I am sure 99.9999.999% of members here are very aware of how fortunate we are to have the means and peace of mind to be able argue about the trivial topic of watches. And I am equally sure 99.9999%of us are aware of, and feel genuine sadness and horror about all suffering that is going on in the world. It's just that this is a watch forum, so our focus is on watches.

 

Agreed. A lazy formulation on my part.

 

You were not being lazy. You were expressing your genuine sentiment and it's no more off topic to do so here than it is to share "what are you drinking today" posts or comments about the latest F1 standings in a watch forum.

 

Sometimes we have moments, that can relate to our watch experience, which cause us to reflect on the world around us and loss. The joy we get finding a vintage prize can be overshadowed by realizing that someone clearly cared for that watch- and is now dead- as will we be one day.

 

Years ago I came across a lovely gold UG bi-compax at a reasonable price, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it because of the beautiful inscription on the back in French from a wife to her husband. It made me think too much about their lives, and how and why this watch ended up here, in a dealer's hands, and not in the hands of family members who might have cherished it as an heirloom.

 

My contribution toward 100 pages......

https://coolhunting.com/design/swat...e-omega-speedmaster-moonswatch-collaboration/

He’s (Giordanetti) curious to see, in a few months when more watches are out there, who is wearing one. He suspects, as do we, that it will be hardcore Omega collectors and lovers of Swatch, too.

 

On the morbid side of that coin, I used to collect vintage pistols. I came across a Walther PP at a gun show that was in excellent condition albeit the blueing was pristine on one side but badly muddled on the other in a blob type pattern. It was insanely cheap so I bought it (I already had 2 but I had a thing for Walther’s). I brought it to my gunsmith and asked what could have caused the finish to have that pattern- he immediately knew.
The gun was made in 1936 (early PP) and apparently Nazi SS officers carried them as their personal carry piece since the Luger’s were known to jam. They typically carried them in the small of their back. The gun sat in a pool of blood until it was taken from the body- most likely as a war prize by a GI and brought back to the states.
I sold the the gun the next week- didn’t want the bad juju.

 

I cannot think of many things more fitting than an SS officer in a pool of blood.

Having said that, I do not allow anything Third Reich-related into my home.

 

Yup, same. The pistol was ‘36 and a civilian model without any military proof marks (not uncommon for an officers to buy a personal carry piece on their own). Once I realized what it was, I had to get rid of it.

 

I have some similar issues, my grandfather brought back binoculars and 2 SS sabers. The sabers have always just been in the basement stashed somewhere my brother and I wouldn’t find and play with them (to us they were just swords… freaking swords!)…. Anyway now my brother and I have to do something with them. The binoculars can just be a piece of history, there aren’t any markings on them. The sabers though… I can’t bring myself to sell them, and don’t really want to know the people in the market to buy them, feels wrong to even collect money for them. Also have a fascination and love of history, but it’s hard to feel right about having one of those in the house.

 

For giggles and posterity, I went to capture the current trading prices now several weeks out from launch

(note that enough of these are still trading per day that the “lowest ask” shown below can fluctuate quite a bit over the course of a day)






While there’s an expected curve to prices, they’re so far holding pretty steady - here’s the graph for the Moon version (which I take as being fairly down the middle in terms of desirability)




I found the “Tiffany” version’s chart to be the anomaly (with a fairly straightforward explanation that probably doesn’t need writing out):







The other model with a chart I found interesting is the blue Neptune, which of course received some scrutiny for some fractional batch having a minor (and apparently temporary) color bleed incident - it’s I think the only model showing a steady and sustained climb in price since release







EDIT: worth noting that we have zero information on product supply per each model, to say much about resulting demand/price trends

For example, notice the Neptune has traded less than 1/3 the number of watches as the Tiffany; what this “means’ changes if Swatch issued only 1/3 the number of Neptunes as Tiffany, or instead issued 3X the number of Neptunes as Tiffany.

 

Wow, shout out to Neptune

 

Time&Tide partnered with @watchanalytics to “dive into how the MoonSwatch collaboration with Omega has impacted Swatch.”

Worth going there to see the graphics and details, but:

“March 26th, 2022 was a landmark day for watchmaking. No, it was not the day a new escapement was born or a new material realised. It was the day a monumental collaboration, unlike anything we have seen before, debuted for sale. And … the yield of the collaboration, and the attention and traffic it commanded, clearly displayed the potential for bringing more and more people into watch buying….

Among the 19 brands owned, Omega, Longines and Tissot represent 65% of the group’s sales while the remaining brands cover only a minority part. In particular, Swatch went from being the 18th brand in terms of sales in 2017 to 27th place in 2021, covering now only 0.6% of the market.

The MoonSwatch collaboration … opened a door that most had never been able to walk through. Sure, some may dismiss the MoonSwatch as a consented plastic knockoff or homage. For others, this was a moment to own a faithful yet fun interpretation of one of Swiss watchmaking’s most beloved icons. … It speaks to those who love Swatch, who love Omega, and especially to those who have been sidelined from luxury by fiscal constraints.”



I wish the post had gone further into more interesting analytics (there’s some analysis of the Swatch Group stock prices, but not eg internet traffic, etc.)

But more so, I’m still deeply skeptical that Swatch did this primarily focused on some “revival” of Swatch Watch in any material way intended to turn the Swatch Group numbers materially.

Ironically, the argument for why that is not Swatch Group’s focus/intent is based on the same information @watchanalytics is using to argue the opposite conclusion:

Why think Swatch Group is focused primarily on the health of Swatch Watch when it only represents a tiny fraction of the Group’s revenue, and is under such direct and increasing pressure from smartwatch domination?

To me, those facts just as plausible (and from my armchair more reasonably) instead suggest that Swatch Group would be at least as interested if not mostly interested in buttressing the brand that represents over 60% of the group’s revenues and is proving immune to the pressures of smartwatch competition into the future.

Not that a perk to Swatch Watch isn’t welcome, but is Swatch Group seriously maneuvering primarily to revitalize low-end quartz wristwatches. I doubt it.

 

I agree, especially at a moment where luxury watches are experiencing such a resurgence in terms of mainstream attention, interest, and investment. It's sometimes said that the challenges in buying a Rolex will benefit Omega because would-be Rolex customers will simply head over to the Omega boutique, but that assumes (non-WIS) people are widely familiar with Omega. I'm not so sure that's the case, particularly among younger consumers -- and as @cvalue13 has pointed out, millennials (and their younger Gen-Z counterparts) are an increasingly larger share of the luxury market.

My partner and I were talking about Omega's marketing approach the other day and it seems a bit outdated. From my armchair, it appears that the biggest public marketing arms for Omega are the James Bond films and the Olympic games; both seem stuck in a different era. Sure, James Bond movies make big bucks and all of that, but I think they hold particular appeal to men (yes, just men) of a certain age and generation who may have some associated nostalgia with the franchise. Something similar can be said about the lunar landing, though space is cool regardless of age. And space exploration is back in the public eye with Musk and Bezos' ongoing measurement contest, not to mention the USA's newly minted Space Force. For whatever reason (perhaps pandemic-related, perhaps due to the rise of streaming services, perhaps something else), the Olympics also don't seem to be as big of a cultural draw as they were even just a few years ago. Neither are Cindy Crawford or George Clooney or even Michael Phelps.

Other brands have made recent overtures to younger audiences in big ways -- Tiffany & Co and their hiring of Beyonce and Jay Z comes to mind. There's a great write-up in WSJ about that that you can read here:

How Alexandre Arnault Is Shaking Things Up at Tiffany & Co.: Jay-Z and Beyoncé! Supreme! Hailey Bieber! One year into LVMH’s takeover of the American jewelry company.

Rolex, of course, doesn't need to do too much since celebrities like Lebron James, Justin Bieber, Kendall Jenner, and so many others are routinely seen wearing them -- they bask in earned media. Same with Patek and AP these days. But Omega isn't really in that conversation. Seems about time that Omega (and the Swatch Group generally) start moving in that direction, and I'd bet the MoonSwatch is their first big step (giant leap? Moon pun!).

 

Wait, are you saying that Honor Blackman is no longer the Rolex Ambassador?

 

From Swatch Instagram:

 

That amounts to a big ‘screw you’ to the people for whom their anointed stores are impractically located . . .

Ironically I found this Swatch Irony chronograph in one of my many drawers of watches and I got it going for the cost of a battery.

 

That’s a bit of a trek without a guarantee that they would have them in stock. I doubt they do holds for customers.

 

You already decided you didn't want one anyway, right?

Not sure this completely rules out on line sales at some point though, although people appear to be taking it that way.