Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman1957
Tom, I assume you paid the retail price for the watch and that price was or near 29k USD, RIght. Do you see 29k of workmanship and components in the watch? I do not. All I can see is Richemont copying some of the old classics and putting 5 figure price tags on them and cleaning up becuase as most know there are huge development, R & D and design costs in any new product but not Richemont they just pocket the money they should have spent on Design and R & D or price the watch cheaper, Richemont is charging what the public will bear.
Yes it is about the history of Panerai but did Richemont have anything to do with that Panerai history? No. As for Richemont and Panerai history, all I see Richemont doing is competing against the Panerai of yesteryear. And it is not much of a competition since all they can do is copy, copy and copy again. If they want to stick with the watches of Panerai history then why not design some that compete with those of yesteryear instead of just copy copy copy. Is that the best Richemont has, what do they do for the 2011 collection, sit around the boardroom and decide what watches of yesteryear to copy and then settle on a 5 figure price tag for a copy watch? Is that the best Richemont has to offer?
I lost fatih in Richemont a few months ago and have sold off my other 4 PAM's. The only Richemont made pieces I own now is a Pre 9A, complete with a 6500caseback and a t-swiss-t dial and a 9B as my daily beater. I also have a mint 201/A that is complete as well as a very rare complete non-matching 202/A Marina Militare that comes with a invoice copy from Panerai Firenze to the Italian Navy. This watch was one of 17 202/A Marina Militare delivered to the Italian Navy.
As for collectors, I personally believe the only pieces worth collecting are the Pre A9, the Pre A2 and any of the 5218 series Pre-V's and a few of the new models, very few.. But then I just recently had the cash transferred for the newly acquired 202/A and yes at the time, it felt like I was paying for a gold watch with diamonds.
I feel the collectors should be careful or they could see their collection devalued in these newer pieces. Look at just recently, the recently released 26 and 28 as well as others like the 127 and the 317. They were all selling at a premium but they did not hlod their value as the 26 and 28 are below 10k now and even a 127 recently sold for 12,500 USD with no box nor papers with it. The 317 that has ran in the range of 31k to 33k on average are now selling for less than 30k in most cases. Incidently the 317 is a watch that should be a modern PAM day collectors item but even it is losing it's value ever so slightly. So why would collectors buy the more modern pieces only to see their investment decrease in value over the next few years?
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i know im speaking a little bit late, but i just purchased a 341 myself.. great watch, yes its pricey, but so are most rolex's, we pay thousands for steel.. who would of thought... do you have any idea how much it costs to develop one of a kind equipment to make the parts on this 341? do you realize the updates this one has compared to its 1950's counter part? do you understand that when only making 500 watches then trashing the line and never making one again is very expensive to do, unlike rolex, panerai could have made a few hundred thousand and sold them for 10 to 15 grand a piece and made ten times more money... i think the new prices of subs are redic IMHO. i own one but doesnt mean i go around bashing rolex just bc they charge for their product. panerai only made 500 of these and their not steel, their TI... more pricey than steel. 8 days power reserve in house mov. everything this watch has is quality with minor updates to that of the original... panerai didnt just come out and say "hey lets copy an old design and spend hundreds of thousands to re create and produce one prototype to start 500 pieces only... you would be in the right if panerai produced many many of these and still charged 29k... panerai sells well by itself. these limited items they launch are not the watches that will make or break them... they depend on making most of their money from the average consumer who will spend 5 to 8 grand on a panerai... they just come out with limited lines for die hard collectors and sometimes i think they do it to just see if they can actually pull it off...
you can have anger towards richemont which is fine, but dont go around thinking they made this one watch and sold it for 29k to rip 500 people off... if they wanted to rip ppl off they would have made more and sold to more at the same price... you will never see this watch again... it is donezo, anyone who could even get on a list to buy one at MSRP is very very very lucky... my SS daytona, that in the rolex world is one of the more harder watches to come by but imagine if rolex only made 500 daytonas period, how much do you think they would sell them for? ALOT. it may be a re produced watch, but that doesnt mean is was easy to bring it back to life 60 years later.. with upgrades i might add..