I don't think anyone would buy a watch like this because they wanted to keep accurate time.

There are in fact high-end luxury watches that keep unusually accurate time. I own one - an Omega Speedmaster Skywalker X-33. It has a thermocompensated quartz movement (TCXO) and so is accurate to ~10 seconds a year, compared to the ~15 seconds a month of a normal quartz movement.

The Bulova Accutron is also very accurate, as the name suggests -- around five seconds a year -- and is much less expensive than the Omega.

The fact is that most luxury watches are mechanical; the Skywalker X-33 is an oddity in that it's a luxury quartz, which barely exists as a market segment. Mechanical watches are not as accurate, with standard COSC deviation being -4 to +6 seconds... per DAY.

-Other luxury watch companies also made forays into quartz back in the day - say, Rolex Oysterquartz for a prime example. I believe Vacheron Constantin also made one at some point.

Modern mechanical watches can do significantly better than COSC, by the way - I have owned an Omega Planet Ocean (c.2500C) for a decade now, for the first seven or eight years it ran consistently 0.7 seconds/day fast - so I just adjusted it back a minute or two every time I unscrewed the crown to correct the date.

Now it is due for a service soon - but still within a couple of seconds a day.

Back in the day, when quartz seemed like it would take over the world... how many people nowadays know about or want an Oysterquartz? ;)

The point I was trying to make is that probably one of the LOWEST selling points of a luxury watch is accuracy -- there are far more accurate, electronic solutions in the watch space. I love mechanical watches, but I hold no illusions as to how they compare to more modern technology as timepieces. :)

Oh, I want one - an OysterQuartz, that is - primarily to show off to Rolex enthusiasts who thump their chests saying 'Rolex NEVER made a quartz watch!' (As if that is something to be ashamed of; an accurate quartz movement is also impressive in its own right, IM(EE, digital/RF)HO.

I do agree 100%, though - much as I love my mechanical watches, if I happen to be in a situation which requires exact knowledge of the current time, I simply look at my HP Z3801A.

A mechanical wristwatch serves a different purpose - and in addition being good enough for everyday life, much as vinyl is plenty good enough to have us enjoy music, even if there are more high fidelity-solutions out there. Vinyl has its own intangible advantages; as do mechanical watches.

Genuinely curious (after looking up the price tag) - do you think the accuracy justifies the cost?

The accuracy is not the only reason I bought it, it's a very capable timepiece, but it surely helps. During the eclipse I used it to get 60 second warnings of the start and end of totality.

A good fountain pen is anachronistic as well. They (pens and mechanical watches) are not casual goods just to be used, they are luxury goods, even if some of them are quite affordable.

These are pure Veblen goods, with a nostalgic slant on trivial practical utility, used to display purchasing power in a capitalist economy where purchasing power is considered a proxy for high social status.

In fact they're more like cult power objects - what anthropologists call fetish objects, which confer an implied cultural blessing on their owners.

I own a watch from a brand of comparable quality and complexity expertise as Vacheron Constantin. I don't use it display purchasing power - I almost never actually wear it because I like to wear my Apple Watch most of the time. When I do wear it, I am almost never around anyone who would recognize the brand of the watch. Essentially no one I personally know is aware of how much I paid for the watch, no one has ever commented on the watch specifically, and I do not bring it up in conversation even when I wear it.

In other words, I own the watch because I enjoy it for its own sake. It's a beautiful piece of handcrafted machinery. It's not supposed to have superlative practical utility, nor does any serious watch house actually strive for that. These timepieces are a form of art, and whether or not you appreciate them has no bearing on the fact that their manufacturers are under no illusions of their practicality.

Don't generalize your perception of the entire industry based on your experience or preconception of a relatively diminutive portion of its consumers. There are people who buy Rolexes because it's a good way to show off money, but there are many other people who honestly buy them because Rolex genuinely manufactures high quality mechanical watches. My experience as a collector is that most people do not buy these to show off. Rationally, a Vacheron Constantin is an inefficient vehicle for doing so - it looks pretty, but virtually no one will recognize it nor even comment on it.

Yeah... or the owner just appreciates horology and the cost is less meaningful to them because they are wealthy. I own a cheap mass produced mechanical watch. Its about ten times more expensive than the cheapest Casio with date and time. But that's not a lot of money to me compared to the pleasure of seeing the mechanism work as I drink a coffee and start my day. Mechanical time is a good remi der time is passing in the real world. The abstraction is closer to your own existence because of the motion. There is more to the experience of owning a thing than the thing itself. Computers are wholly uninteresting devices for calculating flips in bits, pushed and marketed by the dreggs of capitalist society. No normal person needs enough computation to model nuclear explosions in their pocket. Obviously.

> These are pure Veblen goods

I collect and restore fountain pens, and I have to disagree. There is surely a segment of the market that this fits well (Montblanc, for instance), but the majority of the fountain pen market is < $100.

For example, I have three pens with me today: a TWSBI Vac700, a Pilot Falcon, and a Sheaffer Snorkel. The TWSBI and Pilot are modern and cost $70 and $110 respectively, but the Snorkel is vintage (1958) and I paid $35 for it.

Excellent modern fountain pens can be had for <$20.

A psychologist said that for some people these kind of objects are a modern ethical way of owning a slave - someone dedicates one year of it's life to meticulously create an object that you then buy, essentially being your slave for a year.

The fundamental difference between slavery and employment is that employment is a) compensated and b) opt-out. So it'd be better to say that for some people these objects are a way to hire someone to do something for them, which doesn't sound all that profound, does it.

The point was that the something to do for them was waste one year of your time. I'm not saying that the other party didn't get anything out of it, just that the whole point of the exercise was to control someone with your money, and waste their time, just like the rich people which buy a bottle of Crystal and then they just spill it onto the floor.

Are you seriously saying that the master watchmaker wasted _his_ time making the watch?

That's ridiculous, he (or she) doesn't do it just for the money, the work itself is satisfying entirely separate from the monetary compensation. I'm sure he could find a job with pretty much the same income but less responsibility and therefore less stress if he felt like it but then he wouldn't have the satisfaction of building such an object.

I don't make watches but I do write some moderately complex software (I try to avoid it being complicated). It pays me the money that I use to feed my family but that is far from the only reason I do it. It is a satisfying endeavour in itself, sometimes just to see the customer's delight in using the finished article and sometimes my own delight in achieving a neat and efficient solution.

Back to physical things, I used to be a test equipment designer and the one thing I regret about moving into software is that I can no longer show my creations to people like my wife and have her see even a slight glimmer of what I have achieved.

That idea doesn't really seem at all comparable to slavery, and I'm curious which specific psychologist has ever staked a claim like that. It seems utterly inane and insulting.

Sounds like a psychologist of the armchair variety to me.

What psychologist said that? That doesn't seem coherent.

One of the most useful things i've learn in my business degree is how price has no floor or ceiling price when we are talking about non-commdity products

Luxury good pricing also doesn't follow the supply / demand curve. In some cases higher prices actually increase demand because that signals greater quality and exclusivity.

It's better to think of these sorts of watches as art. You don't own a watch like this because you have no other recourse for accurately telling the time. You own it because you appreciate it, like a Rothko or Pollock, or a Barcelona Chair if you're into that sort of thing too.

Lady Gaga doesn't wear a meat dress just to stay warm. Just think about the craftsmanship behind the dress. It's art that is elevated, transcended beyond mere mortal concerns of food.

I did like the pun. However I'm going to argue with you.

You can pick up a good mechanical Seiko watch with a tried and tested automatic movement for $100. When properly adjusted these can keep good time and do not need batteries. They stay wound simply by wearing them.

They have a sweep second hand (not a "tick-tick" 1hz hand like quartz watches). There is no need to change a battery. There is a lot of practical utility in that. In addition watches can be beautiful objects and a pleasure to wear.

anachronistic depends on what we are looking for, I for example just got my first mechanical watch, I know it's not accurate as a quartz but that's not the point. I'd like to think about it from a nostalgic point of view, from the days when not everything had a computer inside.