At some point, Someone In Marketing thought that this design change would be a good idea for Roger Depuis watches:
I leave it to your imagination as to the average cost of a Depuis watch… now double it, and you’ll be closer.
I’m always reminded of the immortal words of another Roger, Roger Moore: “The point of language is to communicate your thoughts in the shortest possible time and in the clearest possible way.”
Now translate that into telling the time, and apply to wristwatches.
C’mon, cut them some slack. I can clearly see that the “now” watch belongs to fashion plate Oliver Asshole Jackson-Cohen, and was presented by Jaguar to go with his new Teletubby Type Jag. It’s a fashion statement, not a functional watch.
Ok Boss,
I am with you there on your love of the elegance and the whole, well, satisfaction of a fine mechanical watch piece. In my younger years I have even delved into the clock repair hobby on clocks, watches are a whole other level.
However, I could never enjoy any of these trinkets now. With age related declining nearsightedness, I can no longer see the small indicators on these things without reading glasses. Smart watches are truly a blessing as I can crank up the fonts on the digital displays, even though analog displays are choice, I can’t use them.
Taking my guess at cost and doubling it got me to $60,000. Now multiply by 10 and you are in the midrange cost for one of these watches. Words fail me.
Young folk don’t know how to tell time on analog devices. lol
Nor do they know how to write with a writing stick.
And, they barely know how to use the English language properly.
Sure didn’t take long for technology to kidnap society.
In another 20 years everybody will be a vegetable with a bluetooth.
In my profession, wearing a wristwatch hasn’t worked out well. I rely on the myriad of wall clocks we have in the lab and in my office.
If I’m somewhere a wall clock is not readily available for viewing, I have my smart phone for that.
Since I’m no longer in the habit of wearing a wristwatch, my only jeweled adornment is my plain, gold wedding band.
I’ve almost always worn extremely cheap watches, but have always made sure that they were water “resistant” since I wear them all day long doing stuff, lots of time in or near water. Fishing, swimming, or even just doing yard stuff, I never know when they’ll get soaked.
The only exception was when my wife bought me a LumiNox “Commander” watch for a birthday decades ago. I had complained about regular “luminous” watches being too dim and fading out over a couple of hours. You could (literally) read a book in a black-dark room by the glow of the indicators and hand markers on that watch when it was new. It lasted through one battery change, and then busted. But the warranty was long gone, and LumiNox no longer made parts for that model, so it sits in its little box in the closet waiting to be thrown away (this is after about thirty years, BTW).
My current watch is a Timex “Expedition” that’s the same thirty years old. I just had the battery changed in it, which cost more than the original price of the watch. Simple black face with white numerals, simple white hands, and a red sweep-second hand. The whole face gently lights up when you push in the knob, but since the hands are still “luminous” I almost never use that feature. Simple, stupid woven black nylon band that I occasionally wash with soap and water to get the sweat out. It’s been dunked, bashed, and abused, and just keeps on ticking (thanks, Cameron Swayze). It loses about a minute every three months, so plenty accurate for me (we’ve got a weather station with a receiver for the US Atomic Clock to check against).
Probably the best twelve bucks I ever spent.
Business and government are stuffed with employees who really have little or nothing to do.
So, in order to justify their existence and out of boredom they dream up Things That Must Be Done! aka Improvements!
I and 4 others had a make work government job for students in the sciences when at Uni. We worked at a defence lab in Canada. Our boss, a very intelligent east Asian fellow explained to us this Improvements! syndrome and said he would not stand for it. He said we could do little or nothing for him so we should loaf around, enjoy life and leave him alone. He required from us that we check in at 8:30 and check out at 4:30.
We rapidly became bored and bribed the retired sergeants who guarded the entrance and managed the check in and check out sheet to be absent for days and days. The guards knew what was up, the boss knew what was up, and what the guards were doing, and everybody except the taxpayer was happy, even though we students had our delusions of grandeur destroyed.
The boss absolutely wanted his watch unchanged and unimproved.
The cheapest of the Roger Depuis watches was $300 and it was a plain Jane no frills watch. The skeletonized were $300k. WTF???
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I have a Rolex Submariner. My uncle sold it to me at a deeply discounted price as it was a 12 year old trade in back in 84. He also cleaned it for free. He passed some years back and it looses about 10 minutes an hour. I need the intermediate service performed on it and that will run $600 to $900 to get it “right” again. Then it is $350 to $500 every other year for a minor service whether you wear it or not. If I do get it fixed I will probably sell it as it is a rare blue faced stainless steel date watch.