>"but really where they shine is in marketing."
I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.
I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.
But watches from certain brands (and certain models) can be sold immediately for a profit. For example, a Rolex steel Daytona retails for $14k from an MSRP. You'll sell it in a heartbeat on the secondary market for $30k. The Rainbow Daytona a handful of years ago was $100-150k IIRC. It's now closer to $500-600k.
The market is off its peak of 2021-2022 quite a bit but I've bought several luxury watches that could be sold for a healthy profit if I was so inclined.
So the current generation of professional (ie steel) Daytonas have a ceramic bezel. This is to avoid scratches but means they can shatter with enough force. The ceramic itself is baked in a plasma furnace. The tech behind these things can actually be really cool.
So Daytonas have historically sold above MSRP on the secondary market but not by this much. About 10 years ago the new ceramic Daytonas were released and what happened was a lot of people sold their previous DAytonas to "upgrade". This meant that what was 6 months earlier a $13k MSRP watch was selling for $10-11k and that seemed crazy to me given it was now discontinued so I bought one. At the peak of the market, that watch would sell for $30-35k. Now it's probably under $25k but that's still a good investment.
But steel Rolexes never really appreciate that much because the volumes ard really high. You're not going to get rich buying a steel Submariner. There's simply too many of them out there.
But one exception is the really vintage Daytonas, particularly what are called Paul Newman Daytonas [1]. These were watches that back in the 1980s sat in a display case for years (at $500 or less) because no one bought them but an association with Paul Newman skyrocketed them in the public consciousness to the point that a 1960s era Paul Newman Daytona in mint condition can easily be worth $500k-$1m+.
The market dynamics are really fascinating but it's now become essentially impossible buy an in-demand watch from an AD unless you're a big spender on other products there (they're all typically jewelers as well). The history of Rolex was in utility not luxury (eg the GMT was invented for Pan Am pilots who suddenly were flying cross-country, the Submariner is a dive watch, the Daytona was originally for racing drivers, etc).
Sure, they are obviously very high-quality products, but they are clearly not worth the money you are paying for them. You're very obviously paying primarily for the opportunity to brag that you've got a "genuine Birkin". It's like those silly restaurants putting gold flakes on food: you can't taste or smell it, so you're paying solely for the opportunity to be ripped off.
If you've got money to burn, why not get a fully-custom product made exactly to your wishes by a local atelier and end up with a far superior product for the same price? What's the point if you can't even fully enjoy the fruits of your labor?
It's just as right or wrong as buying tickets to watch a sporting contest.
I love the Enlightened Hacker News Commenter who can’t wait to share how they are different from other people when it comes to marketing.
Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?
Does that really matter? I just expressed my opinion. And I am not that different. I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse.
Obviously. But are there more people 'like you', than people willing to pay 'too much' for something they know is irrational, just because it brings them joy. I might not want to buy that specific hand bag, but I'm not going to sit here and judge since I too have made plenty of irrational purchases in my life, many of which have brought me great fun and joy.
That is very fortunate for you because after all you’d never buy a status symbol!
That $5,000 electric unicycle is a status symbol. You’re welcome to believe that I’m a fool and don’t know what I’m talking about.
Don’t you think that’s what every Rolex wearer and Birkin carrier thinks, too? “Oh they’re just really nice ________ with features I like and can afford.”
I do not give a flying fuck about its status value. It is most likely big fat zero since most people have no clue about the price.
Even though it was not a factor at all when buying it turns out to be very practical as it lets me run errands very fast and efficient. Nothing else beats the convenience. When I visit my current or prospective clients on a bicycle I have to leave it outside and risk it being stolen (nice bike and Toronto are very bad combo). Car - only if I want to ruin my day driving downtown. EUC comes with me into the office and 90% of the time it makes client very curious / amazed which is a good thing for conversation.
It doesn’t matter whether you care about its status value. If I bought a Birkin and said, “I don’t care about the status value” you’d scoff and think I’m a sucker.
And yeah I guess I am surprised to learn that $5,000 is the cheapest available EUC.
I doubt paulcole feels that way about their unicycle.
Yes, fundamentally, the possession of things of value is a signal of means, but that's mundane. Everything you own or do signals means to some degree, but that's different from signaling being an essential property of those things or activities.
It's almost like you have to have a certain something to buy it...
Just wondering; didn't know this one.
I mean, yes, this is what all buyers of status symbols think. No-one is going out buying a Birkin bag or a Ferrari or a Rolex or a monkey NFT or whatever saying "better go buy a status symbol today". Or, at least, very few people.
Your entire comment was saying how you aren’t like those people and calling them suckers.
It’s fun to post online and it’s fun to buy things that make you happy.
This phenomenon is (or must be) so fundamental to existence that it has been produced over and over again by the process of biological evolution.
There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
The modern world has much better ways to show this than relatively low cost jewelry/clothes/accessories.
Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts, and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
Those are all way too expensive for regular folks.
> and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
That's too cheap to work as a status symbol for regular folks, plus provides all kinds of value (entertainment, relaxation, etc.) so it's not even a good way to burn money.
Regular folks show off by e.g. buying engagement rings that are multiple of the fiance's salary, or making other purchases whose defining characteristic is that others know it's expensive.
Jewelry, clothes and accessories are good for showing off because the more expensive ones aren't more useful or pretty at the margin. You're not buying utility for spending extra, other than that conferred by status games.
That's the whole deal with engagement rings, and more generally with romance.
It only makes sense to mine diamonds if it's cheaper to do so than to manufacture one of equivalent quality.
The outfits with big skin in the natural/mined diamond sector have told a story about something that's been in the ground for eons and being pulled out and turned into something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge.
There are various attempts to keep the synthetics out, and/or identifiable, but even the main players are admitting that a significant percentage of synthetics are now in the naturals market, nobody knows how many, and that they're undetectable. That means the naturals market has to come back to actual costs plus some markup over what they've been for 100+ years: costs plus insane markups.
It's just BS, my wife's engagement ring stone is a size we picked, and then a quality (colour, lack of occlusions etc.) that I did some research on and picked to be a level for each that basically you needed to be trained & have equipment in order to determine the defects, i.e. I can't ever give her another one (natural or not) that looks better (it could be bigger but not more brilliant) to the naked eye. (And it's for her to wear, not an investment or whatever, so I figured really no reason to care beyond the naked eye.) If I'd added an additional requirement that it be formed over millennia in the earth, either it would have cost us a lot more, or more likely she'd have an objectively worse ring. Nothing romantic about that IMO!
These watches are part of a status and this status allows these people to dictate to the rest of us how they'd like their omelette.