The Watch Appreciation Thread - Page 1191

Originally Posted by TauKappaEpsilon 

What does SF think about the AP diver?

 

 

Originally Posted by bawlin 

What's everyone's thoughts on the 39mm Explorer 1? Also, what sort of perception do people have of Rolexes and people who wear them? I think at 39mm, the Explorer 1 is subtle enough to get a pass and mitigate any negative perceptions, no?

Originally Posted by apropos 

Visited the Marina Bay Sands JLC boo-teek yesterday.

I was really only there to check out one watch - the TTR 1931 Rouge model, which is a JLC boutique-only model.

When it first came out in early 2012 my initial reaction was somewhere between bleh and unimpressed, but over the last year or so I've developed... a little bit of an obsession with it.

I mean, look at it (not my photo):



The dial is incredibly responsive to lighting, more so than any other watch I've come across. The red colour can and will vary from vivid crimson red, to carmine red, to clotted dark blood red depending on the ambient lighting, which (to use an overused WIS cliche) makes the watch "come alive" IMO. The colour is not a tinted metal colour like the old coloured Rolex dials from the 80s/90s, it's a solid opaque lacquer type finish, not unlike what you find on Japanese homeware. Beautiful watch.

The strap is terrible though - thin, hard, unimpressive croc that somehow manages to look like embossed calf. This is a watch that cries out for an unlined black cordovan strap, or a nicer croc strap in charcoal grey, not black.

Sadly, I will not be picking it up in Singapore though - the asking price is SGD$12,000 which is USD$9,900 or EUR7,400, i.e. more expensive in Singapore than in the US or Europe!! As a reference point, the European MSRP is EUR6,800. And how much "price consideration" was JLC Singapore willing to offer? All of 0%. Yes - zero, zilch, nada. The salesman helpfully informed me that an owner of a local boutique hotel had purchased 5 of the same watch sans discount, and that I could claim 5.5% detax on my departure from Singapore.

Um, no thanks. medtech_expat's words echoed in my head - "world's most amazing watch showroom"...

There is a lot of new money floating around Singapore now, and given the folk I see buying high end watches and driving high end cars (and what I am hearing from local Singaporeans) I suspect shonky money with origins in PRC public funds.

This excess of money is really being reflected in the "prestige" sector of the watch market - i.e. the higher to top tier brands. You can still get good deals (25+% off) on middle tier brands like Zenith or Omega, but it's getting a lot more difficult to play at the high rollers' table now, especially since apparently the new punters in this particular segment take pride in being able to show that they can afford these watches... without any discount.

I guess it's the inescapable outcome of an economic necessity: that of a small, resource-less country with big ambitions hitching its economic cart to the (currently red hot) PRC engine.

Originally Posted by apropos 

The new Rolex Exp1 bracelet is much better, more solid feeling, and most importantly - much more satisfying to feel/use than the previous ones.

I think the hands are "too short" only if you are coming from the POV that the 36mm version has a perfect dial-hand length balance, which I think is a subjective thing. Both are nice watches.

Anyway, I felt like sharing some pictures of an old girl after I went through some old posts re: movement finishing...

(yes, I need a new camera badly)

OK, hobnail bezel, enamel dial, heat blued hands, retrograde power reserve, moonphase with day/night indicator, but what about the view from the rear?


Hmmm, not much to see here...


...or is there?


And another angle


The cal. 240 family is coming on 40 years old now, and is the PP equivalent of a "workhorse movement"; their Toyota engine, if you will.

The microrotor movement is in its most basic form is still considered remarkably slim (2.4mm... hence cal. 240) and powers various references from simple time-only ones all the way to perpetual calenders. The cal 240 family has touched nearly every PP collection, ranging from the Aquanauts, to the Ellipses, to the Calatravas, to the Complications, and finally, the Grand Complications. Nearly every single PP posted in this thread has a cal. 240 variant within... think about it.

Originally Posted by no frills 

 the Philippines is nowhere near the per capita GDP of Singapore and yet it has boutiques for JLC, Hublot - even Patek Philippe.  I guess if there's a large enough sliver of the population willing to shell out that kind of dough for timepieces...

 

Originally Posted by mimo 

Singapore population: 5.3 million

Philippines population: 93 million

Forget the per capita GDP.  Even a poor country has numerically more rich people in its elite, than a tiny country with a higher average income.  Filipinos might be generally poorer than Singaporeans, but I guess there are still more rich Filipinos than rich Singaporeans: the top 1% of Filipinos are still twice as many as the top 10% of Singaporeans.

It sounds obvious now I say it, but it's interesting: if I were opening boutiques in Asia, I'd probably think of Singapore before Manila.  But thanks to you, now I think about it, I believe that might be wrong.

Originally Posted by Akeem 

I love the look. I hate the price tag. Other comparable quality divers for much less out there.

Originally Posted by no frills 

Great review here not just of the dial/watch but of the boutique/location where you saw it being marketed.

"Prestige" is interesting: the Philippines is nowhere near the per capita GDP of Singapore and yet it has boutiques for JLC, Hublot - even Patek Philippe.  I guess if there's a large enough sliver of the population willing to shell out that kind of dough for timepieces...

RE: The dial coming alive.  Is it much like or comparable to the PP 5711/1A's blue/green dial?