Nobody mentioning much about craft, which perhaps says a lot about the modern throw away society. Nobody mentioning much about horologists, the wizards of micro engineering, engineering...you know...the thing that the male populace eulogise over..so deep is it in thier memory bank. Try getting a watch repairer in a shopping mall to turn you a balance staff (the prop that holds the engine), they'll look at you like you've gone out. Some expensive watches are cheap, the miniature polished false screws (bolts) found in the audemars piquet oak bezel are approx £10k a kilo in the trade..you can't buy less than a kilo. Rolex kop a lot of stick because of the day-date gold car-pitch watch of yesteryear...but thats only the seen...dig a little a deeper and plenty of thier vintage offerings look like works of art, afterall they were selling shockproof automatic waterproof chronometers in the mid 30's that did what they said on the tin...AP/Patek/blancpain, cartier, iwc, omega and virtually all the rest could'nt get anywhere near that sort of engineering leap. Women are into jewellery, males are into engineering.
The kid that bought the steel PP for three and quarter mill just recently...turned down half a mill profit..twice.
There's a big difference between one of them white plastic doors and a bespoke honduras mahogany door. They say if you've ever had a pair of shoes made for your plates you'd never go back to off the shelf. Pre 70 most watches were made in thier entirety by the name on the dial..by hand, no cnc herberts thinking they're the daddy back then, the decoration on the movement itself was executed by hand to give a viewer a sight of mirrored lines running across the bridges (cotes of geneve) with appropriate shadeing. shadeing in metal something akin to what your art teacher may have been able to pull off. Some of the serious more modern offering post 80 are housed with sapphire glass that's been treated enough times if it was being housed in a pair of glasses then they'd be half a grand spec's retail.
