but, I would say 2 or 3 things to think about when considering watch prices today.
What brand is not (too expensive) when prices asked are above 20K€? (except for gold or diamond costs), 50K€? etc...
Even many high-end indies (that you know I appreciate very much) with nice designs have insane prices of over 50K€ usually... (a car needs much more knowledge of physical laws, subject to much higher forces and resistance to heat, friction, shocks, technologically much more advanced etc... (of course there is the economy of scale to take into account, but still). Even if some make a better job, all watches are usually too expensive as long as they are above 20K.
A watch (like Patek) is sold this price because that's what the market is paying, otherwise, it wouldn't sell. So it is not to expensive. Hence, the price is not only about watchmaking mastery, finishing talents but also about other factors (not as "noble" maybe but they are companies). Is it about art? Maybe but I won't rank this art at the level of what I can find in paintings or sculptures which express much more from the time they were made or their author: that is Art.
Do you have a better purchase in a watch that will loose 10% when you come out of the shop or 50%? The second one is much of a harder news to accept. The one that is expensive is the one that makes you loose so much value, if you decide to sell it one day of course.
But of course, the financial aspect is not the only one to care about.
Some want finishing, some want dreams, some want to feel what the image of the brand is about (independance, originality, sobriety, refinement, taste, sportiveness, poetry...). It is not just about technics.
Also, most of the mechanics used today have more that 100 years. And we have today tools they didn't have at that time. You certainly see where I'm going...
When you see Hajime Asaoka who gets a book, 3 or 5 tools and makes the watches as good as they are, you see how finally "reachable" it is to make a very well finished and accurate watch. I could have guessed that even without his work as I know what our industries is capable of doing today and how simple compared to that it is to make a watch.
So I think we buy much more than finishing, much more than accuracy, much more than gold or steel. It is an overall. And we are all aiming for something that we think is worth our efforts and is worth spending the fruit of our work in those little marvels we love.
Like beauty, "expensivness" is in the eyes of the beholder.
Cheers Mo, Mark
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This message has been edited by Mark in Paris on 2015-11-22 11:53:54