Independents

ei8htohms
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they are only comparable on the surface

Hi Nick,

I apologize if my previous post seemed a little curt.  I was short on time, but I also felt a little insulted on Roger and Philippe's behalf that you would claim that the prices of their watches are not significantly influenced by the costs of manufacturing them.  I find this to be ridiculous in the extreme. 

Tim Jackson has ably laid out below some of the differences in the production costs these two small workshops incur, and I'd throw in the complete case into the equation as well as I believe Roger is making that also.  Last I heard, he was making each and every wheel in his workshop and it wouldn't even surprise me if he made most or even all of the screws (I hope for his sake he's found suppliers for SOME of them at least!).  The amount of in-house labor associated with the production of the escapement alone must be staggering.  Only a very small handful of independents actually make their own escapements, and Philippe Dufour is not one of them.

There are huge differences in the production costs associated with the three pieces under discussion and economies of scale come into play significantly not only for the parts made in-house, but also for the ones that are purchased from outside suppliers.  It is plainly obvious to me that these factors significantly affect the final price of the products. There may be some instances where one can well and truly say that the price differences are not any kind of reflection on the costs of manufacturing the item in question, but it's not easy to come up with a particularly demonstrative case study IMHO. 

A while back when Bell & Ross and Sinn were offering remarkably similar watches at pretty dramatically different prices, the argument might've applied well. But what it would've demonstrated even more dramatically is the extent to which the prices were the result of marketing costs as well as other sales-side expenses, since Sinn was selling directly from the factory with no distribution channels to speak of and Bell & Ross was trying to advertise and sell worldwide.   It might not have made the price differential "worth it" to an educated consumer with no attachment to either brand name, but at least one could understand why the prices were so different, it wasn't completely determined by "what people are willing to pay". 
_john