AV
284
Sharing my personal experience from US ...
I ordered 5980 form local AD in Oct 2006 when first announced and was quoted MSRP of $32,800 USD with an asterisk to indicate prices subject to change upon delivery. I did receive mine 19 months later just before May 2008 increase to $44,100, so increase was 34.4% during that period. Since I received my watch in April, my price from AD was the current MSRP of $38,300 so my increase was only 17% over initial quote. I know that part of delay was related to need to "recall" production due to issue with chrono seconds hand which was beyond the normal expectation of Patek. I suspect that it that situation had not occurred more 5980s would have been shipped at lower prices. Also, from a previous posting in this forum it appears that several, I don't know exactly how many, have been shipped and recently delivered in the US market.
I emphasize with your frustration with not being able to obtain the watch that you desire greatly at a "reasonable" price, but such experiences are likely to occur with many high demand luxury goods. Recently I learned that after waiting for 3.5 years that I would not be able to obtain a new high end sports car for a special birthday. Basically the story that I got 3 years later was that I had to purchase a pre-owned model first before I could be considered to be on list to purchase a new car. Very, very disappointing until I starting thinking about all the alternative fun things I could do and purchase instead with the unspent disposal income (plus adding to my savings), so not be able to get what I wanted turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Cheers and live well!
PS moderator I understand if you edit my $ amounts if I'm in violation of forum rules in regard to price discussions.
This message has been edited by AV on 2008-06-08 13:20:45
This a question for any important person into PATEK, please answer serious.
Seriously, if there were reasonnable answers to your questions
Sometimes going gray market is better
