Authentic watch vs Replica

I bought a fake Rolex for $20 in Cambodia. Not because it was a Rolex, but because I needed a watch and I liked its blue face. I don't really see a problem with it. I don't parade it around to my friends as a Rolex, and don't pretend to myself that it's one. It's just a watch.
 
A bit off topic... Can anyone recommend good site that sells good watches? I am looking for vintage type and £200 ish....
 
aa6972 said:
A bit off topic... Can anyone recommend good site that sells good watches? I am looking for vintage type and £200 ish....
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What type of vintage? Actual vintage rolexs, omega etc can often go for more than their original price. If you want a vintage looking watch then two sites I know of are:

http://www.theretroworld.com/index.html

and

http://retro-watches.co.uk/

have never bought from either of them so cannot recommend. A search on a popular auction site for 'vintage omega' usually yields some good stuff. I got a 70s vintage Omega Megaquartz off there for next to nothing and it is in perfect condition. Had the battery replaced on it by an independent jeweller by mine who specialises in second hand and vintage watches- he offered to buy it on the spot for his personal collection as he had never ever seen one in his shop before. Lovely little watch :)
 
Cheekykid said:
How would you know? elaborate
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He means in terms of the actual parts themselves but it almost totally ignores the design costs, the marketing, the testing, the hand crafted nature. Sure, some watches you pay a significant premium for the name alone but you can't just look at the cost of the parts and say that is what a watch should cost.
 
semi-pro waster said:
He means in terms of the actual parts themselves but it almost totally ignores the design costs, the marketing, the testing, the hand crafted nature. Sure, some watches you pay a significant premium for the name alone but you can't just look at the cost of the parts and say that is what a watch should cost.
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CAn;t really include marketing in the cost to make.

Same goes for testing/design, it's usually just labour + parts.

If you count design ad marketing pretty much everything you buy cost several million to make.

Hell Heinz has probably done more testing and design on their baked beans over the years than has been done on any watch.
 
I dont believe that Jewellery shops make so much of a profit. If a watch goes for £1000 I doubt they make more than 10% profit. Bear in mind that a watch will sell for as much as the people are willing to pay otherwise nobody would buy them. Also many serious brands from TAG and upwards have some degree of human touch on them. They dont get massively produced by machines just like that with no human touch on them.
 
Cheekykid said:
I dont believe that Jewellery shops make so much of a profit. If a watch goes for £1000 I doubt they make more than 10% profit. Bear in mind that a watch will sell for as much as the people are willing to pay otherwise nobody would buy them.
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Jewellery shops are just resellers, the price they pay has the manufactures/every other middleman's profit in it too.
 
Tefal said:
CAn;t really include marketing in the cost to make.

Same goes for testing/design, it's usually just labour + parts.

If you count design ad marketing pretty much everything you buy cost several million to make.

Hell Heinz has probably done more testing and design on their baked beans over the years than has been done on any watch.
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Your argument then is essentially that research and development are free when they patently are not, same with marketing. It will be factored in with Heinz, it should be factored in with almost any company that actually wants to continue producing. The difference between Heinz and say Patek Phillipe is that one is huge volume/low cost and the other is low volume/high cost so Heinz can apportion perhaps £0.001 to R&D on every can and still break even, Patek Phillipe must apportion £500.00 to each individual watch to break even on their R&D costs - obviously the figures are entirely made up but the general gist is not.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Your argument then is essentially that research and development are free when they patently are not, same with marketing. It will be factored in with Heinz, it should be factored in with almost any company that actually wants to continue producing. The difference between Heinz and say Patek Phillipe is that one is huge volume/low cost and the other is low volume/high cost so Heinz can apportion perhaps £0.001 to R&D on every can and still break even, Patek Phillipe must apportion £500.00 to each individual watch to break even on their R&D costs - obviously the figures are entirely made up but the general gist is not.
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It doesn't really make much sense to factor them in for price per watch during it's production run, as it's always going to be changing with every watch made. And even high end watches are fairly high volume rolex alone makes over 1million a year.

Also just look at one model, then look at the gold version, usually there's a huge difference that's much higher than the volume of gold. (and considering the gold is much easier to machine) they do stick a huge profit on.

For example the fabs to produce a cpu cost something like $2+bn, but you wouldn't say that the first 100 cost 20 million each.
 
Cheekykid said:
I dont believe that Jewellery shops make so much of a profit. If a watch goes for £1000 I doubt they make more than 10% profit. Bear in mind that a watch will sell for as much as the people are willing to pay otherwise nobody would buy them. Also many serious brands from TAG and upwards have some degree of human touch on them. They dont get massively produced by machines just like that with no human touch on them.
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jeewllers margins on watches vary for 50% - 200%

most mid range watches are machine produced and even worse in some cases, Tag generally buy in reasdy made components , subcontract case manufacture, assemble in far east and then pack in Switzerland to allow them to be badged swiss made


if you want to see the work that goes into high end watches this is interesting

http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/eu/en/manufacture/professions
 
Tefal said:
It doesn't really make much sense to factor them in for price per watch during it's production run, as it's always going to be changing with every watch made. And even high end watches are fairly high volume rolex alone makes over 1million a year.

Also just look at one model, then look at the gold version, usually there's a huge difference that's much higher than the volume of gold. (and considering the gold is much easier to machine) they do stick a huge profit on.

For example the fabs to produce a cpu cost something like $2+bn, but you wouldn't say that the first 100 cost 20 million each.
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Ok then, how do you propose they recoup the R&D costs? And no, I wasn't stating that you recouped the cost exactly, you don't know how many watches will be produced (or CPUs or whatever) but you have to factor in a proportion of the R&D costs and the marketing costs and costs for XX while you are at it - which is something you seem to be saying you shouldn't do and I'm not sure how this business model is proposed to work. I'm not attempting to deny that some of what you pay for is the brand name and obviously some must be pure profit (that is what a company exists for) but to say that parts and labour are the only costs to a product is simplistic at best.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Ok then, how do you propose they recoup the R&D costs?
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I'm not saying it doesn;t cost anything :/

Just that's it's overly complex to include it in a general cost to make one.

There's the total cost consisting of all R&D, wineing and dining of advertisers, shipping etc etc.

The basic labour and parts which is quoted most of the time, as the other is only known at the end of the production run.
I'm not sure how this business model is proposed to work.
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It's not a business model that why.




I'm not attempting to deny that some of what you pay for is the brand name and obviously some must be pure profit (that is what a company exists for) but to say that parts and labour are the only costs to a product is simplistic at best.
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Kindda the point of it, it;s a nice basic principal, etc if every watch after R&D only costs say £1k in man hours and 100 quid of material (random figures). but cost some very gifted engineers 100million to design, you can't really say it's really worth that much, as although the design is amazing, it's production is still done by the lowly techs and not the designers.
 
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