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comment by demure
demure  ·  2349 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The winner of the Mechanical Exception Prize at the 2017 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie:

holy fuck

francopoli check this out!





user-inactivated  ·  2349 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Meh. This is why I'd make a terrible super-wealthy guy. I'm just not into stuff like this as it is not very practical. I have a super computer in my pocket that keeps atomic time, has multiple planetariums on it, alerts me to bright satellite passes, tracks the planets across the sky and cost me less than any of these watches. Oh, and I can make phone calls and get my email, text messages etc on it as well.

Watches are neat, and the engineering and mechanics interest me, but I'd not buy one.

kleinbl00  ·  2349 days ago  ·  link  ·  

They are, beyond a doubt, jewelry first and functional items second. A chronometer rating means they're accurate to a second a day.

It's interesting. The industry spent like fifteen years trying to figure out if they could charge fashion prices for phones, but Vertu went tits up over the summer. Apple does have their stupid expensive iWatches but those are purely for halo effect and anchoring and smartwatches are commoditizing even faster than phones.

But Harry Winston - making watches.

Van Cleef & Arpels - making watches.

Cartier - making watches.

Chanel - making watches.

That? That's a new gilded age ramping up. And the guys making $50k VC Patrimonys are leading a much nicer lifestyle than the guys making $300 Apple Watches.