SOTC(state of the collection) thread.

He's pretty much spot on in his critique on the horological front, but the market and buyers very much think otherwise and that's the cold hard reality of it. The market and buyers themselves have changed massively in the last ten years and it and they are quite different and his opinion matters little in that context. Never mind that we're talking about a luxury product here and that itself often if not usually defies logic. Rolex leveraged that brilliantly and pretty much since their foundation they showed they know their market very very well. Where once that was in the "good watch" category in Britain and her commonwealth, they've moved themselves into worldwide "luxury" and have even moved what was their "cheap" brand Tudor that was on nobody's radar into the lower end of the same bracket. Omega, who have innovated more on a lazy Friday afternoon than Rolex have in their entire history have tried and largely failed to do that. Today if you have Tudor/Omega money to spend, Tudor is the better bet for your money. Ten, even five years ago we'd be saying "eh... wut?" to that.

Unless you're rocking a co-ax Omega they're all feckin lever escapements. 😁

FitzII Fed there is making his points (all internall valid) that Rolex is not luxury tier in a horological sense, but it is high tier in a Brand sense. Also all Fed alternatives are dress watches, and lets be honest the dress watch market is dead.

+1 to both. I'd go so far as to say brand wise they're currently the highest tier of all. Pretty much every muggle out there knows Rolex, precious few would have heard of Patek or ALS or VC. A lot more would know Omega and among the muggles they hold their own, but among watch nutters they've slipped.

And yep the dress watch is kaput. Has been for a good while too. The gold or gold plated good watch for men had a good innings from after WW1 to the 1970's and they were still rocking along in the late 90's but were on the slide, when commentators started to cool hunt military and other tool watches the nails in that coffin were hammered shut. Precious metals are on the back foot too. Vintage Pateks in steel go for nutty money today because they were vanishingly rare when new. When the steel luxury watch was pushed in the 70's and contrary to what is often claimed of late it was a very hard sell and many spent years on jeweller shop shelves(The AP Royal Oak's first run of a 1000 pieces took the rest of the decade to sell out). The same models quickly became gold or two tone because that sold. Today that trend is pretty much entirely reversed. Steel tool watches from Rolex, Omega et al sold well alright, but that's because they were a month's wages or less to buy, rather than six months or more, so a very different market indeed. Even so the gold watch was more the standard. You often enough see 60's and 70's steel Rolexes in their original boxes unworn pop up at auctions and the back story is often along the lines of someone buying one, but actually wearing a gold watch for daily driving.

FitzII ALS still rock a fusee on the 30 day power reserve watches

Aye, but a fusee is not an escapement it's on olde stylee way of regulating the power of the mainspring as it unwinds. It's dead cool looking though and though archaic on most watches I can see the actual engineering reason why they'd use one on a 30 day power reserve. 30 days? That's mad Fitz. Impressive. Other than vintage and co axials and a few oddballs like the Girard Perregaux ceramic mad looking escapement thingie I can't think of any other mechanicals that don't have a lever movement and a Swiss one at that(the English one is pretty similar)? Then again though it's not the most precise the Swiss lever is the best compromise of the mechanical escapements. The detant is a beaut but sensitive as feck. The grasshopper is the puppy's privates but no way will that work in anything but a static clock and look at all the issues Omega had with the co-ax.

Eljono Another large part of Rolex's appeal which I don't see mentioned above is the quality of their designs. The Sub, Datejust, OP, Daytona are beautiful classic designs and that in itself can play a large part in someone's decision making process.

Fair play to Rolex for recognising when they have nailed a design, they then stick to it and evolve it instead of constantly reinventing it. Similar continuous design approaches haven't done the Porsche 911, VW Golf and Omega Speedmaster any harm.

I think of them very like Porsche in lots of ways, including in the way you noted E. Though they're more risk averse in design than Porsche and that's saying something. Rolex are extremely staid, pickled even. Longines started raiding their back catalogue as early as the 90's and brought out reissues of vintage models, Rolex effectively never really stopped selling theirs. Though like Porsche when they strayed too far from the 911 look, when Rolex did go a little off piste the stuff didn't sell. They learned that with the Daytona. There's a reason why so few of the 60's and 70's ones are around and so valuable these days, they basically couldn't give them away and were heavily discounted when new. Their Oysterquartz, even though it's one of the most well made and designed Rolex of the last century didn't exactly fly off the shelves, even when quartz was the thing.

But this tactic has worked extremely well for them. By never going too far off their well beaten very recognisable track Porsche and Rolex are suburban and aspirational and middle aged and class and most of all safe when you go to spend your hard earned(the mega rich rapper flexer thing is recent and they even cater to them with the vajazzled models). And that is important. In car terms parking a Porsche Cayenne in 12 Acacia Avenue is oh yes very nice, lovely people, our sort you know. Parking a Ferrari GTC4Lusso in the same drive and eyebrows may be raised. 😁 Newbies on the block Tesla have copped to this too. Keep the design easy, even bland, though still nice, but not too many loud noises design wise. BMW is kinda like a Seamaster. Wider spread of appeal and pocket. The buy a Porsche and Rolex to show you've arrived has been in play since the 80's too. Even crims and wideboys know this is the track to follow. That they were able to do that with gold and two tone models is impressive enough, but that they were able to do it more latterly with steel models is nothing short of genius. Though I've always considered Rolex and especially their founder Wilsdorf as one of the finest marketing minds in modern history. I mean that in an all encompassing way too. He spotted trends before they were trends and moved towards them before most if not all of his competitors did. Like Apple in many ways, they invented feck all*, but spotted emerging trends and brought them to a wider market and then changed that market. He rarely put a foot wrong either. In the early days of the wristwatch all sorts of whacky designs and tech came out, but Rolex separated the wheat from the chaff.

In many ways the Reverso was always a "dress watch". Very nice one too. The swivel bit was to protect said dress watch. So you could come in from playing polo or murdering the natives but could still wear the same watch at dinner with the memsaab. When it first came out there were very very few "tool watches" anyway and all would have been in the non fashionable round cases. Patek even licenced the tech to produce a dozen or so of their own Reversos in Gold and other unobtanium.

*though to be fair to Apple they have a shedload of patents and innovations so it doesn't quite fit.