sold a couple of hundred watches That's a flipper.

Both are invested in the market more than the product, so are not likely to see the bigger picture from the inside.

And when in the last few decades have Rolex gone out of fashion?

In the 70's they gained popularity with their explorer ad campaigns and made inroads into the US where they'd been an unknown to the general public, but quartz and digitals buggered them. This side of the world they'd had the sniff of new money and used car dealers well into the 90's, and if one did pop up in public the question "is it real" was often to be heard even then...

unkel wrote: »

I didn't claim that watches in general will always be in demand. Always is a very long time anyway But if you think about it, we never needed watches less than we do now, we all have phones that tell us the time better. Yet luxury watches were never this popular and never was so much money spent on them.

A trend which is less than a decade old in the mainstream and it needs the mainstream to sustain it. The oddball collector segment can't sustain it. When it was just the oddball collector segment new prices were new and vintage were save for rarities or what was fashionable at the time in the majority of cases cheaper. More current used models were also cheaper.

The Rolex brand in particular is really strong in this market. Go show any 12 year old (boy or girl) a Rolex and ask what it is. 95% will recognise it immediately. Had you done so 10 years ago, this figure would have been lower, 20 years ago even lower, etc. These are the people that quite likely will buy a Rolex once they have the money in a few decades time. Even when by then people will barely realise what a rapper was or this ridiculous gang culture

Abercrombie & Fitch. Huge brand recognition among the young not so long ago and... It really doesn't take much to slip and relying on the young a fickle market indeed. Rolex has been one of the most recognised luxury brands in the world over the last 20 plus years. A kid in the 80's would have likely recognised it too. Indeed at least some of the current upward trend can be traced to those kids reaching middle age with some cash to splash.

And the other elephant in the room are fakes. The person who asked "is it fake?" back in the day could tell pretty easily if it was or wasn't with feck all knowledge. Today dealers have been caught out, even as we've seen earlier in the thread actual fakers and fake buyers. That's not going away and the fakes will keep getting better to the point where the tells will be become ever more esoteric. Now I wouldn't wear one if you paid me, but I wouldn't wear a real one either so I'm not in the game anyway, but in the market itself, paying a grand for a fake and keeping anything up to 20 grand in the bank, if you have it in the first place, for something that will fool 99% of people, if they even notice, will become more prevalent and will hurt the market. You sense that on youtube and blogs, where once fakes were either ignored and/or rightfully vilified and usually laughed at, nowadays you're getting more and more comparisons and concerns around them and the companies themselves are very much no comment. The moment fakes become "ironic" and more mainstream the big brands are in trouble. The video from the Nico chap up north where he looked at Colin Mcgregor's watches and Colin was wearing a fake in one pic. Now Colin isn't exactly short of a bob.

I look like a hipster so I wear dress watches ironically.

Just looked at that reddit sub and a couple of the links. Depressing. They're even ripping of brands like Nomos, but their Rolex ripoffs are scarily accurate. Apparently so accurate you can swap in genuine parts like handsets, crystals and crowns. There are a few vintage rip offs too. Well they'd be easier to rip off in many ways.