What was Rolex like during the Quartz Crisis?

[QueueCumber]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

That's pretty cheap, I guess vintage Swatches don't have quite the collectability of Rolex. Thanks for the photo. Nice to see it again.

It depends. The Blum collection is worth over 6 million USD, but it features a lot of one of a kind prototypes...

http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/blumcollection.html

I went to the Park Avenue Armory and saw it when a portion of it was on display. Neat stuff...

[swils8610]

I also remember having Swatch watches way back when. They cost $30 back then.


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[Amez]

Memories. I had a few Swatches back in the day.

[Jakx]

Originally Posted by bondtoys

Looking back, the Swatch was a great move for several reasons:

They where cheaper than any japanese analogue watch showing that there is no horological value in this kind of technology - so devaluating japanese watches on many fronts.

As the ranges changed every 6 monthy, the young customers where brought back to the stores to browse and buy the latest variants - just like shoes and clothing. Before that, people bought a watch for a lifetime and not for a season.
That allso resulted in a deeper and llarger interest in watches in general as a statement of fashion and taste.

The limited editions boosted the desirability for the normal range because Swatch was in the news like Justin Bieber today.

And having experienced Biver in his early Blancpain days - noone could resist.
I worked for a top-jeweller in 1985 and the Blancpain people (virtually Biver and his assistant*) invited us for dinner.
Problem was that we only had one Blancpain on stock which was there for ages and did not sell. So we borrowed 3 or 4 more Blancpains from other stores to fill the window a little.

After he got us all on his side that evening - we where selling Blancpains like hot cakes and I remember ordering one of them for myself.
I especially ordered mine with a glas bottom which took them 6 months to do and was absolutely unique to Blancpain back then.

Guess that I was starting a trend :)

Btt: These days, we where selling many, many two-tone Datejusts - ladies and gents.
Desire for the sports models was existent but not really much.
I don't recall that we sold one Daytona then because it was not prcatical to unwind the crown to wind up the watch and it had Plexi. Red Submariners 1680 where considered tacky.

IWC had a big hit with their Da Vinci and complicated watches we sold a lot of annual calendar APs.
Patek not so much - except the Nautilus now and then.

Main business was TT Rolex Datejust!

Main competitors where Ebe with their wave bracelet (40% of the price of a Rolex) and Cartier with their Santos and later Panthere watches - all in 2-tone.

* at that time, they where traveling Europe with a white VW Golf GTI.
2 years later, Biver drove an Aston Martin

Would be worth starting a thread on Biver and the tremendous influence he has had on the industry (and continues to have now as head of LVMH watch division). As Rolex loyalists, we have benefited from this mechanical surge as Rolex has had to improve its movements and make the watches more competitive. My 114060 (now 7 months old) has been unbelievably accurate (far more than my 1983 DJ SS) (within -2 and then +2 so that I have reset it only once in 7 months).

[zama]

Sounds like I played my part as well:

My first nice watch from my parents when I was about 12 was a seiko Duo, had analogue and digital on the one face (stopwatch etc covered in the digital part). Loved that watch had it for more than decade. Also had a first generation white Swatch which I loved particularly as I had a tan in those days as a school kid in summer. Then got a super thin Omega de ville gold and square black face dress watch. Which I also had for over a decade till stolen when house was robbed.

I still own one quartz watch and love it as well.