Chopard

MTF
[PuristS]
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Self Q&A

Raymond,

All your questions and even the answers are reasonable.

We have all gone through the same exercise or will do so soon enough.

First, the generalisations:

Apart from artificially induced rarity of watches made from unobtainium or a few brands that strangle the production numbers, no watch will gain or maintain it's new retail price during one lifetime. Van Gogh made no money from his paintings but now...

To make money, second-hand dealers give you half the original price, if you're lucky.

To make money, auction houses take a 35% and upwards commission of the already depressed market value.

The market value is $1 more than the buyer is willing to pay and $1 less than the seller is willing to accept. Who blinks first loses.

Specifics  

Chopard L.U.C line is too new (only 20 years) to qualify as 'antique' and barely makes 'vin-tage' (20 years) to employ high bidding at auctions or limited production for selected models, to maintain pricing.

The L.U.C XPS Fairmined RG was a limited edition but in countries without Chopard own boutiques and dealers with special relationships, a few may slip out. That is speculation and I don't know the dealer at HEL airport.

With the Geneva Seal, this L.U.C XPS Fairmined RG has the full decoration treatment. The dial is superb as described by many others.

It's on my Top-5 shortlist of Chopard watches.

There is a premium on the price of 10% for the charitable cause and that may be the reason many "buyers" won't do so if they only consider the costs. Of course, the high taxes in Finland adjusted plus any consideration by the dealer, may make this a moot point but people still fixated on the MRSP. Why am I paying more for Fairmined gold?

I'm preparing an article on "responsible luxury".

If you rarely 'flip' or sell your watches, then the secondhand value is unimportant. Treat the losses as the rental costs for the watch.

The fact that you could not bring yourself to sell your watches could mean one of two things (or more):

1) You really want to leave it to your family.

2) You still see the watch in $ terms even if not used for some time. If a watch is not on your wrist, is it still a wrist watch? if it is not a wrist watch, does it have any value?

I agree that reducing or consolidating watch numbers for one expensive one does save on servicing costs.

Bottom line: You acquire the watches for your pleasure. Really, the value to the kids are a separate and unimportant factor after you have shrugged off your mortal coil.

They would focus on one special watch that means a lot because it was "Dad's Watch Left to Me".

If your pleasure includes an element of $ value, that should be factored into your choices.

If your pleasure puts resale value at the bottom of priority, don't worry about it now and leave it to your descendants to figure out.

Regards,

MTF


L.U.C XPS Fairmined Rose Gold