Many watch guys say that they're into mechanical watches for the engineering marvel...

Many watch guys say that they're into mechanical watches for the engineering marvel. Exactly how impressive are mechanical watches?

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The watch in that picture goes for something like $300,000. It couldn't POSSIBLY be because of how impressive it is from an engineering standpoint, right? Discounting the brand name, the precious metals, all of that. How impressive is the technology behind a mechanical watch like this?

Isn't every watch an engineering marvel?

I mean more of how impressive it all is. That's really what I'm asking. The watch in the OP, the back there, it looks very intricate. I'm wondering if that costs a lot and is part of the price or why people are so interested in them, or if it's 100% a brand thing.

Watches are like the prime of vacuum tubes just as transistors were coming.

The transistor equivalent is of course MEMS. That brings science into it again.

A well made mechanical watch like that will outlast you, and your son, and perhaps even your grandson, provided it is maintained (cleaned and oiled every five years, occasional a spring may need to be replaced).

t. watchmaker's son

Depends entirely on what watch you are looking at. Haute horlogerie pushes the bounds of what mechanisms can fit into a case, how much reserve the watch has, how accurate the time keeping is, etcetera. There is even a complication called the minute repeater that "reads off" the time. The price of the materials is naught next to the costs this takes up.

Mechanical watches like Rolex, Omega, Seiko and the like are mostly tried and proven hourworks. Especially with the first two you pay for the brand thats on the dial (as can also be seen in the way the cost of these watches has unproportionally risen over the years). Its still an engineering marvel, but not in the way a Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin or Blancpain is. This is not to say they do not do anything special anymore, think Rolex Deep Sea Challenge. Its just mostly in a different way.

R&D, manhours of professionals, distribution, marketing, brand name

I think so yes, even quartz and digital.

Depending on what segment you are looking at, a watch can be a status symbol first and foremost. Id wager most midrange (sub $10k) watches are sold to these type of people. Every footballer needs a Breitling.

Disregards this dunce

Ha, this is what Patek Philippe is really pushing with their magazine ads. Sure, it can. But somewhere down the line someone will flip it for money.

>a watch can be a status symbol first and foremost
Doesn't that sum it up? "I paid more for my watch than you paid for your cars, you filthy unwashed plebeians".

They dont have chip that makes you timetravel on stupidness

>tfw less than $10,000 is considered mid-range

fuck :/

Nope. For some it does, for others it does not. Compare it to whisky. Some drink it because its the manly mans manly drink, others actually enjoy it.

Its a very broad stroke, a lot of mid range watches fall in 2k-10k. High end watches like A Lange & Sohne start around the 20k price point, and the real innovative watches can go for anything into the millions. Much like an Audi is a luxurious car but a Rolls Royce is a one-upper.

Ah, I see. These really high-end watches are all for the sake of being worth more and one-upping the watch your other rich friend is wearing to the golf game or whatever?

Are you saying that the return on what you pay begins to decrease once you get to these high-end $20,000+ watches?

For guitars, the number where spending more is for minimal returns is around $2,000, so that's how I'm relating to it. The quality of a $2,000 guitar, how it feels, how it sounds, how its built, is going to be 90% or more of what a $20,000 guitar will be. What is that number for watches? Something like $20,000 for "high-end"? I saw how Rolex's are made one time and I don't see how you could top that in a significant way.

No, not at all. In all segments there is a division between paying for actual quality and a brand name. You pay the same for a Fossil or a simply automatic Seiko, yet the Seiko is way more of a watch. The same goes for high end watches. There is also no point of diminishing returns because there is no real standard for the prices. If its worth it to you, you buy it, else you dont.

Watch prices, quality, materials and complications vary to wildly to make concrete statements. If I had to make a guess, given that you are looking at a mechanical watch without complications, your optimal price for price/quality is somewhere between 3 and 5k.

Rolex may be a bad example. They are great, sturdy watches but they are not high end. Look for service/promotion videos of any of the above brands, youll see.

I've seen how Patek Philippe makes their watches and how Rolex makes their watches.

Patek does it literally like you're a king personally requesting the finest watch in the world to be built for yourself. Rolex does it like it's a factory churning them out for whoever. They do it well, but it's the difference between one single master watch maker building your watch and a factory building your watch.

I think that is the distinction.

Because most people would end up billions of years farther than they planned

Is there really a point to buying expensive watches save for the social status boost?

Define expensive.

The watch on the left is $90 and the watch on the right is $300. It's $300 because it is made in Japan instead of Thailand, uses a screw-on case back and I think uses higher quality plastic/rubber.

They're functionally just about the same watch. They're the same size. They both have the "Tough Solar" technology, the "Multi-Band 6" technology, all of that crap.

Expensive as in... say.. a maximum of $50 USD is what I'd spend on a watch.

I don't really see the point in owning a watch, unless I worked in some kind of profession where you had to "look good 24/7", like being an attorney or something. Using a phone as a method of finding out the time is fine for me.

Digital watches are something people wear outdoors or wherever else the watch might be easily damaged, I think? (I haven't worn a watch since school) In that case it's different than with mechanical watches, as the more expensive one could have some objective advantage like surviving deeper underwater or some shit like that.

Diver watches can go down to like 600M and they are expensive, fashionable watches(i don't like them)

>Is there really a point to buying expensive watches

Is there a point in collecting anything or buying art? That's what expensive watches essentially are.

A nice watch is a nice watch. There isn't anything wrong with buying nice clothes. The quality is just better and it will last longer. The brand stuff is what we've been talking about ITT.

>If I had to make a guess, given that you are looking at a mechanical watch without complications, your optimal price for price/quality is somewhere between 3 and 5k.
The point is that nice shit isn't cheap, ever.

Mechanical watches are simply watches that you wind. Automatics are watches that self-wind. Digital watches use quarts movements, AKA a fucking battery that you replace ever few years.

>$2000 for minimal returns on guitars
What are you buying, Les Pauls? If you aren't buying overpriced stuff you can get a high end guitar for 1000. Assuming you are talking about electric guitars of course, acoustics are a different story.

It's got a shit ton of jewel bearings. Put those in and you can sucker people out of any amount of green backs.

I'm talking about boutiques that don't have inflation from brand names and such.

...

All watches really are marvelous applications of basic engineering. What amazes me is the tooling and crafting of such tiny parts.

Wearing a watch is more convenient than pulling out your phone. It just is. It's more reliable too.

Yeah but you can get a really good Fender for 1000. When you pay a lot more than that for a luthier made guitar you are mostly paying for the fact that it's custom made. It will barely sound better than an American Fender (probably imperceptible to people who haven't been playing and listening to guitars for a long time).

If you think a $1,000 guitar is really good then you just haven't been exposed to really good guitars.

Do you really think that a 5000 guitar sounds significantly better than a 1000 guitar?

It's considered bad form in my profession to pull out your smartphone when checking someone's pulse

I don't. That's why I said Around $2,000 is the spot where you get all of the quality without a bunch of flair to inflate the price. You can only do so much to a guitar in terms of the sound and such. The return exponentially decreases after this. That last like 5% of quality costs exponentially more than the 95% it took to get to that point.

What if you had an app that displayed a smiling doctor while measuring the time?

kek

At the high-end range (eg. Rolex), it's acceptable for a watch to change by -4/+6 seconds per day. A sturdy G-Shock will keep time perfectly, the only reason to wear mechanical watches is for tradition, or because you like them.

whats the point, if u do not know how to make on.

>A well made mechanical watch like that will outlast you, and your son

who gives a shit watches cost 2$ today. That argument made sense when watches were expensive items for the nobility only

>patek
thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_future_lea.html

If that's what you think then just buy

amazon.com/gp/product/B00272NBJQ/ref=ox_sc_sfl_image_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2T0OAZGCF86RE

made in japan, 200M into water, multi-band timekeeping, solar powered, screw on back, good plastics, shock resistance..

or just buy the $90 one that is made in thailand and doesn't have screw on back or the better plastics, same watch otherwise.

amazon.com/gp/product/B007RWZHXO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_image_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

That's really all you need if that's what you think.

>$50
>expensive
Jesus how cheap can you be.

I can get a 2013 phone running the latest cyanogen mod for 120 bucks and it does a lot more than a watch

That's exactly what that user is saying, if you know how to read.

I didn't know we were having an argument. Fuck off retard.

Isn't that the guy whose father kept that watch hidden from the Nazis in his ass from the x-files?

what the fuck are you talking about

It's just about what you like. Some people like a watch that doesn't need a battery. Some people like wood watches. I bought mine because it's awesome, not for any engineering purposes.

>thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_future_lea.html
Hilarious article, thanks

That's a lot to words to say "ads for expensive stuff are meant to suck money from the aspiring snobs".

this thread reminds me that i need to service my grandfathers old pocketwatch so i can get it up to speed.

why the fuck are pocketwatches no longer classy?

They evolved into watches in smartphones, senpai.

damn it. now im looking at modern 300k+ pocketwatches...
being a poorfag sucks...

>thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_future_lea.html
Hilarious and brutal, well worth the read.
>That explains how the kid can be in a sweater vest and not trying to murder his family.
>"Something truly precious holds its beauty forever." A tag line even a Wellesley graduate can remember.

So this is about the 14%. What then do the 1% prefer in ters of watches?

Is there actually a point to owning one of these rube goldberg machines when a $10 department store watch will tell time just as effectively?

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