Why is it I am seeing on eBay so many polished Speedmasters coming out of Japan? I mean--it seems like there are dozens of them, most of recent production. What explains this? Does the Japanese market have something like our car leasing market--where someone leases a watch for two years, after which the watch goes back to the dealer, gets polished, then flipped back into the open market? Can someone enlighten me?
When there interest rates dropped below Zero a few years back Think they are still lower than anywhere else in the world.
That would explain it--negative interest rates--cheaper to borrow and spend money than to save it? At least the dealers are up front about the polishing--a most curious kind of antithetical practice, which attracts some and repels others.
I think the Japanese definition of polished is a quick wipe with a cape-cod cloth, rather than a polishing wheel.
I think they do it because they can sell them more easily. This practice may not appeal to collectors, but if they manage to move stock, at a price that they want, why would they cater to a smaller, more demanding market segment, perhaps to the exclusion of their existing customers?
Totally true. There's a corollary in the world of bamboo fishing rods: vintage rods, made in the 30s'-50s, used spar varnish over the cane. Over time, the spar, as an epidermal layer, will change in relation to exposure (to UV, humidity, and temperature)--so that it might soften, oxidize, or otherwise migrate chemically. To collectors who want pristine examples of the work by the best rodbuilders of the period (Garrison, Gillum, Payne, Thomas, Young, and a few others), you just don't polish a rod like that--but the condundrum is that if the varnish isn't stabilized, you take a great risk using the rod. So a lot of collector-grade rods stay in the rod tube, the way some watches stay in the safe, I suppose. I have a number of vintage rods by Garrison, Payne, and Young, all of which have been polished (we use rottenstone in oil) so they can be used--and I tend to fish my rods hard, because they have a certain functional pleasure--both like and unlike wearing a certain watch at a certain time. They also develop a nice patina this way, but if we're going to talk about entropy as a postiive quality, we'd need to start a new thread--it's a big topic. Thanks for the comments.