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Originally Posted by rolexandlange
I really don't think the Sterns care about the collectors with a handful of Pateks in a watchbox sitting in a safe at home in the Bay Area. Just look in general at the industry ignoring the Bay Area completely. I love watches but I've got too much going on to fly to LA or Vegas just for a watch. Patek might care about those with collections in bank vaults who support their auction prices. The brand wants to be worn by celebrities at sporting events or worn by footballers moreso than the guy who started his own business and made a few bucks to enjoy for himself with a handful of Pateks in San Francisco. If you weren't born with it and are below the level of punting around with the Arnauds (a la zachattach, "buying from Thierry since I was 12 years old!") and summering in villas at Lake Como, I don't think you're going to get much from Geneva. That's just my impression of the brand, in general, but to each their own. Maybe if you extensively whore out your collection on social media and have lots of followers they might care? Unclear. Sad times for Shreve losing Lange and Patek in 2022. If you're considering the alternative, I checked out the Patek closet at Tiffany's in San Francisco and Alex told me it's a 5-10 year wait any Patek watch from Tiffany's.
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It’s not just about having a list of clients they care about and the rest who they don’t. It’s about actually maintaining Veblen good status for their product, which is very difficult. If they would genuinely want to fulfil the wishes of all their Uber-collectors they wouldn’t be limiting rare handcraft dome clocks and pocket watches to piece uniques and Calatravas to 3-5 per model. Even massive collectors get (maybe) one of those assigned every few years even though many of them would gladly buy one or several of every single thing that leaves the factory.
Telling people with enough money to buy anything that they have to jump through hoops to get something has proven to be a good business model for PP. I’m assuming that they’re just continuing on that path.
At some point in every PP collector’s journey there will (if one’s as important to the AD as one assumes) be events and trips and contacts with the PP AD relation/client relation manager for one’s own region. I know for a fact that establishing a personal link with these can be very helpful if one’s AD gets cut off.