Some people just don't get it...

[ryan.uk]

I have a very good pal/colleague who just can't get his head around why anyone would pay umpteen thousands of pounds for a watch.

I've had many a good debate with him on the topic. We've gone through the art of horology, history, pedigree, materials, finish, even status - however he does always manage to beat me down and I'm left thinking in many aspects he's right.

His argument is that with your general non-PM piece, the materials can't be worth all that much.

He'll say the materials are worth around 10% of the cost.

He'll argue that viably you can put a fair proportion down to R&D and build work - the movements are solid, accurate and nicely finished, largely by hand and have benefited by Rolex investing in advancing their technologies. But how much of your ticket price goes to that? Let's say another 20-30%.

Then what are you left with? A bit towards sales (boxing/packaging/transportation), a bit towards advertising and sponsorships (certainly none towards after-sales support or customer service), so perhaps another 10-20%.

His killer argument is that a large, perhaps the most significant chunk, of what you pay is purely towards the brand for a luxury timepiece.

I've seen myself, let's say 'less scrupulous', pieces on my worldly travels that are near identical to 'more scrupulous' pieces that sell for hundreds (if that), not thousands - which somewhat backs up my pals comments.

This post is just to see if anyone has a great 'gotcha' argument I can put back to him - I'm left saying that I am happy with my luxury watches, and comfortable if a large part of what I pay goes just to 'the brand'.

I know that a bit of what you pay is just a 'price of entry' to the luxury watch market and will happily sit as non-depreciable value. Similar to how a 'luxury' German car compares to a decent Ford saloon say.

You can buy similar looking timepieces for peanuts that maybe have reasonable automatic movements, but you don't get the real deal, you don't get the attention to detail, you don't get platinum-laced bezel graduations, white gold indices and sapphire crystal glass, you don't get a guarantee that the OEM will be able to service that watch for the rest of your life, and many generations thereafter, and frankly you don't get to put a timepiece on your wrist and know in yourself that it's a Rolex, or a PP, or an AP or whatever your fancy is.

Just wonder if anyone has got any good insight in to or can validate what the actual cost make-up of a luxury timepiece actually is (or maybe we don't actually want to know ).