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Any of you guys own things purely because they are conversation starters (with rich people)? I thought expensive watches, designer clothes and supercars were the only ones.
Surprisingly, my friend owns a few JDM cars (worth 10-20k USD, nothing crazy) and is getting stopped all over town and appearing in Youtube videos with 1M+ subscriber youtubers. That seems like exceptional value for money. I'm on the edge of buying one myself. The people met along the way are probably worth more than 10-20k USD. This might be unique to my home city of Dubai though. I don't think common classic JDM's are the minor status symbol of the day in the US, any Tom, Dick and Harry can own one, and the upper classes have more "refined" tastes.
If I wanted to hobnob with the rich, I'd either start paying dues at the local country club, or I'd enroll my children in their school districts.
What sports cars are you getting for $10-20k? Even a civic is more expensive than that now.
As conversation starters, I suggest jewelry and art. Art beautifies my home and reminds me of all the places I've been. (For anyone having a date over for drinks, talking about your art is an easy way to "win".)
But art wont get you stopped on the street. Jewelry will do that, and for men that primarily means watches. You cna spent $40k on a rolex, or whatever, and everyone will know what they're looking at. There are about a dozen brands below Rolex that the regular person won't know, but people in the know, know. (Many of them are actually better.) But once you go low enough, nobody cares. Most of the watch market is designed to look like a top brand without costing money -- you can buy a cheap "nice" watch for $40.
If it were me, I'd buy a Shinola, which has a very distinctive Detroit look, and is the closest we have to "Made In America". You can get one for a few hundred bucks, and nobody will turn their noses up at it. If money weren't a concern, I would get a MeisterSinger. And if money were really no object, I'd just get a Rolex, because nobody cares if a Patek Phillippe or Cartier is "better".
Clothing is probably the traditional answer for spending your money, but almost nobody is going to ask you about designer or expensive clothes. People only care if you dress well, which is a skill unto itself, and not quite a problem that can be solved by throwing money st it. (Though it helps!)
Shinola is an odd name for a watch company; before the stores opened I only knew it from the saying "doesn't know shit from Shinola" which refers to a brand of shoe polish that was discontinued around 1960.
The name "Shinola" was actually used by an earlier company, from whence the phrase "shit from shinola". The current Shinola in Detroit deliberately picked that name to acquire some of the gloss for marketing high-end manufacturing. It's part of a broader idea about restoring the glory of Detroit. Their watches are quite nice, stylistically, although they don't have the finer mechanics that watch afficianados care about. But they look nice, which is what most people care about. Technically, these watches are not "Made in America" as they source many components from abroad. But it's the closest America currently really has, and Shinola supposedly aims to eventually make everything in-house.
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