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Comment by Luc | Hacker News Reader

This is how humans infect each other with emotions, I guess. Virality in action. Tell a story of how this object lifts your spirits every day, never lets you down, is there for you in hard times... And it's reassuringly expensive. Value doesn't come cheap.

I own a bit of LVMH (luxury conglomerate) shares and I find it fascinating what they manage to sell to people, but I'm determined never to fall for it.

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I don't disagree at all. But, unless you're Scrooge McDuck, you're going to spend your discretionary income on something so why not a nice watch?

This little assemblage of $500 in parts is worth far more to me than the $8,000 that it's ostensibly worth. It has been there with me for so many of the most important events in my life:

My wedding: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/3763369152/in/album...

My newborn first child: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/7515534464/in/album...

Epic Utah adventure with my best friends: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7247/7087962645_3d48ebb50b_z.j...

Filthy from the craziest day where we drove 250 miles of rough off-road trail in one day in the Owyhee Desert of Northern Nevada: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/20220695396/in/albu...

Off topic kinda but I have to compliment you on the rig (the AK and watch are cool too). Mind providing some more details on it, what truck is it, how'd you find it, mods, etc.?

Btw, you should start a blog!

Thanks. It's a 1987 Land Rover 110. It is ex-British Army and I bought it from a government liquidation firm in the UK and imported it myself. I did my own frame and engine swap on it so the body and interior are pretty much the only original bits. It has a Land Rover 300Tdi diesel engine.

I don't blog much but I have done a few stories for Expedition Portal:

http://expeditionportal.com/expedition-journal-the-owhyee-de...

Here's the story of importing the truck:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/103685-Rocinan...

And a story about a Utah trip:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/111216-Utah-Ro...

Awesome cheers!

Nice. I am from the Caribbean and I always jokingly say it is my aim to own a Land Rover series I or II and my own estate.

Its a reference to the colonial days in the Caribbean. The folks who had money made if from agriculture and used the Land Rover to transport goods and traverse the rough terrain.

> unless you're Scrooge McDuck, you're going to spend your discretionary income on something so why not a nice watch?

Nah, my emotions work differently, and for physical objects I prefer stuff that is easily replaceable.

Also I'm pretty much Scrooge McDuck.

While I agree in general, I think that there are some people who just genuinely enjoy mechanical watches beyond the status signaling. I myself don't own a Rolex or other high end watch, I can't afford one, I work in machining and welding so I couldn't wear one to work anyway, and I'm pretty sure my OCD would preclude me from enjoying wearing a wristwatch since I would always be worried about scratches. I just happen to like small mechanical things. Also, repairing and restoring watches is a nice hobby to have if you're really short on space, I live in a tiny apartment.

I do think there is something very cool about the engineering that goes into watches, and they are somewhat unique in the way they combine both engineering and more traditional artistry like hand finishing or enamel/lacquered dial work.

I should probably point out in case there is some confusion that I most certainly don't work for Rolex or the Swiss watch industry even though I sound somewhat like a shill in these comments.

> I think that there are some people who just genuinely enjoy mechanical watches beyond the status signaling.

Yes, I appreciate that, and I do too! Besides, at times I need to do some status signalling too. No disrespect intended.

You can get a very good mechanical watch for 500 Euro that would sell for 3 or 4k if it was a branded Roled.

It's hard to find anything "really good" in the sub-1k price spectrum. You can get great, functional Quartz watches for less than $100. You can get nice automatics for $100-250 but that are nothing special mechanically. You can start getting very good automatics for $3k or so. That void in the middle is almost entirely garbage, either rip off "homage" watches using inferior parts or stuff like Christopher Ward.

That void in the middle is almost entirely garbage

I think you are being a bit harsh. You can get some perfectly fine mechanical watches at the 500 euro mark. Brands like Certina, Hamilton, Seiko and (to a lesser extent) Victorinox have several models in that price range which are perfectly well made.

I am probably being too critical. I was thinking a little higher than 500, too. If you've got $1500 to spend, your best bet is to either buy 3 Hamiltons or save up another $2k for a Speedmaster, if you're going for value per dollar.

A lot of those just use ETA parts. Not that it's a bad thing, but overpriced IMO. Seikos are quality and good value, I have one, but of course there is a certain prestige in having a 'Swiss' watch.

I think Seiko 5's are special given the price and the standards adhered to.

"You can start getting very good automatics for $3k or so."

For 3k you are either looking for something extremely fancy or you are already paying for 2k for the brand. Below a few brands, some very old, all of them use swiss made mechanical automatic movement. I don't remember having been in an airport and not having seen Rolex advertisement. But someone is paying for this advertisement. And again, if you buy from a dealer he may have something like a 100% mark up.

http://www.archimede-uhren.de/

https://shop.laco.de/

http://www.ebay.de/usr/erkahund

https://www.steinhartwatches.de

http://www.stowa.de

Here is an estimate of Rolex cost vs price and it is close what I suspected. " by gathering publicly available prices for similar products, we can estimate that the production cost of an average stainless steel Rolex watch retailing at USD 5,000 is less than USD 1,000. Maybe even less than USD 750."

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-actually-cost-Rolex-t...

I don't say don't buy one. But understand that you pay 80% of the cost for the brand. If you need the brand, buy it. If you just like the mechanics you can get a very good watch for a tiny fraction of the price.

Speaking of fascinating what LVMH can sell people...their stock and the other luxury companies in that corner of the equity market have been crazy interesting over the last year. No position myself. Congrats.

I've read that there was a big dip in Swiss watch exports when China started ramping up it's anti-corruption campaign.

I have a Kazakh-American friend who did some contract work as a pipeline welder in Kazakhstan who told me all of the watch shop windows in Astana would empty out every time large oil/gas deals were being signed.

This segment of the luxury goods market is indeed very interesting.

This is all too common. I once hat an interview at the Wessling group. They asked my if I mind bribing Chinese with expensive watched....

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