This little assemblage of $500 in parts is worth far more to me than the $8,000 that it's ostensibly worth. It has been there with me for so many of the most important events in my life:

My wedding: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/3763369152/in/album...

My newborn first child: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/7515534464/in/album...

Epic Utah adventure with my best friends: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7247/7087962645_3d48ebb50b_z.j...

Filthy from the craziest day where we drove 250 miles of rough off-road trail in one day in the Owyhee Desert of Northern Nevada: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/20220695396/in/albu...

Nah, my emotions work differently, and for physical objects I prefer stuff that is easily replaceable.

Also I'm pretty much Scrooge McDuck.

Btw, you should start a blog!

I don't blog much but I have done a few stories for Expedition Portal:

http://expeditionportal.com/expedition-journal-the-owhyee-de...

Here's the story of importing the truck:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/103685-Rocinan...

And a story about a Utah trip:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/111216-Utah-Ro...

Its a reference to the colonial days in the Caribbean. The folks who had money made if from agriculture and used the Land Rover to transport goods and traverse the rough terrain.

I do think there is something very cool about the engineering that goes into watches, and they are somewhat unique in the way they combine both engineering and more traditional artistry like hand finishing or enamel/lacquered dial work.

I should probably point out in case there is some confusion that I most certainly don't work for Rolex or the Swiss watch industry even though I sound somewhat like a shill in these comments.

Yes, I appreciate that, and I do too! Besides, at times I need to do some status signalling too. No disrespect intended.

I think you are being a bit harsh. You can get some perfectly fine mechanical watches at the 500 euro mark. Brands like Certina, Hamilton, Seiko and (to a lesser extent) Victorinox have several models in that price range which are perfectly well made.

For 3k you are either looking for something extremely fancy or you are already paying for 2k for the brand. Below a few brands, some very old, all of them use swiss made mechanical automatic movement. I don't remember having been in an airport and not having seen Rolex advertisement. But someone is paying for this advertisement. And again, if you buy from a dealer he may have something like a 100% mark up.

http://www.archimede-uhren.de/

https://shop.laco.de/

http://www.ebay.de/usr/erkahund

https://www.steinhartwatches.de

http://www.stowa.de

Here is an estimate of Rolex cost vs price and it is close what I suspected. " by gathering publicly available prices for similar products, we can estimate that the production cost of an average stainless steel Rolex watch retailing at USD 5,000 is less than USD 1,000. Maybe even less than USD 750."

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-actually-cost-Rolex-t...

I don't say don't buy one. But understand that you pay 80% of the cost for the brand. If you need the brand, buy it. If you just like the mechanics you can get a very good watch for a tiny fraction of the price.

I have a Kazakh-American friend who did some contract work as a pipeline welder in Kazakhstan who told me all of the watch shop windows in Astana would empty out every time large oil/gas deals were being signed.

This segment of the luxury goods market is indeed very interesting.