Quote:
Originally Posted by CurtEgerer
Jim brings up a good point about servicing costs (for any mechanical watch). It is very expensive. Yes, there are those who say I've owned mine for 20 years and have never done anything to it and it runs. Well, your car may run for a long time too without doing any oil changes.
Anyway, I've often wondered what Rolex's profit margin is on, say, a Submariner? The watch has been around forever with little change. What could it possibly cost to manufacturer one of these things in the volume they're pumping them out? $250? $500? $750, maybe? There's nothing inherently expensive in the materials used. Not bad for a $10,000 watch!  |
One of the misconceptions here is that Rolex watches look much the same as they always have, therefore the new ones must be substantially the same as the old ones. That's actually incorrect. For example, I doubt there are any parts on a modern submariner that are interchangeable with parts from a submariner of the 70s or 80s. The cases are different, the movements are different, the dials are different, the bezels are different, the crystal is different, the bands are made differently, etc. They may look the same to someone not familiar with them but it is simply not the case. Rolex has a history of making numerous small changes to evolve the precision and reliability of their watches. You have to probably be a watch geek to know this, because it's not something you'll find in their advertising materials. If you subscribe to any of the major watch magazines, you can learn all about this, as they delve into the details when they review a watch, and they also cover major watch expositions where things like this get discussed.
One other, frequent misconception is that a mechanical watch such as a Rolex is always going to be inferior in time keeping to a quartz watch, even the cheapest one. You might be surprised to find that many watches with quartz movements are not all that accurate, over time. You can also adjust a Rolex to keep more accurate time than you think. Any watch will keep time at a different rate depending on the position of the watch, but those rate differences can average out in the normal wearing of a watch. The last new Rolex that I purchased was an Explorer 1 about 15 years ago and I wore that watch continuously, only taking it off periodically to clean it. It neither gained nor lost any time. It was the most reliable and accurate watch I've ever owned. Not all of them are like that, but that sort of accuracy is possible. And, a knowledgeable watch owner can also adjust the long-term rate of their watch, if they take it off at night and experiment with the position that they leave the watch in overnight. Any rate deviations that occur during the day while it is being worn, can often be balanced out by rate changes for a particular resting position of the watch at night.
You also made a comment about materials not being expensive. Rolex is one of the few manufacturers that have gone so far as to make their own materials. You might be surprised to find that they have tweaked the alloys of stainless steel that they use, or invented new formulations for rose gold that are longer lasting, etc. They never were known for spending money on hand finishing their movements, as those would never be seen, but you could never say that they didn't use anything but the best materials available to them.