Buying new watches

Engee

I’m particularly tempted by the Yema Superman currently on offer for just over €400.

Engee

My preference is not to buy new when good secondhand is available. I like vintage, but in any event, I think new is usually not good value. I’ve never bought a new car because the value of a car drops massively as soon as it leaves the showroom. The same goes, I guess, for watches.

Besides this, feeding the system rather than maintaining, fixing, repurposing, is not the way I believe we are going to make the world a better place. I have a mild moral objection to new things when there is perfectly good old stuff around. I object to built-in obsolescence and when I buy new things I look for repairability and quality.

And yet I’m not immune to advertising. The Man works very hard to get me to part with my money and Facebook advertising helps The Man enormously. My FB feed is littered with invitations to check out watches. Most of them I ignore because I probably know enough to know the advertised watches are junk. However, now and again very tempting ads pop up.

Engee

Recently I’ve received tempting ads for Panzera and Yema, both of which look to be deep discounting on automatics. I’m particularly tempted by the Yema Superman currently on offer for just over €400.

So my question is, is this a good quality watch at a price that would be worth investing in? Would you sooner spend that €400 on a vintage watch if you had one eye on investment?

STANDY

Nothing like a new micro brand as a beater wear around the pool watch. But once you have one or two that will do as they drain funds and are not that easy to sell unless taking a 50% hit.

jaspers

don't worry about investment value unless it's Rolex or Patek.

janice&fred

now you're REALLY gonna draw the hordes into a debate 😁

jaspers

It takes discipline! Usually within a couple months second hand or grey market specimens pop up. Just enter your alerts in WatchRecon or WatchPatrol and restrain yourself for a little while. I'm doing the same for the Bell & Ross BR05 now.


Any minute now a horde of huns will descend on this thread vigorously debating whether or not a watch should be regarded as an investment. My humble view on the matter is that (1) investment value never should be your main concern but (2) I understand that you'd rather not loose money on a watch when re-selling it down the road. Having said that, who cares if you loose 100 bucks when re-selling a <$500 watch? That's a nice steak dinner for 2—too bad, but not a disaster. Yes, vintage holds its value better, but only if you manage to get a good deal. If you buy vintage from a dealer, no way you will be able to sell it later for the same amount or more on the forums. Long story short—buy what you like, don't worry about investment value unless it's new Rolex or Patek.

mjb

There is a similar thread on one of those car forums, debating leasing versus buying and why would anyone in their right mind lease a car?

My argument is that:

a) some of us (me) like new stuff and are willing to pay for it and
2) you need dummies like me to buy the stuff new in order to create a second-hand market.

You may thank me later.

OK, so seriously, buying new gives you a warranty, a un-scratched product, and some level of comfort knowing that an expensive service is far down the road. In my case, if I can't save enough money to at the very least pay for a service, then there's no advantage to buying used. And I am a smidgen OCD, so I don't like stuff that's scratched up. Yes, I know, patina, yada, yada.

Engee

To be clear, I see a difference between pure investment where I’m looking for the best possible return against a given risk profile and wanting to make use of cash in a way that I can enjoy and also recoup, hopefully with a return in time. With interest rates so low I see it as a reasonable way of putting money away, and far more interesting / pleasurable than watching it do nothing in a deposit account.

jaspers

You’re very welcome. There’s very few brands with guaranteed “enjoy & recoup”—even when willing to hold on to your watches for a long time. No way to tell what collectors will value 25 years from now. Remember: no one used to care about Daytonas. Even pawn shops refused to take them. If you want a good return on your savings, put them away in an index fund...

Engee

Well no investment guarantees a decent return - there’s always an element of speculation, but it’s surely fair to say that good quality watches, while going in and out of fashion, maintain a degree of “collectibility”. We don’t know which will be in fashion at any given time, and when something is out of fashion we can’t imagine it ever being in fashion.

If I were buying watches as a speculation I’d probably be after gold / gold plate and square models on the basis that they are out of fashion at the moment and they might represent good value. As it happens I have 3 gold /gp watches because I like them, and no square watches because I don’t like them. I’m only going to buy watches I like - that’s a basic rule for me. And yet, I’m still trying to make sure I don’t pay over the odds, even for something I really like, because if I ever decide to let a watch go, I want to avoid making a loss on it.