The Watch Appreciation Thread (Reviews and Photos of Men's Timepieces by Rolex, Patek Philippe, Brei

[TC (Houston)]



I have a great memory for numbers (be it watches or cars).

Watch and car deliveries are memorable events for me. In addition to price paid, I could tell you what the weather was like that day, where I had dinner that evening, etc. LOL

 

[Dino944]

Sorry if this is inappropriate for this thread, but I'm contemplating on buying this submariner (serial A 1999) and two things strike me as peculiar a. the crown guards seem a bit farther from the crown than expected (at least from what I've seen in more recent numbers), and b. the "swiss made" on the dial, since my understanding is that it was introduced in the year 2000, before that it was just "swiss" or "swiss T 25".
What do the resident WISs think?

Serial number prefixes can give an estimated date of prodcution but its not exact. The old T < 25 was in reference to the use of tritium (less than 25 millicurie). Around 1999/2000 they stopped using tritium and switched to luminova...hence the change taking T<25 off the dial.

The Triplock crown always extends past the shoulder on older Subs (I haven't specifically checked this on the current models). My 2005 Sub Date with green bezel does the same thing (crown extended past crown protector shoulders).

Even if those things are accurate, it doesn't mean its the real deal. Make sure you know who you are buying from, so you don't get screwed. There are lots of Subs out there. If you don't trust this seller move on to another.

 

[Rambo]

Stitchy - bought all my watches off TZ. All from users with low references too. Haven't had an issue yet. Now, if I could just sell some to make room for more...

 

[Kaplan]

Wow, quite a bump to the panny prices. Anyone know the new US price of a 177? Interesting to see if it's still priced higher than in Europe. When I got mine a couple of years ago, it was about $6.200 in the US compared to about $5.300 in the EU. It just increased to $7.100 here.

In 1991 I paid $1.700 for my Submariner 14060 from an AD (list was $1.800). It had just replaced the 5513, which went for $1.300 before being discontinued. Apparently the new no-date sub is $7.500.

 

[in stitches]



Stitchy - bought all my watches off TZ. All from users with low references too. Haven't had an issue yet. Now, if I could just sell some to make room for more...

thanks bo, i have seen a few on TZ priced well. i hope to have heard back from the calls i put out, by tomorrow. then i will have to decide what to do.

 

[in stitches]



Wow, quite a bump to the panny prices. Anyone know the new US price of a 177? Interesting to see if it's still priced higher than in Europe. When I got mine a couple of years ago, it was about $6.200 in the US compared to about $5.300 in the EU. It just increased to $7.100 here.
In 1991 I paid $1.700 for my Submariner 14060 from an AD (list was $1.800). It had just replaced the 5513, which went for $1.300 before being discontinued. Apparently the new no-date sub is $7.500.

looks like 6,900. and that is assuming the site i saw has the october bump. if not could be between 7,500 to 7,625.

 

[Kaplan]

The $6.900 was on the list from April. It probably just got an October bump, but I haven't been able to find the new US list yet...

 

[mimo]

I'm not a watch buff, but all this talk of rising prices got me thinking: perhaps it's not just profiteering, as the Swiss Franc has been historically very high against both Dollar and Euro over the last couple of years. The Swiss Central Bank did dump the currency about a year ago and reduce its value by about ten per cent again (an emergency measure as the high value was really hitting their industries hard), but nevertheless the Franc remains relatively expensive. Bear in mind also that some high value and labour-intensive products in stock with dealers now - like high-end watches might have been ordered at prices before the big re-alignment of last September.

 

[Dino944]



Watch and car deliveries are memorable events for me. In addition to price paid, I could tell you what the weather was like that day, where I had dinner that evening, etc. LOL

+1,000

Watch & car purchases are very memorable for me too! I have very vivid memories of these great purchases.

 

[Dino944]



I'm  not a watch buff, but all this talk of rising prices got me thinking: perhaps it's not just profiteering, as the Swiss Franc has been historically very high against both Dollar and Euro over the last couple of years.  The Swiss Central Bank did dump the currency about a year ago and reduce its value by about ten per cent again (an emergency measure as the high value was really hitting their industries hard), but nevertheless the Franc remains relatively expensive.  Bear in mind also that some high value and labour-intensive products in stock with dealers now - like high-end watches might have been ordered at prices before the big re-alignment of last September.

Yes and no. Some watches we can attribute price increases to R&D. However, in the last 10+ years there have been big price increases even when there were no changes/improvements to models and currency values. Someone affiliated with 1 of "Big Three," wrote an article several years ago, which basically said we can attribute current price levels to Franke Muller (sp?). FM came onto the scene with steel watches with somewhat ordinary outsourced movements and charging roughly $10,000, when other companies were charging the same money for watches with finer movements housed in 18k cases. Other companies noticed this and decided they had underpriced their watches. So they systematically increased their prices, and become more strict regarding discounts. These prices increased well in advance of recent skyrocketing gold prices. Hence watches whose prices remained relatively flat for many years now cost buyers 3-4 times as much as they did 10-12 years ago. It's only in recent years that currency issues have resulted in multiple increases in a single year and that one can say there have been R&D improvements that might justify some of the prices increases we've seen recently.

 

[in stitches]

all this reminds me, i need to get my time machine in proper working order.

 

[zippyh]

Since we're reminiscing about prices from the past, I remember getting a B Series PAM28 (PVD power reserve) from a grey dealer for $2300 in 99.
Also remember being offered a base PVD model for under $2K. No one wanted the PVD models back then.

 

[gdl203]

I sold my 25B somewhere in the $2k area back in 2002 (no boxes, with papers)

 

[Kai]

Cross post from the WAYWRN thread:

Breguet 5920

 

[in stitches]

thanks kai! now go take some close ups.