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My Luxury Watch Expertise: As Good As It Gets

Read more articles on Fashion and Jewelry.

February 2, 2007

Posted by neillevine

About This Editor: I am a writer. Have been writing for other sites, but expect to do most of my future work HERE! My expertise extends from the esoteric such as burning hydrogen to the unpredictability of the stock market and my writing makes me a jack of all trades and exasperated master of none. I have had some influence over national wildfire and water policy and there are hints of a change in energy policy, BUT as Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A verbal promise is not worth the paper it is written on."

         

I consider myself a semi-pro expert on luxury watches.

A person who has actually worked in the jewelry or watch industries for a number of years and has handled several different lines of time pieces probably knows much more than I do simply based on the fact that they would have encountered a considerably greater number of watches per week and in greater detail than I have ever encountered in real time. I have only read a few books, talked to a retired executive for long stretches over a number of years and looked at dozens of watch catalogues and ads over the years.

When it comes to a field as rich and detailed as luxury watches there are lots of little details that add up to expertise. For example, watch bands go through a number of steps in order to create the final product that are very precise and detailed. I only have some vague second hand knowledge about this aspect although to appreciate the final product it is not really necessary to know all the steps in the manufacturing process or how supply contracts are negotiated.

On the other hand, the high end watch business changes slowly. The number of important brands that have attracted consumer attention in the past ten years can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. I currently count Technomarine, Swatch, Jacob and Phlip Stein Teslar as the more prominent ones. That is it, although I stand open to correction.

As an obvious example of how slowly the luxury watch business changes, Cartier, the well known jeweler, sells a number of its house  brand high end  watches such as the Tank Francaise, currently fetching $3,200 at Tourneau, that has not changed much in years and, so, is readily identifiable by a real watch connoisseur.

In the meantime, I have recently written six other articles on the subject on this site to sharpen and hone my skills and whet my memory to see what results I get from fresh kill on the subject.