Patek Philippe

We were shopping @ Costco in St Louis yesterday.  The store has a YG 24 for sale.  Open papers on the warranty card.  My wife feels that this cheapens the brand and so do I.

The 24 is a dime a dozen piece... to me, it makes no difference where that watch is purchased, as long it is authentic... it is usually quartz, etc, who cares?

If a 5070P were in the case, well, different story.

The 24 is there because it is such a pedestrian PP model, IMHO.

If I'm a female customer that just purchased a 24 from and AD and sees the same watch at Costco, I'd care.  My wife and sister in law certainly did, and they both wear a 24.

AD's discount that watch VERY heavily... probably more than Costco! On our watch-journeys, we have all seen a watch we bought for sale, cheaper, somewhere... either at an AD, the gray market... This message has been edited by Mostel on 2011-05-30 16:10:35

I seem to recall that this came up a few years ago and further research by a few individuals suggested that Costco was not an authorized dealer, implying that the warranty would not stand.  I don't know for sure if this is firmly the case but a quick check of the website yielded no results for Patek Philippe and so perhaps your sighting was a one-off.  I do agree with you about the effect it would have on the brand, and, given the demographic targeted by PP in its advertisements*, I suspect they would agree with you as well.

*To PP the 24 is a PP like any other in its collection and any degradation of brand value (I would hope and expect!) would be taken extremely seriously regardless of whether the watch was quartz or mechanical, steel or precious metal.

I am continually amazed when members of this forum still believe that Patek cares at all about this sort of thing...

If Patek really wanted to control their products, they would do something about the rampant gray marketing of their watches... of which this is just another example... How would they stop the gray marketing? By checking the movement and case numbers of the watches that are being sold at Gray Markets, then cutting off the AD's that originally had the watches... But PP does not do that. Why? Because PP knows that this is all part of the bottom line, which--I'm sorry--matters more than this silliness about 'the next generation.' Unless it's the next generation of Gray Market sellers. This message has been edited by Mostel on 2011-05-30 16:18:11 This message has been edited by Mostel on 2011-05-30 16:25:30

I agree! It seems like it would be easy to cut off the gray sellers if they wanted to (via the ADs that support them).

If I saw a ref. that I wanted  at a price I was willing to pay I'd get one.  Though I doubt you'll see very hard to get models. 

Publicly all the big names bemoan the gray market, privately they all need it & use it to shift stock. You are right it would be relatively easy for any of the low volume/high value manufacturers to cut off the gray market, as I say it will never happen because they feed it to move on stock, either slow moving items or unpopular items, or sometimes just to turn cashflow around quickly.

 Its just another example of how much smelly cow dung exists in many markets where the promotional blurb is not really quite correct...of course non of the manufacturers would ever admit it publicly, the swiss mafia is a closed shop!

Please note that your comments are regarded as offensive (not just that post).

Please have a look back at the rules out there:  patek.watchprosite.com=

Thank you for your understanding.

Dje This message has been edited by Dje on 2011-06-02 22:46:25