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PaperclipPerfector
10hr ago
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Does anyone like or collect watches? I never had much interest in them as an adult, especially after the cell phone explosion around my teens/20s made them mostly obsolete, but as I got older, I realized that it's an important piece of jewelry for the typical formal male outfit, and so I started wearing them again a couple years ago. First super-cheap quartz watches from Amazon, which can usually be found for $10-$20, then I found better automatic ones from AliExpress for $30-$300*.
Then, likely through motivated reasoning, it occurred to me that if AI takes off and everyday goods become crazy cheap, positional luxury goods that are expensive primarily because of the brand name could appreciate in value, so I actually bought a handful of automatics from well known brands for $500-$3,000, in the hopes that they'll appreciate in the next few years (also I liked the designs). If you know anything about watch prices, you know that that's not enough to get to the actual luxury luxury tier, so last weekend, I decided to step into a local Rolex boutique on a whim, and it was quite a bit of a culture shock.
I had to wait in line for 20 minutes just to get in, and then once I was in, a single salesman was assigned to me, ready to show me anything I wanted. He had me sit in a lounging area and offered me coffee while he collected the watches I wanted to check out. No price labels on any of them (I'm guessing it's a "if you have to ask how much it costs, then you can't afford it" situation - I had a rough idea that the cheapest would cost around $10K and was prepared to spend on that order of magnitude, but, if you know more about Rolex than I did at the time, you already know that I didn't spend that on that day). I was most interested in a black Submariner with date (basically the prototypical dive watch that every other manufacturer apes with their own dive watches), and the salesman told me that there was a 1-2-year wait list. By which time, given the progress of AI, I have no idea if I'll be alive, have a job, have enough money to afford one, or if Rolex will even be around. But I decided to give him my information and received an email. He recommended that I email him a reminder every month or two, which struck me as odd, given that queue technology is millennia old.
Doing some more research, it seemed that Rolex liked to make customers play games and jump through hoops to get them, which I suppose makes sense when you're the top name in the luxury [anything] space, since the exclusivity is part of the appeal of the brand, and there's no alternative that people can go to. But as a fairly non-/anti-social autist (not literally, but, you know), I kinda resented the notion that I had to socially butter up the salesman to be deserving of one of their products. So I'm not sure how much, if any, I'll follow up. In terms of investment potential, there doesn't seem to be any brand as low-risk as Rolex, but maybe I should just invest that money intelligently in the market instead. In the secondary market, like most fairly free markets, the appreciation is already priced in, so it's not really a great opportunity for making money. It'd also be nice to have a Rolex I could give to my future kid(s) to sell when they're middle-aged or senior citizens, since properly-taken-care-of vintage Rolexes seem to be valued highly, so giving them a pretty insurance policy that both I and they could get use out of in the meanwhile seems nice.
Anyway, now I'm in the hold phase of buy-and-hold and don't plan on buying any more expensive ones in the foreseeable future. We'll see if I end up with a bunch of worthless pretty bracelets or a nice profit soon enough, I suppose.
* Two brands popular on AliExpress (and present on Amazon) that tickled me were BiDen and Berny, for what should be obvious reasons. BiDen is cheap ($30-$100) and fairly mediocre in my experience, with a handful of automatic models that generally look pretty ugly, but I bought some just for the brand name. Berny (they claim to be named after Bern, Switzerland, where a Chinese watchmaker went to study watchmaking) is pricier ($90-$300) and has a large variety, including, like most Chinese manufacturers, lots of knockoffs of more expensive/famous brands. The quality of the ones I've bought seem good. I don't know if there's a Trump brand watch company, but I see a business opportunity here for some Chinese manufacturer.
It's kind of funny (and interesting) how Rolex has developed over the years, from a solid, reliable, hard-working brand associated with the military into a high-end bougie peice of artwork sold through high-pressure tactics.
Talking with my boss one day(ex-Naxy), he remarked that he had a watch he bought way back when that he can't wear simply due to insurance if he got it damanged/lost and wanted it replaced, and I immeadiately pegged it as a old Submariner.
Listening to some guys talk has turned me off Rolex before I could get any serious interest in it. If I was going for a high-price watch as a daily driver(assuming I had the money to spend), I'd probably be aiming for an Omega or Bulova(ie, the other moonwatch). Bulova actually put out a version of the watch where the face was a carved slice of meteor - I had to seriously hold myself back from doing something useless and stupid despite being really flipping cool.
Granted, I do like space. My one 'white whale' for a watch is Omega Speedmaster's 'Moon to Mars' - yeah, I'm not getting ahold of that anytime soon unless I get stupidly lucky.
If you want another watch rabbit hole to go down, look into Vostok - it's basically a USSR/Russian brand watch that has so many variations in terms of looks and facing it's hilariously awesome. Plus, a number of them are wind-up, which I like the appeal of.
Going to a Rolex boutique has certainly turned me off them. But it's probably just sour grapes for me not being high-enough status that Rolex doesn't just bring out the secret stash from the back for me. My money is just as good as fake Johnny Depp's, damnit! After that experience at Rolex, I've certainly started considering an Omega Speedmaster, but I haven't done enough research into them yet, as they seem to have a bunch of different models, and I don't know which ones have the proper lunar landing connections to be good for value speculation.
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