I'm not disparaging Rolex and I do understand that they manufacture everything in house. An analogy would be Porsche deciding in 1963 that they were going to continue on with the 356 exclusively. No 911, no 996, etc. Just the 356. Yes, they would make tweeks to the design/materials and improvements to the manufacturing process, but 60 years later they were still selling essentially the same 356. Compared to the development and tooling costs of the path Porsche chose, the manufacturing/engineering costs would be almost negligible. A Rolex is basically '356 technology' and that's a big part of the attraction. So I say the cost to produce a Rolex (one without gold, diamonds, etc.) is only in the hundreds of dollars. They aren't handmade - these are production watches with around a million made per year (they're even sold via Walmart these days). The value is in the name. They are awesome watches and the resale speaks for itself.
