Canadian Newspaper Article on Luxury Watches

[Toadtorrent]

This is from one of our national newspapers (The Globe and Mail):

This is the Rolls-Royce of watches

ANDREW WILLIS

From Friday's Globe and Mail

December 7, 2007 at 8:52 AM EST

For $8,700 (U.S.), Swiss watch company Romain Jerome will sell you a wristwatch with a rusty, pitted steel case. The tarnish reflects the fact that the metal was once part of the Titanic, and spent decades at the bottom of the Atlantic, then was hauled up prior to the wreck being declared a protected site in the mid-nineties.

For $23,050, there's a Rolex with a face made out of a thinly sliced chunk of meteorite, rimmed in white gold. For $24,800, your wrist can be one of just 247 on the planet sporting a hunk of polished steel designed, in a limited run, by watchmaker Panerai and auto maker Ferrari.

Watches in this price range are still great conversation pieces. They do keep time. Yet high-end buyers are walking right past these gimmicks to drop anywhere from $100,000 to $1.3-million on a watch design that hasn't much changed in more than 200 years. Because what you really want to reveal when you pull back your sleeve is something called a tourbillon.

What, you ask, is a tourbillon? It's the watchmaker's highest achievement: a collection of hand-crafted gears and springs designed to keep an incredibly accurate count of minutes passing by offsetting the influence of gravity or any other outside force.

Enlarge Image

Piaget's bejewelled Kanthara watch fetches $1.4-million. (Ryan Carter for The Globe and Mail)

The guts of a tourbillon watch, known as the escapement, are built to rotate and are usually left visible. The few high-end manufacturers, all Swiss, who turn out these gems take six to 12 months to produce each watch.

The concept was developed in 1795 by Abraham Louis Breguet, who is to Swiss timepieces what Tim Horton is to Canadian coffee.

Napoleon bought three Breguet watches - one of his wife's sold at auction this year for $1.3-million. Winston Churchill wore one.

Now, it's Canada's real-estate developers and financiers who quietly boast of their success by strapping on these timepieces. They join a club that also includes Hollywood royalty: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicolas Cage are collectors of tourbillons from watchmakers such as Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe.

"A generation ago, buying a Rolex was seen as a sign of success," says Tyler Markoff, manager of Royal de Versailles Jewellers. "Now, Rolex is still a great watch, but the goal for many buyers is to own something more exclusive, a tourbillon watch." And Mr. Markoff recently sold three watches based on Mr. Breguet's work to a long-time customer, for $1-million, during one visit, and took a $100,000 order from another customer for a Panerai tourbillon that won't be delivered until the summer of 2009.

"It's a banker's watch, understated yet elegant, and for those who understand the engineering it's got real wow appeal," Mr. Markoff says. "They are pieces of art, or the equivalent of a Rolls-Royce."

The larger trend ticking away in high-end watches is a move toward increased spending by men on accessories. North American spending on men's jewellery nearly doubled in the past three years to $6-billion, according to Pam Danziger, founder of Unity Marketing, which advises luxury retailers.

Those who start the journey to a $100,000-plus watch quickly come to a fork in the road. There are gem-encrusted pieces that are more jewellery than clock, and there are highly technical pieces such as tourbillon-style watches. For reasons firmly rooted in boys' fascination with toys, the new-money lads in the financial and software worlds are showing enormous interest in techno-timepieces.

Combine that surging demand with the relatively limited production from Switzerland, and you end up with a bubble that speaks to the wealth and impatience of our age.

Patek Philippe, one of the toniest Swiss watchmakers, turns out about 15,000 pieces a year, while Rolex ships 600,000. Among the top-end pieces is something called a Sky Moon tourbillon, a double-sided watch that charts the movements of the stars on one face. The price tag is up to $900,000.

Buying these Patek Philippes, according to a recent piece in Time magazine, means submitting to an interview with the company in Geneva, getting approval, then waiting one to four years. For some well-heeled buyers, including the hedge-fund crowd, the wait was intolerable: Time found buyers dropping $1.2-million on slightly used Sky Moon watches in auctions, in order to avoid the line.

To explain this extravagance, the magazine quoted Robert Frank, author of Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, as saying: "The challenge for today's rich is to set themselves apart from the merely affluent."

[Toadtorrent]

Needless to say, most of the comments were not too favourable regarding expensive watches. However, I did find this "put down" quite amusing from a reader named "Thumb Sucker" posted this comment:

"These watches all sound awesome. I want the moon one. I need to know when the moon is phasing, and I need to know all the time. "

I do in fact, feel this way.

[Victoria]

To explain this extravagance, the magazine quoted Robert Frank, author of Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, as saying: "The challenge for today's rich is to set themselves apart from the merely affluent."

And this differs exactly how from other times?

Toadtorrent, fantastic link and c/p of the G&M article. I actually read it a lot, since my bf as you know, is Canadian. It's like the NYT, only not as sophisticated. It's in articles like this, where you can see that they are not writing to those who have knowledge of 'high-end' watches or to those who live in Rosedale, but a primer for those who haven't a clue.

The tone in a NYT article would be much much different and aimed entirely to the Upper East Side crowd. This is why amongst other reasons, their subscription sales are dwindling...

Back to the high-end watches. Nice expos

[Toadtorrent]

Toadtorrent, fantastic link and c/p of the G&M article. I actually read it a lot, since my bf as you know, is Canadian.

Thanks...I thought it was interesting. My wife pointed it out to me and asked how accurate they were. It's definitely written to a target reader who has really no idea of high end watches, or has any interest in the niftiness of mechanical movements...exactly like you say...to those who haven't clue.

The tone in a NYT article would be much much different and aimed entirely to the Upper East Side crowd. T

I always enjoy reading their gear reviews...of equipment (generally outdoor technical equipment like hydration packs, high end bikes, hiking boots, gore-tex jackets, etc)...more from an anthropological perspective of finding what aspect of non-Manhattan lifestyle the Upper East Side should aspire to when their cousins have booked the get-away in the Hamptons.

Back to the high-end watches. Nice expos

[Victoria]

Thanks...I thought it was interesting. My wife pointed it out to me and asked how accurate they were. It's definitely written to a target reader who has really no idea of high end watches, or has any interest in the niftiness of mechanical movements...exactly like you say...to those who haven't clue.

Even for those who haven't a clue, the article reveals one high-end shop in TO must be "Royal de Versailles Jewellers". And spending on luxury watches went up a lot, to $6-billion, by North Americans.

That's good info.

Here's another factiloid:

"In 1999, Americans spent approximately $1.9 billion on Halloween candy".

I always enjoy reading their gear reviews...of equipment (generally outdoor technical equipment like hydration packs, high end bikes, hiking boots, gore-tex jackets, etc)...more from an anthropological perspective of finding what aspect of non-Manhattan lifestyle the Upper East Side should aspire to when their cousins have booked the get-away in the Hamptons.

This is why people outside of NYC have a subscription to the NYT: a kind of vicarious living, because surely it's not for their sports section, or anything which "blue collar" folk might find targetted to them.

Hah hah...but how many could really pull off wearing one?

ME!

Seriously, I rarely wear mine. It was just about the first watch I ever got, from...Paul. I got it for the amazement factor. "Hey cool, Patek Sky Moon!", like someone would get a poster on Fleabay "signed" by JFK.

Me? I buy tool watches, as they fit in with my predominant costume of gore-tex jackets and trail running shoes...which generally amount to the cost of a high end Italian suit...just not as flashy. heh heh...

You can't fool me. I know you have a Sky Moon hidden somewhere!

Tool watches are fantastic and on your wrist can be thousands of dollars worth of watch. People just don't know and don't care as much, unless you're in an environment (like with divers) where they know.

Unfortunately, ladies can't wear most tool watches. No. They CAN, what I mean is they usually don't. Our tool watches are Swatches.

[Corgi]

That article really makes me want to wear my AP tourbillon.

But I also really want to wear my Patek Philippe thanks to this article. Both Nautilus and Sky Moon.

My holiday wish is to have more arms?

[Toadtorrent]

But I also really want to wear my Patek Philippe thanks to this article. Both Nautilus and Sky Moon.

My holiday wish is to have more arms?

That's why God invented ankles.