As to the general “Rolex reservations” system, one of my well-heeled friends has a thing for Rolex. And he’s encountered the reality that to get the real goodies, you have to work your way up the ladder buying lesser models from a particular dealer to “earn” your way up that dealer’s permitted-to-buy list
Ferrari has exactly the same system for their non-entry level cars. I could show up w $1M in green cash money and they’d show me the door, not a car.
And a good deal of this is not about generalized snobbines. Especially during the peak post-covid craze, nearly any new Rolex was worth more on the secondary market than what it cost for new. With the relevant bit being that Rolex dealers always sell at MSRP. So until very recently, the purchase of a new Rolex effectively came with a side order of a bag of free cash.
Rolex very much hates the image and the sour taste that comes with watches being sold to flippers. They want the watches to go to owners/wearers - people that become customers for life. So with a high demand, tiny volume product, they have created inadvertently (because all of the dealers until very recently) a set of similar but not identical systems to put the product into the hands of people with a demonstrated commitment to the brand.
Because they’ve left this problem to the dealers to solve, the system that has developed feels deeply unfair. And also doesn’t work, as any quick browse through the reseller sites will show. Plenty of flippers getting their hands on watches. No shortage of dealers making cozy deals with friends to sell out the back door and get a share of that over-MSRP cash. Snotty salespeople that start their pitch by telling you that nothing you are looking at is for sale and that nothing that you actually want is available to order either. As the watch market crashes, they’re fixing the problem, but if prices come down much more and manufacturing volumes rise, we’ll be back in the pre-covid world where for the most part you could walk in and buy from the counter, often with a 10% discount.
Ferarri does a better job with this. If you are allocated a car and you sell it before you put on a certain amount of miles, you will never buy another Ferarri new nor be able to take advantage of their service facilities. In the case of their especially exclusive models, you may have to sign an agreement giving Ferarri first right of refusal on a buy back within a certain number of years.
Other watch brands are in even tighter positions than Rolex, but since Rolex is (relatively) affordable, made in volume, and sold everywhere, they are the brand that turns away the most people, and the most people that don’t already know the game.
I very badly would like to buy one of Xhevdet Rexhepi’s Minute Inerte watches, but aside from the fact that I am starting to value the concept of retirement more than toys, to even be considered as a buyer you need to show up at his workshop in Geneva and become known as a friend of the brand. A bunch of the hot independent watchmakers are going that route now.
I’ve heard that Ferrari and Hermès also limit sales of particularly desirable goods only to existing customers. Want a Birkin bag? You better have already bought a bunch of lesser bags. Want to buy one of the 399 Ferrari Enzo models? You’ll only receive an invitation to do so if you’ve bought certain other models.
I was going to mention that. On a somewhat lesser level a fellow engineer and I went to a local dealership to see the Ferrari they had advertised. We were both 40 something, dressed nice and I drove up in my late model BMW. As we pulled up we could see the Ferrari front and center right by the door. A salesman standing there watched us get out and walk in the door. We walked around it a bit and I reached for the door handle. It was locked. The salesman never even offered to open it. He knew.
This hasn’t been true for over a decade. The Chinese factories are producing clone Rolex movements now. The only way to tell a super clone from a genuine watch is to open it up - the movement architecture is the same but he quality of finishing (for the moment anyway) isn’t. And the counterfeiters have not yet been able to clone the free-sprung balance; the clones still have a regulator.
But I bet they’ll have that issue licked in a couple years as well.
A superclone Rolex can cost almost $1000. The factories making these watches are VERY good. They often make their own brands as well.
I always thought that “dead beat” is when the second hand moves quickly to the next number and just stops dead for an instant. It does not “retreat” a tiny bit like most watches with an escapement do. That tiny difference makes for a most satisfying watch to watch.
Are most people buying those fake Rolexes spending that much, though? Especially when buying a watch from the stereotypical street vendor, I really doubt they’re spending more than a hundred bucks, though I’ve never tried to buy one myself.
There are plenty of shitters for well under $100.
The really high-end fakes are anywhere between $500 and $1,000 these days. And they are well-made enough that they would probably be worth that anyway if they had their own branding and marketing dialed in.
Not from a street vendor (that’s where you buy the $50 POS). There are entire online communities dedicated to counterfeit watches and the factories work with these communities to make each new generation better and better. People buy direct from the factories or from others who act as distributers.
(FYI I do not buy these fakes but I know many who do)
Yeah, generally. A watch with a dead beat complication adds a bunch of hardware to take the high frequency ticking energy from the escapement and store it up to release it once a second. I totally forget the French word for the mechanism for gradually storing frequent, small impulses to relase as one big infrequent impulse.
Indeed. Diamonds are the granddaddy of Veblen goods. A goodly dose of shiny shiny and the rest is just proving that someone has the money to pay that much. And now DeBeers will sell you a synthetic diamond, still at inflated prices.
The problem for Rolex was perhaps more the perception of unfairness. There is competition in the market for luxury goods. A guy in the market for a Rolex may well be tempted to put spare money into anything from a huge range of possible toys. One bad experience with snooty salesdroids and feeling taken advantage of is going to sour him for life. He won’t be back. Next time and the money goes into a home theatre upgrade. Or whatever.
The average buyer doesn’t buy diamonds directly from DeBeers. They may have a friendly relationship with a local jeweller or feel special taking a trip to the local Tiffany’s. Making a customer feel special and enjoying the experience is a huge part of repeat business.
I like to occasionally drop into the McLaren/Lamborghini dealer nearby. They are really friendly and happy to chat. They know there is zero chance I’m in the market for a car. That sort of attitude will always pay off.
Rolex and Ferrari are not comparable in most respects. Rolex is the Mercedes Benz of the watch market. Mass produced, easily recognisable, and a way of telling your neighbours and colleagues you can afford it. True high end they are not. But if you are in the market they are some of the first brands that come to mind. Rolex make something like 1.3 million watches a year. That is Toyota Corolla numbers.
I dislike the term “synthetic diamond”. I strongly prefer “lab grown”. A lab grown diamond is carbon in a crystaline structure. It is in no way not a real diamond.
We have had many threads about DeBeers and diamonds. In my experience, the majority of people cannot distinguish a real diamond from a well cut piece of glass. It might be possible to tell the difference between cubic zirconia and diamond without a small electrical tool, but I have never seen a jeweler do so. Mined diamonds have inclusions of other minerals. Lab grown diamonds do not. I have no idea how much of a magnifying tool you would need to see the difference.
Years ago, my parents returned from Italy and brought me a fake Gucci belt. They knew it was fake, but figured it’d be fine to hold my pants up. The buckle broke after a year or two.
When I worked with a security firm in the 90s, we basically had a “standing contract” with several large companies to search local flea markets for counterfeit products. Two of the products we found every single time we went out were (1) counterfeit Oakley sunglasses and (2) counterfeit Michael Jordan jerseys. From time to time, the (real) manufacturers came in to give us training on recognizing counterfeits.
One of the sure ways to recognize counterfeit sunglasses was to examine the hinges. The manufacturers would see a steady stream of returned sunglasses with broken hinges, and they could often identify the general area as a major source of counterfeits. They would then call us and ask us to step up the investigations. We often took weeks to develop contacts that would allow us to identify the supplier of the counterfeits, make a quantity buy, and then assist the police in making an arrest. All to stop the sale of $10 counterfeit sunglasses.
I have seen some Rolex “Pepsi” dials" in red and blue. They look like a toy watch to me but I guess they are popular?
Remontoire?
It signals that even though you have a Rolex, you don’t do Coke.
The Chinese counterfeiters have perfected it.