The difference between a $500 watch and a $50,000 one is often in the movement.

The ground floor of the Roger Dubuis factory, a top-tier manufacturer specializing in artistically extroverted timepieces, comes as a shock. This is one of Geneva's temples of haute horlogerie, a place where you'd expect the loudest sound to be the nearly inaudible cricket-song of a hand file against brass. But in this gigantic room blue- and white-coated technicians tend enormous, sleek machines. The air is redolent of oil and coolant, the ceiling is strung with pipes and conduit, and, here and there, warning signs and bundled cables testify to the huge amounts of electricity being consumed.

It's in a room like this that virtually every watch, from the humblest $100 automatic to the costliest limited-edition mechanical marvel, starts its life. The components are made by supersophisticated industrial robots--computer-guided automatic milling machines and spark-erosion fabricators. Which brings up a question: If this is so, why do watch prices range from less than the cost of a decent lunch to more than that of a comfortable suburban house?

The answer lies one floor up, where those raw parts undergo a dramatic transformation. Here the workers wear blue or white coats, too, but otherwise you've gone back in time. There are no robots, only tools that would be recognized by a watchmaker from a century ago. At one workbench, a woman uses a spinning boxwood disk to polish a delicate sine wave curve into the flanks of tiny brass-gear teeth. Nearby, another woman passes a movement repeatedly under a spinning disk charged with jeweler's rouge. As she does so rows of gleaming parallel stripes appear, like ripples in a frozen pond; these are the famous Geneva stripes, or Côtes de Genève, one of the signature movement decorations of the Genevan school of watch decorating. At yet another workstation, a young man works with painstaking slowness to give a tiny irregular movement bridge a beveled flank so that it catches light like the facet of a diamond. Each stroke is done with the care of a vascular surgeon stitching shut a hair-thin blood vessel.

These are the finisseurs (finishers), and it's their time-consuming, labor-intensive work that holds the answer to the question I posed earlier. The art of movement decoration has been part of watchmaking since the first table clocks were made during the Renaissance. Over the centuries national style developed: the reserved gilt-and–blued steel stolidity of English chronometers; the glitteringly sensuous Genevan approach; the superbly flat dress pocket watches of France, made as thin as possible so as to avoid disrupting the tailored fit of a waistcoat. Whatever the style, the finish of a watch movement was one of the purest expressions of a craftsman's pride, as in most cases nobody but the watchmaker himself even knew it was there.

Which is still the case: An appreciation of finishing is an insider passion even today. But a basic understanding of it can give the nonfanatic a new perspective on the price-value relationship of timepieces. Here are key points to remember.
Respect the robots. A modern CNC cutter or spark- erosion machine can turn out parts that without further finishing can be assembled into high-precision micromachines. The 'bots make possible entry-level mechanical watches from Swatch, Seiko, Citizen, Orient, and Timex of a precision that would have been impossible at such a price point (often less than $500) a few decades ago.
More finishing does not mean more accuracy. Top-grade hand-finishing is really the connoisseur's delight--beauty in the eye of the beholder who knows how to recognize it.

Quality of finish and price tag don't always parallel. If a particular model becomes a collectors' darling (like the stainless steel Rolex Daytona chronograph), or if a brand is just plain hot, price follows suit, even if the watch has little or no hand-finishing.
Precious metals and gemstones change the equation. A machine-finished watch with one or both can cost more than one that is hand-finished. Rarity and peculiar provenance can make a watch expensive regardless of finishing.
Absent those factors, higher price means more finishing. A $10,000 watch, as a rule, has more hand-finishing than a $6,000 one.
At the high end, it's the finisseur. His painstaking work bestows a pedigree price. A $1,000 chronograph with industrial finishing becomes a $25,000 one with hand-finishing.

Above that, complication comes into play. At the very high end, it drives price as much as finishing.
Finally, finishing is a three-tiered cake: basic (robot), machine, and hand. Mechanical watches that sell for less than $1,000 compose the base. They have little or no finish beyond that produced by the robots that manufacture the movement. In the middle ($1,000–$12,000) are mechanical models with varying degrees of machine-executed decorative finish: attractive beveling, blued-finish screws, gleaming countersinks, and engraving. Watches at the upper end of this layer also have some hand-finishing. In the top tier ($12,000 and up) hand-finishing starts to predominate. North of $20,000, you're getting the full-on haute treatment, horology's equivalent of haute couture. A premium-grade movement like Vacheron's caliber 1400, the caliber 215 from Patek, or the caliber 3120 automatic from Audemars Piguet, is a singular object: The hand-finishing means no two are exactly alike.

And the expense is huge. The finest haute horlogerie brands train most of their finisseurs in-house. Just learning how to bevel a flank properly can take anywhere from one to one-and-a-half years. Learning how to black-polish steel to a mirror finish, hand-engrave a rotor, or apply Geneva stripes of just the right depth requires a touch that has to be passed down directly--there are few manuals to go by.

It's fair to ask why a top-notch timepiece is so expensive. But when you multiply the number of hours it takes to hand-finish just one part--more than half a day in some cases--by the number of components in the movement and then by the number of years it takes to learn how to finish a piece of metal the size of a fly antenna, it's easier to see how the price starts to add up. It's the hundreds of hours of human skill concentrated in a cubic centimeter.

As investors continue to ponder whether the recovery in markets is sustainable, some may find that this is the time to put their money in an asset class that lasts.

The downturn has hit the luxury watch market hard. Luxury watch exports from Switzerland, where many of the premium brands are manufactured, have seen a decline of 25 percent over the past 9 months and the slump in demand was especially severe for watches made of precious metals.

However, the picture for "retail" luxury watches seems to bear little resemblance with the "collectible" luxury watch markets for brands such as Patek Philippe, Jaeger Le Coultre or Vacheron Constantin.

Sales of luxury collectible watches have been more resilient in the crisis and have shown buoyant demand as old and new investors fled into the prestigious asset class. Auctions held in May by auctioneers like Antiquorum, Sotheby's and Christie's clocked up a total of 90 million francs.

At a recent collectors' wristwatches auction held by auctioneer Antiquorum in Geneva, the sale of a platinum Patek Philippe set a new world record for its kind and sold for 114 000 Swiss francs ($114,000), while other auctions have seen prices for rare time pieces even reach the million dollar mark in the last several years.
Timing your purchase of a collectible watch may be more important than ever. Jon Cox from Kepler Capital Markets says collectible watches may also offer inflation protection as investors may be worried of higher price levels in the future. He adds that in some countries, a Rolex is even considered a currency.

Investors wishing to avoid the volatility of traditional asset classes, such as stocks or commodities, may find watches are a timeless investment. But as with many things in life, this investment is one for the long-term and requires investors’ patience: the value of collectible watches increases with time.

While age for most other asset classes is associated with depreciation and loss of value, a collectible watch investment ticks differently. The older a timepiece is, the more value it usually holds.

A word of caution for those who hope to make a quick profit: the market for collectible watches is very illiquid as these valuable timepieces are either passed on from one generation to the next or can only be bought and resold at auctions.

The return, and hence the retail price of a watch depends on many factors, beyond just the design and the quality.

Many experts cite the emotional value as being one of the most essential characteristics of a watches’ price: how much a luxury watch will fetch often purely depends on how much a buyer is willing to pay.

Tips for investing in collectible watches:
• Reputation is key: Buy a brand with a long history and excellent reputation
• Age does matter: Timepieces’ value increase with its age. Signs of wear and tear show a watch is authentic and has history, while a polishing only reduces a watches’ value
• Rarity drives valuation higher: The fewer time pieces of one series exist, the more it will be able to fetch in an auction
• Quality is King: As with other assets, the quality of the collectible watch, including its movement, are essential to its value

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The Swiss Haute Horlogerie Manufacture Girard-Perregaux has created exclusively for Latin America two special series of its successful model ww.tc.
This chronograph indicates the different times around the world. The system is based on two mobile discs around the dial: a ring representing the twenty-four hours is synchronised with the hour hand. The second ring displays the names of cities representing the different time zones. This personalized version of the ww.tc pays tribute to Latin America’s countries: two cities rings have been especially created, featuring major megalopolis of the region. A common city on each ring is Madrid which reflects the common cultural background. It is interesting to note that Caracas is listed with an unusual moved position that permits to read the 30 minutes difference time. All the major capitals of the area are featured (Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Santo Domingo, Bogota, Guatemala City), such as the emblematic cities: Sao Paulo for the economists, Miami (transport hub for all South American travellers) and Los Cabos for the one who wants to enjoy the Pacific Riviera.
Besides the central hour and minute the ww.tc Latin America also offers a chronograph, a small second and date at 1.30. Its sophisticated mechanism is the fruit of the Manufacture's research: the automatic winding movement GP033C0 was developed by Girard-Perregaux with the constant aim of perfection. This watchmaking creation, with its 46-hour power reserve, can be admired through the sapphire case-back. Dedicated to the strong identity of Latin America, this ww.tc is also fitted with a special crystal case-back bearing the map of Latin America.
The energetic design of the chronograph is going back to the irresistible codes of the Girard-Perregaux ww.tc collection, with an easily readable display and timeless elegance. Each ring set offers two limited, individually-numbered series exclusively developed for the Latin American market: a pink gold case version, limited to 15 pieces and a stainless steel version, limited to 30 pieces.

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Girard Perregaux Vintage 1945 White Gold
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Vintage 1950s Girard Perregaux Sea Hawk Watch
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Girard Perregaux Laureato Rallye Monte Carlo Limited 500 Pieces New MSRP 16010
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Girard Perregaux Vintage SS Gyromatic Watch with New Crocodile Strap
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Vintage Girard Perregaux Gyromatic Mens Wristwatch circa 1960 runs well
	$100.00 (1 Bid) End Date: Tuesday Feb-7-2012 19:29:14 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

Girard Perregaux Ferrari Red Chronograph Watch Stainless Steel Rubber Band
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