Rarity, complexity and condition make all the difference when looking for a luxury watch. But while there are major gains to be made, it takes a good eye to know the difference between a clever investment, and a waste of time.

In such a vast and specialist industry where prices range from $1,500 into the millions, it’s difficult to know where to start. But the prospective investor can head to auction to find some of the most lucrative deals on luxury time pieces.
Geoffroy Ader of Sotheby’s says demand is highest for the best known names. "Most demands are based on the brands …the two ‘star’ brands are Rolex and Patek Philippe," Ader told CNBC.

Alfredo Paramico, fund manager at Precious Times which invests in luxury and rare time pieces, agreed that name is everything in this glamorous market.
Paramico brought three of the most exclusive watches in his collection – with a combined value of $40 million - into the CNBC studio.

"Here we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to have all together these three wrist watches, that are probably three of the most important watches in history ever," he said, displaying the platinum and white gold Patek Philippes.
Explaining the story and history behind each watch, Paramico showed that time pieces – just like luxury jewellery, antiques or wine – have a provenance which forms part of the value of the item.

The 18 carat white gold Patek Philippe he brought with him had sold in 1995 for 400,000 Swiss francs ($430,000). By 2010, its value had hit over 3.2 million ($3.47 million).

Heading to an established antique dealer is one way to source a watch with a proven history and origin. George Somlo of Somlo Antiques in London explained that investing in the right vintage watch is a good bet for troubled financial times.
"We’ve had many recessions over the past forty years, none of them quite like this one, but buying antique or vintage wristwatches and pocket watches has always been a very solid investment," Somlo said.
With Swiss watch exports up 19 percent in the first six months of the year, reaching $9 billion, the most significant demand has come from Asia.

Alan Walker, of technology consultancy Capgemini told CNBC that watch investment was on the up: "within the investments of passion category, it’s about 22 percent for jewellery, watches and gems.
"What we really noticed last year is exponential growth in Asia, in particular mainland China and Hong Kong, so that’s where the growth is coming from at the moment…we are seeing record returns."
Although an unusual investment, watch-buying can be more than just a hobby for the super rich; you don’t have to be a big spender to get into this market.

"It’s not a question of how much you can invest," said Paramico, "I think it’s important that you buy a watch which is in very good condition and is totally original, even if it’s a $2,000 watch. Quality is a key issue in this business, approximation is definitely forbidden."

He advised to look at the brand; even with contemporary watches, a good, established name will hold its value.
Paramico also gave his hint for a smart watch investment. For $5,000, he said a rose gold 1940 Patek Philippe with a square case is a good bet for the future.

PARIS — Luxury watchmakers are flying high again, buoyed by a spectacular recovery in sales last year, and the optimism reflected in a flood of new models on show at the Salon de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva this week is also palpable in vintage watch salerooms.

For many, last year marked a full recovery from the global crisis that hit the market in 2008.
In the new watch sector, figures tallied and estimated by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry indicate that the Swiss industry’s export sales for the whole of last year probably reached 16 billion Swiss francs, or $16.5 billion, their second-highest level ever and just short of the record 17 billion francs achieved in 2007, according to Jean-Daniel Pasche, the federation’s president.
In the reseller’s market, the global auction houses also had an impressive year.

For Christie’s, global watch sales in 2010 reached $91.2 million, the highest ever reported by an auction house in the watch category, topping the previous record of $88 million, set by Christie’s in 2007.

“This was quite a spectacular year, proving that watches are as hot as ever,” said Aurel Bacs, international head of watches at Christie’s, in an interview from Geneva.
“Regardless of the state of world economies, watches have increased in popularity among the planet’s population,” Mr. Bacs added.

For Sotheby’s, global sales topped $40 million, nearly doubling the previous year’s total of $20.6 million, in line with what Geoffroy Ader, European head of watches, described as a stellar year for auctions in all categories.
“We were fortunate to catch the interest of collectors from around the globe, with timepieces for every taste and every type of collector,” Mr. Ader said in Geneva.

Smaller, more specialist houses, in contrast, fared less well. Antiquorum ended 2010 with $45.8 million in global watch sales, down nearly 30 percent from $65.2 million in 2009, despite holding the same number of auctions.
“Antiquorum restructured on a global basis in 2010, resulting in a temporary, and expected, downturn in turnover,” said Charles Tearle, a director of Antiquorum New York.

Still, Mr. Tearle said he shared the general optimism about current trends. “Now the restructuring is complete, and we expect to see an increase in global results for 2011,” he said.

Also on the downside, Patrizzi & Co. Auctioneers, the house created by Antiquorum’s former owner, Osvaldo Patrizzi, ended operations in Geneva and New York in late 2010, undone mainly by problems with its online bidding system, a core part of its competitive strategy.

Mr. Patrizzi plans to resume operations in Hong Kong sometime this year, focusing on the Chinese market, said Leo Verhoeven, its chief financial officer.

One brand, Patek Philippe, was overwhelmingly responsible for raising watch sale revenues last year, auction house tallies show.
Christie’s reported that it sold five watches last year that fetched more than $1 million — two more than in 2009 and all of them Patek Philippes.

The highest grossing lot last year was a 1943 Patek Philippe reference 1527, a gold perpetual calendar wristwatch that sold in May at a Christie’s Geneva sale for 6.25 million francs.

Sotheby’s did well in the historic watch category, selling a Cartier desk timepiece dated 1926 for £79,250, or $125,000 — 10 times its estimate — in London in December. It also sold a Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona stainless steel wristwatch, estimated at 60,000 to 80,000 francs, for 464,500 francs in Geneva in November.

The relatively swift recovery of the watch market demonstrated that the earlier slide reflected more a generalized loss of confidence during the financial crisis than a serious crisis of overvaluation, Mr. Bacs said, explaining that starting in autumn 2008, the global economic downturn dampened sellers’ confidence, with consignors hesitating to part with their timepieces.

“After a difficult fall 2008, marked by Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and later the Madoff affair, we were faced with serious seller hesitation to consign,” he said. “No one knew how badly things could turn out.”

Despite a difficult second half of 2008, Christie’s managed to end the year with $70.2 million in global watch sales, against Sotheby’s $43 million. The downward trend continued in 2009, with $67.2 million at Christie’s and $20.6 million at Sotheby’s.
“Still, there was never any indication of waning buyer’s interest even during the crisis,” Mr. Bacs said.

While financial markets remained in turmoil, Christie’s managed to obtain the consignment of several important private watch collections, including the “Connoisseur’s Vision” collection secured in the summer of 2009.

“The decision to sell that collection was made by the owner in 2009, based on that year’s half-year results, while the world was traversing a severe financial crisis,” Mr. Bacs said. “The spring of 2009 was a definite turning point in our market.”

The Connoisseur’s Vision collection, sold in a four-part auction starting in autumn 2009 and culminating in the record-breaking sale of the Patek Philippe for $5.7 million last spring, achieved a total of $19 million, making it the most valuable private collection of wristwatches ever sold at auction.

For Christie’s, that consignment, by itself, was a sign of the independence of the watch market from global economic conditions.
“There is correlation between the watch market and the economy — but not necessarily parallel behavior,” Mr. Bacs said. “In some instances, the worse the economy is faring, the better certain markets will do. When confidence is undermined in the financial markets, investors take a closer look at art, watches, diamonds or real estate as an alternative investment class.”

Last year, the highest increase in demand for new watches, according to the Swiss watch industry figures, came from Greater China, with Hong Kong’s share of Swiss watch exports exceeding 2.8 billion francs in 2010 — an increase of about 46 percent compared with 2009 — and mainland China importing watches valued at over 966 million francs, nearly 55 percent more than the previous year.
In the resale market, as reflected in the major auction houses, a similar phenomenon occurred.

“Whatever the impact of the global crisis, we were more than compensated by the demand that came out of China,” said Mr. Bacs, of Christie’s.

For Sotheby’s, too, “the largest growth in demand for auction watches in 2010 came out of Greater China,” Mr. Ader said.
Bidder registrations allow auction houses to assess the geographic provenance of buyers and bidders in a sale.

“Ten years ago, there were no Chinese bidders at watch auctions,” Mr. Bacs noted. “At Christie’s last Geneva auction, of the 800 registered bidders, 50 percent were Asian, and a quarter from mainland China. Our Hong Kong sales have an even a higher percentage.”

Mr. Tearle of Antiquorum reported a similar trend. “We have seen a 20 percent increase in Asian bidders over the last two years,” he said.

To accommodate the increase in Asian participation, Antiquorum held two Hong Kong auctions last year, up from just one in 2009, posting a sales total of $10.3 million in that venue, double its results in the previous year.
This year, Antiquorum plans to add one more Hong Kong sale to its calendar, while also continuing to preview its New York and Geneva sales in Asia.

If economic predictions are accurate, the upward trend in the watch market should continue beyond this year. The retailing and consumer products sectors, including watches and other luxury goods, will remain “strong and steady” in Asia, according to a report issued in December by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which predicts an average 6 percent growth in those Asia-Pacific markets through 2014.

“For many collectors, parking their funds in a fine timepiece is an intelligent choice,” Mr. Bacs said. “With a fine Patek Philippe, an exceptional Rolex, a rare Lange & Söhne, in limited series and good condition, how wrong can you go?”

In 1832, Antoine de Pradwdzic, fleeing his country after an abortive revolt of the Polish army against Russian Czar Nicholas I, found himself in Geneva. He took Swiss nationality, changed his name to Patek, and in 1839 joined forces with another expatriate Pole named Czapek, who had some experience in the craft, to make watches. With the help of a small staff, they began producing highly decorative models in the contemporary Geneva fashion at the rate of about 200 per year.

In 1844, when exhibiting at the Paris Exposition, Patek met a young French watchmaker named Adrien Philippe who subsequently joined the firm as technical director, ousting Czapek with whom Patek found himself increasingly at odds. The two young men--Patek was still only 33--produced a number of innovative models, including the first to have a "free" mainspring and an independent seconds hand. Their aim, they said, was to produce the finest watches in the world.

Their performance matched their ambition--over the next few years they won more than 500 international awards; they received an order from Queen Victoria and entrance to the courts of Europe followed: their clientele included 30 royal personages as well as three Popes. In 1851 they registered their company as Patek Philippe & Co. Among the exhibits at Paris had been a tiny watch with a diameter of only 8.46 mm, the smallest ever made at that time. In 1868 they modified the design to make a timepiece for Countess Kocewicz; it was the worlds first wristwatch, but it took another fifty years to produce a commercially viable version. Among the inventions produced by the firm were a double chronograph with sweep seconds, a perpetual calendar mechanism, and an improved regulator. All involved much handwork, and in 1865 the total output was not more than 2,500 pieces per year.

After the death of the two founders toward the end of the 19th century, some of the firm's incentive seemed to die with them, and only in the 1920's did the first wristwatch with perpetual calendar and a man's wrist chronograph watch herald a fresh burst of creativity. The most famous model from this period was a pocket watch made for American Car magnate Ward Packard. It took six years to make and had 20 odd complications, including a view of the stars as seen from Packard's house in Ohio. (It cost him $16,000 and was recently re-purchased by the company for it's museum for $2,000,000)

But in spite of its technical expertise the company was short of cash, and in 1932 a new dynasty took over the management. Charles Stern came from a family of craftsmen who had been suppliers to Patek Philippe; his son Henri proved to be an able businessman who set about improving the company's distribution and expanding its market. When, in 1977, his son Philippe became Managing Director, the brand was re-established worldwide.

Always at the forefront of horological development, Patek Philippe invested in electronics at an early stage. By 1952 it had a battery-operated solid-state clock; ten years later, it developed a master clock system that is still used for timekeeping in Switzerland's airports and public buildings. It was a simple step to integrate this new technology into the company's personal timepieces. Today 80 percent of Patek's ladies watches and 20 percent of the men's models have slim quartz movements, although men's watches account for three-quarters of the firm's total output.

Patek Philippe's latest complicated wristwatch embodies all the technical skill that has maintained the company's reputation for so long. Model 5035 is a self winding annual calendar- a watch with a mechanism that recognizes months of 30 and 31 days and needs no adjustment from March 1st to the last day of February the following year, when the date must be advanced mechanically. The self-adjusting date is displayed in an opening at 6 o'clock; the mechanism- which is a world first- is entirely rotary, and is smoother and more precise. It comes in a water resistant 18 karat yellow, white, or rose gold or platinum case with a sapphire crystal glass and case back. 5039 is a more conventional perpetual calendar with an ultraslim self-winding movement. It has a typical Patek double hobnail case in 18 karat gold and is fitted with an alligator strap. Its restrained pearlescent dial displays month, day, date and moonphase.

In addition to individual masterpieces, Patek Philippe has a number of collections, most popular of which is the Calatrava line. First established in 1932 it is the classic round wristwatch, epitomized in model 3919, with hobnail bezel, neat Roman numerals, and a porcelain white dial. Its 18-karat gold case is water-resistant to 80 feet, and it has a manually wound mechanical movement.

The latest example of the lady's Calatrava introduced in the 1980's is 4919, which takes the hobnail motif even further by incorporating it in four concentric rings on the bezel. The hour markers echo the motif. It is driven by Patek's own E15 quartz movement. Another new model for ladies is the Gondolo 4866- a square model with a picture-frame bezel enclosing a simple dial with Roman quarters. It has a quartz movement, a choice of strap or bracelet, and a sapphire crystal on an 18 karat yellow gold case. Patek Philippe claims to be the only independent watchmaker left in Geneva still making all its own watches.

The Calatrava collection, established as the gentleman's classic round wristwatch in 1932, is still the most popular design, in both ladies and men's models. It has a number of variation, comes with handwound, mechanical, or quartz movements, or full complication.

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Many of the pieces were from the famous 'Arman Collection' put together by world renowned artist Arman.
The auction was a huge success, with over 90% of lots sold and a sales total of $5,000,388. This was due in part to strong international interest, with phone and internet bids from Spain, Russia, China, Canada and Italy as well as live on the floor.
Although there were many great sales, the two stand-out performances were from Patek Philippe:
This top lot was a Platinum Patek Philippe Ref 3970, Ref. 3970 EP.

Created in 2004, the very fine and important, water-resistant, platinum wristwatch boasts a round button chronograph, register, perpetual calendar, moon phases, leap year, 24-hour indication and a platinum Patek Philippe deployant clasp. It brought $141,600.
Close behind was a white gold Patek Philippe Ref. 5970.

The very fine, astronomic, water-resistant, 18K white gold wristwatch has a square button chronograph, register, perpetual calendar, moon phases, tachometer, sapphire crystal back and an 18K white gold Patek Philippe deployant clasp. It was taken away for $138,000
"As confirmed by these results, prices realized for rare vintage and modern wristwatches have increased by 15% in the past year." commented watch designer and auctioneer Julien Schaerer. With the possible exception of vintage guitars, most investments haven't appreciated this well.

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In some quarters of the Russian Orthodox Church, church bells are still believed to have almost supernatural powers. Traditionalists contend that they can keep demons at bay, for instance, by sanctifying the area in which they are audible. For this reason, bells are still christened with holy water and anointed with holy oil.

Timepiece connoisseurs feel a like reverence for the minute repeater and sonnerie, watches that chime the time on tiny gongs fitted inside the case. Of all complicated watches, they are the most challenging to make.

In fact, chiming watches defy horological history, which in broad strokes is a story of decreasing manual labor and increasing automation. Today mechanical watches can be made entirely by robots; the first pair of human hands to touch such pieces is typically the buyer's.

Chiming watches, however, are in principle impossible to make satisfactorily through purely industrial means. The repeater, which chimes the hour, quarter hour, and minute "on demand" when a slide in the case is pressed, and the sonnerie, which, like a mantel clock, chimes the hour and quarter "in passing," require both a musician's ear and a surgeon's hand to construct and adjust. As watchmaker Donald de Carle wrote nearly 50 years ago in his famous manual on complicated-watch repair, the repeater, more than any other type of watch, necessitates a mind that is "calm, cool, and collected." Absent the human judgment involved in the final adjustment of the mechanism, repeaters would function poorly, if at all. That gives them an aura that no other complication watch can match--and a price tag as well. It usually starts in the low six figures.

The finest repeaters are works of art but were born of necessity: to enable the owner to tell the time in the dark. They come down to us from the era of candlelight, when most houses were nearly pitch-black after nightfall and the majority of people heard the time from the town clock tower. (Many early clocks, having neither hands nor dial, also marked the time by chiming. In fact, the word clock comes from the Medieval Latin clocca, or bell.)

What makes a repeater special is that it chimes on demand. Pushing the slide set into the case activates mechanical feelers that read the time from the position of the gears that drive the hands--akin to a blind person reading Braille--and then ring the hour, the quarter hour, and the minute in succession, and in a different tone for each unit of time.

Englishman Daniel Quare is thought to have invented the repeater in the mid-1680s. His first ones sounded the hour and the quarter hour on demand, and in 1687 King James II granted him the patent for the quarter repeater. More than 20 years passed before the five-minute repeater, which chimes to the nearest five minutes, appeared, and it would be 40 more years before the first true minute repeater appeared. No one knows the exact date or even whether the credit, usually attributed to Englishman Thomas Mudge, is correct.

It took the great A.L. Breguet, who counted among his clients the court of Louis XVI, to evolve the species decisively. Repeaters before Breguet were ungainly because the dome-shaped bells occupied a lot of space. He streamlined the watch by using gongs made of tempered-steel wire, which could be wound more than once around the inner circumference of the case. The result: a flatter, more elegant watch with good sound quality. Wearing one really is "like having the mind of a genius in your pocket," as Sir David Lionel Salomons, history's most ardent Breguet collector, once said. (Although today the Breguet Classique Grand Complication Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar would be on your wrist.) The final step in the repeater's maturity, the creation of a wristwatch repeater movement, was accomplished by Audemars Piguet in 1892.

The repeater and sonnerie are still a challenge to make. It requires incredible precision to craft a mechanism that can translate time into music within an accuracy of one minute. Giulio Papi, the complications master at the helm of Audemars Piguet Renaud et Papi and one of the world's top repeater experts, explains, "The repeater is an audible indication, and as such, the user expects the time being struck to correspond closely to that shown by the hands. While that seems obvious, it implies complex mechanical processes and the watchmaker must correct even the slightest eccentricities…to guarantee the closest possible match between the chimes and the hands." Still, even the best repeater may have up to a five-second discrepancy.

Then there's the fact that the repeater and sonnerie are musical instruments. It takes a Stradivarian watchmaker to craft both, as controlling the chiming tempo, a key element to a connoisseur, has to be done by ear as well as by hand. That reaches the apex of complexity in a sonnerie such as Gérald Genta's Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillon, which has four gongs (most repeaters have two) and rings the Westminster Quarters melody at each quarter and on the hour. As a master watchmaker at Patek Philippe has remarked, "the final hand setting of the regulator governor [which controls the speed of the chime] is instrumental in the resulting sound…allowing the unique, pure sound of the gong to remain the focus point when the mechanism is activated." The company takes chime quality and tempo so seriously that for decades the chairman, Philippe Stern, has personally approved every minute repeater and sonnerie before allowing it out the door.

Repeater manufacture has long been more art than science, with a dash of alchemy, too, like the persistent legend that the gongs must be tempered in horse urine in order to obtain the best-quality sound. (Watchmakers have told me this was actually done in the past.) But lately, high-tech innovation and outside-the-box thinking have conspired to produce a new breed of repeaters.
Iconoclast watchmaker F. P. Journe tossed out centuries of conventional wisdom to create his extra-flat Journe Repetition Souverain, a minute repeater with a movement barely four millimeters thick. (That's thinner than most modern simple automatic watch movements.) He achieved this in part by eschewing traditional wire gongs, which are round in cross section, for triangular ones, which are flat in cross section, thus taking up less room inside the case. He also crafted the case out of stainless steel, a material far superior to gold and platinum in resonance and sound transmission.

But it's still handwork that makes the Souverain a sonic beauty. "All the adjustments," says Journe, "have to be mastered one by one. Strength of the springs, hammers--there are many parts, and therefore many effects that have to be manually adjusted." That also means that production is necessarily low: Journe expects to create fewer than 20 Repetition Souverains per year, and only five Sonnerie Souverains. (Production of repeaters at other makers is equally low.)

A gong doesn't just ring a pure tone; it generates numerous overtones as well, and a badly made one will emit sounds that are not in tune with the dominant one. (In other words, the gong will sound out of tune with itself.) Gérald Genta claims its new Arena Metasonic Grande Sonnerie, made of a secret alloy whose lightness and rigidity supposedly outclass even steel, has the problem licked. Each watch is subjected to frequency spectrum analysis worthy of a physics lab--in fact, one at a French university developed the software with Genta--and the first time I heard it chime, its eerie clarity had the hypnotic quality Bram Stoker ascribed to the tingling, water-glass-like voices of Dracula's brides. Jaeger-LeCoultre's Master Minute Repeater goes at the sound problem by affixing the gongs directly to the sapphire dial crystal, which resonates more efficiently than a case.

Nonetheless, it's touch more than tech that makes a great repeater the subject of near-animist reverence. "Manual adjustment is what elevates the production of minute repeaters to an art form. It's what makes each timepiece unique," says the Patek Philippe master watchmaker. Even the ultra-high-tech Grand Complications Caliber 89 has to pass muster with an expert's golden ear before it's released. Machines made modern watches dependable, but it's the hand and ear that make the repeater inimitable.

Gérald Genta Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillion

It rings the time in passing and on demand by playing the Westminster Quarters, the same melody rung out by London's Big Ben. $810,200.
www.geraldgenta.com

Audemars Piguet Jules Audemars Minute Repeater with Jumping Hours

A stunning Art Deco–style jumping hour repeater from the company that in 1892 put the repeater on the customer's wrist for the first time. $231,100
www.audemarspiguet.com

Patek Philippe Ref. 5074R

A perpetual calendar that adjusts for length of the month and for leap year, combined with a minute repeater. Patek Philippe chairman Philippe Stern still insists on hearing and approv-ing each Patek repeater personally. $518,500 (subject to change)
www.patek.com

Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Minute Repeater

One of the new breed of repeaters that mix high mech and high tech: The gongs are attached directly to the sapphire crystal for unparalleled bell-like clarity and volume. $142,000.
www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

IWC Portuguese Minute Repeater

For the connoisseur who likes big secrets: The sapphire caseback shows off the pocket-watch movement that gives this 43-millimeter watch its heft, but only the slide in the case band--and the ringing of its gongs--reveal its musical heart. $86,000.
www.iwc.com

F.P. Journe Repetition Souverain

Both a hard-core traditionalist and a game-changing iconoclast, François-Paul Journe has done it again, creating the world's thinnest minute repeater. $165,400.
www.fpjourne.com

Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Traditionnelle Calibre 2755

In full court dress, this masterpiece combines a tourbillon, minute repeater, and perpetual calendar, and with its open dial, wears its heart on its sleeve. $585,000.
www.vacheronconstantin.com

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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.

Whether you’re buying a $500 Hamilton or a $50,000 Patek Philippe, you’re making an investment—one that could pay off significantly over time. Here, Edward Faber, owner of New York vintage retailer Aaron Faber Gallery, tells you what you need to know.

•Look for the big two brands. “There’s a pyramid with around fifty top brands,” says Faber, “but at the very apex are only two: Patek Philippe and Rolex.” Stick with them for quality and appreciative value.
•Ask for papers. “Original documentation that came with the watch when it was manufactured, with serial numbers, can add enormous value.”

•Know your metals. “With contemporary watches [those made after 1985], platinum trumps white gold, white gold trumps pink, pink trumps yellow. And all of those trump steel. With vintage watches, though, steel can often trump all the metals.” Why? “A steel chronograph made during the war years, in the ’40s, is extremely rare, and thus more unique and valuable.”

18K-gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date (circa 1980s, left) and 18K-yellow-gold Rolex Oyster Cosmograph (circa 1970s)

What Makes an Heirloom Watch
Want a watch that will outlive you? Consider the following
•Choose one that goes easy on the bells and whistles—like Patek Philippe’s white-gold Calatrava (shown). “The Calatrava concept is to keep it simple,” explains Hank Edelman, the venerable brand’s U.S. chairman. “This look was introduced in the 1930s to have a lasting style and an elegant, clear, open design.”
•Classic watches from respected high-end companies are pretty much guaranteed to increase in value—because they increase in rarity—over the years.
•Go for a timepiece that’s mechanical rather than quartz. Sure, quartz fulfills the “it lasts” half of the equation—but really, it’s the hands-on commitment and craftsmanship that you want to pass on to your son or grandson.

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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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Patek is the oldest family-owned firm in Geneva, and this is its signature model. The company is one of the few that makes all its own components, from bracelets to movements, and each watch has the Geneva Seal (awarded, after extensive testing, by the Geneva School of Horology). Al Armstrong echoes the opinion of many dealers when he says, "Their pieces are as good as it gets in terms of quality and finish." After a lengthy period during which bigger, flashier watches have ruled the roost, it's nice to see the pendulum swing back to a timepiece that's as discreet and quietly prosperous as its birth town.

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The prestige Swiss brands have engraved their position as the world's number one status symbol, limited to the rich and famous. Some of the mass Swiss brands on the other hand, target a somewhat different demographic and are now the world's largest producer of watches.

Many countries in the world now produce and export high quality watches. Yet, ask people on the street which country makes the best quality watches and 9 times out of 10 the response will be Switzerland. So, how did Switzerland and watches become synonymous with key traits.

The custom of quality and detail has been upheld for over five centuries and would seriously doubt if there is any industry can make this claim in any other industry. Swiss watch making one way or another manages to merge state-of-the-art technology and innovation with creativity and passion and maintain quality standards in the process. The results are obvious as the Swiss can claim the first wristwatch, the first quartz watch, the first water resistant wristwatch, the thinnest wristwatch in the world, the smallest and the most expensive watch in the world.

Brands were in the beginning developed as labels of ownership, an early example would be branding of cattle to point towards ownership. Today, it is what brands do for people that matters, how they define their aspirations, image and status. It is uncertain if any brands manage this better than Longines, Rolex, Breitling, Tissot and dozens of other top Swiss watch brands.
What is a Swiss watch? - and according to Swiss law a watch can only be well thought-out Swiss if it is manufactured in Switzerland, its movement is Swiss and the manufacturer carries out the final examination in Switzerland.

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