Swatch X Omega

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844547#Comment_118844547

How much does the cheapest plastic Richard Mille go for these days? Must be a 6 figure sum. These plastic Omegas at €250 are a bargain 😂

Bateman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843528#Comment_118843528

You know what? Wow, you'd almost think a lot of handbag purchasers and speaker system purchasers are even less clued in than watch purchasers...surely not

Bateman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843462#Comment_118843462

Great post, but do we have any way of knowing how much of the Rolex secondary market madness of the last 8-10 years is Rolex generally speaking (meh), how much is specific to a specific few sports models/colours (a lot), how much is due to production numbers etc (unknown)?

I have a TZ search for my birth year emailing me Rolex dress watches for under $3k daily in various states of condition, and many look fairly flawless for under $5k WBAP.

Other than the Bond experiment - about whose economics we know very little (and perception is subjective) - I don't see much of this "Omega are trying to be Rolex" competitor thing. You can walk into an AD with a few grand cash after a decent win on the horses - not a trivial amount of money - and walk out with a Seamaster or Speedmaster. To get a Sub you have to pay 2 x RRP (conservative) grey, take a place ahead of someone who spends 100k per annum at an AD, or know someone in the business, or...I don't know...be famous? The economics of this aren't easy for a publicly traded company (Swatch/Omega) to play with.

You admit they are retreating from this arms race, I'd humbly suggest they weren't really trying to punch at that level to begin with. Their Olympics association for example, something with a massive weight of tradition behind it...was that all done trying get people to look at a Seamaster the same way they look at a Sub? Of course not, the Omega brand has always had an individual identity, and more to it than trying to match grey market Rolex prices...

mrcheez

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843642#Comment_118843642

Or will they be gone by October? :)

Do these have any Omega parts or it's purely a replica of the design?

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844919#Comment_118844919

Any real Omega parts? Of course not. But who ever cared about that anyway. It says Omega on the dial, that's all that counts. A real Omega moonwatch for a few hundred quid 😜

Birneybau

I have long said it, there's a huge amount of rich idiotic hypebeasts ripe for the plucking out there.

unkel

Not so sure, @Birneybau. I think it might turn the other way around. The sale of "real" moonwatches might suffer badly and the second hand value of them might drop significantly. Showing the "real" moonwatch to have been the true hype. Don't get me wrong, it's a classic and a good watch in the €2-3k region, but recent prices well north of that have just been silly.

If I'm honest, I'd rather wear a €250 funky mission to Neptune (or pretty much any of the other flavours) than a "real" boring black moonwatch.

unkel

Jody bought one, he probably paid more for it than a real moonwatch is worth (tomorrow) 😂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaK19Fy2-tw

I seem to remember he has average 7" wrists? The Omega wears small so it seems. If I were to get one, I doubt it would last long in my collection (of currently just 2 watches)

Cienciano

Good point from Jodi about the double standards in selling watches on. It's somehow fine for wellboff guys doing it with a Rolex, bad for lads in Supreme tops doing it with moonswatches

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843752#Comment_118843752

I doubt anyone would bother Nj, or few would see the point. The point of the watch for me is that it's plastic, cheap and cheerful, fashionable and available to more. I could see modders trying to squeeze a smooth chrono hand quartz movement into one.

Fitz II

Have watches a few of the more thoughtful youtubers take on the moonswatch, and a few make the point that this hype train does in a way shine a light on the entire watch hype madness. As a Rolex fan, and AP and Patek I have decided a while ago that I am no longer going to run on the wheel simply because I cannot get the watches I am being programmed to like at prices that I am willing to pay. i was however secure in my opinion that these expensive watches I craved were a sign of my good taste and higher than average expectation of quality. The hype affirmed this.....but along comes swatch with a few plastic speedmasters and throws it all in the air. People neither want swatches nor speedmasters to a level where either sell above retail. Both are easy to get. Hell anyone can have a new speedmaster SS on adverts for a grand under retail without haggling. So what was it about this release that created such fever? For me it shows a deep greed due to the commoditisation of watches.

When Rolex bring out their new colours in the coming weeks are people going to go crazy for them? I think this launch will have people pondering the entire thing. Omega collectors are kinda butt hurt for some reason, thinking this plastic authorised replica somehow takes away from their purchase despite years of telling us all that this NASA certified non waterproof manual wind was an essential part of any real collectors inventory, and far better and the sum of its part. But the 250 euro swatch seems to have ability to destablise this assurity. Was this mighty staple of horology so precarious?

Rolex has endless hommages and fakes that can be purchased for similar money. Does that damage the brand...no because fakes are not a tradable commodity in the same way.

If Rolex was the bitcoin of watches, surely these are the NFT's....or maybe I am reading too much in and giving too much credit? But I think "the community" needs to take a long hard look at itself and start being honest about their motivations for purchasing. People were climbing over eachother to get this watch without ever seeing a review. All they saw was €€€ and thats all that mattered.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844779#Comment_118844779

Great post, but do we have any way of knowing how much of the Rolex secondary market madness of the last 8-10 years is Rolex generally speaking (meh), how much is specific to a specific few sports models/colours (a lot), how much is due to production numbers etc (unknown)?

Oh yeah it's been the steel sports models at first, the precious metal stuff was dragged into it. The silliness started with the Sub, then the Sub like models, then latterly the basic steel stuff(IMHO the Daytona is a separate market of its own). You'll have zero trouble buying a Rolex Cellini anywhere. The production numbers have little enough to do with it IMHO. Rolex make around a million watches a year. They're made on an industrial scale. And they're not rare. Chrono 24 alone has page after page after page of the the most sought after models that you can buy now. You just have to pay well over the odds because the market has been internally inflated by the perception of rarity and flippers and "investors" and enough guys willing to pay over the odds to get one now(though as that bubble inflated there are fewer and fewer end buyers in the mix) which has constrained supply. This Swatch Speedy an example of this kinda thing. They're not a limited edition, they won't be rare, they're cheap as chips on all metrics, yet the hype currently has them trading at up to ten times the price. The Rolex bubble is just a longer term version of that.

Other than the Bond experiment - about whose economics we know very little (and perception is subjective) - I don't see much of this "Omega are trying to be Rolex" competitor thing.

Not a direct model for model competitor no. Not trying to be Rolex either. More that Swatch were aiming the Omega brand at that segment of mid tier "good watch" around 4-6k, before RRP's went north and the Rolex bubble started inflating. In that Hodinkee Ed Sheeran segment the founder of the site noted that fifteen years ago people were having the conversation of what to buy; IWC or Rolex. Omega would have been in that mix of mid tier "good watch". Panerai for a while as well. Back then.

The economics of this aren't easy for a publicly traded company (Swatch/Omega) to play with.

I'd say it's a pain in the arse for Rolex too. If not more so. They get pretty much nothing from it now. Early on yeah, because demand and hype were up and helped sell watches that were already solid sellers, but today when AD's have empty display cases, grey prices are truely insane and the hype is everywhere that can make actual customers get jaded about the brand and look elsewhere or just buy an Apple watch or whatever and get out of the game entirely.

Fitz II

Did anyone realistically think it would be any different?

griffin100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118845976#Comment_118845976

Jeez, don't want Uranus leaking on me.

whippet

talk about over analysing things - it is a €250 watch that looks nice .. and people want it. It is not like Swatch are setting a ludicrous price it is a secondary market taking advantage of something that people like ... no different to people paying over the odd for a concert ticket.

funkyouup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118845976#Comment_118845976

Do normal swatches do that too? That's embarrassing.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118845976#Comment_118845976

A chap I'm subbed to in Youtube My Retro Watches who usually does very informative watchmaking vids from an "amateur" point of view sometimes does reviews a la the Just One More Watch cheap and cheerful end of things. Here's his latest in that vein this morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYUw1EHZXlo

Your standard operational copy of a vintage sub. Solid steel throughout, with a ceramic bezel, screwed(if fiddly) solid link bracelet and remarkably well done case finishing for the money, an automatic Seiko movement(that needed some tweaking) and half decent luminova lume. Cool enough packaging too. Now it wouldn't be my bag, but if that's your sorta thing and fair enough you can have it for 220 quid, 30 quid less than the SwatchSpeedy, 50 less with discounts. And I'd be willing to bet it feels a lot less cheap than the Swatch. Now that's made in China, but I'd also be willing to bet a hundred quid of the Swiss made SwatchSpeedy is for the name printed on the dial. Then again for the real Speedmaster or Sub, the name is worth many multiples of that. In the grey flipper market it's pretty much everything.

Your comparisons in the watch market(especially over the last five or six years) to crypto and now NFT's and €€€€ signs I think is a very good one. The "name" was always the thing in luxury goods, as were fashion and trends, but now the perception of the name has gone way beyond that.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846076#Comment_118846076

Among mates of mine's kids who wear watches, mostly girls and nearly all Swatches, I've never heard of them complaining they were turning their kid's wrists into colouring books. That said I can't think of previous Swatches or placcy watch cases in general with printing on the reverse. Any text is nearly always moulded/stamped into the plastic, same for steel cases. I suspect it's the ink not biting into the soya based plastic material. I've heard of that before(not in watches).

scwazrh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118845976#Comment_118845976

It would seem so . There’s a few posters on this thread that seemed to think this was a fun exciting cool product and not the disappointment that it will truly be.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846391#Comment_118846391

I still think it is a fun cool product and could well upset the wider applecart, but it is what it is, a hundred and fifty quid (non Chinese)watch with a hundred quid's worth of branding. It'll be those who think it's any more than that who will be disappointed.

Neilw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118845976#Comment_118845976

I wonder is it the battery cover that’s causing the transfer?

Cienciano

Few reddit posts about the colours going onto peoples skin.

I think €250 is too much, i don't think I'd pay more than about €60-70 for one

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846632#Comment_118846632

Most likely. The colour of the main case would be premixed in the plastic before moulding, the colours on the battery cover are printed on. An element of personal body chemistry can be at play too. Some people's sweat is defo more corrosive than others. I've seen casebacks on vintage watches that were eaten away. Nickel/chrome plated brass was the worst for it(and near guaranteed to cause a skin reaction). Silver can be similar. Though I've seen even stainless steel cases get etched by whatever was in the blood of the original owner. 😮😁

So a mixture of top printing on plastic sweat and rubbing and the paint comes off.

Fitz II

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846391#Comment_118846391

Hey I think its a fun product and small cost, but I dont expect a lot from it. People are going on about how it will feel in the hand and the light materials....yeah no ****, its a cheap little watch thats 10 euro of watch and 240 euro of branding. People are treating this like an actual watch release rather and a novelty.

Having said that the real speedmaster cuts the wrist of a lot of people in the same place, myself included, so maybe its just being faithful to the original.

njburke

Mmh, a watch with a transfer tattoo complication.

fat bloke

https://www.fields.ie/swatch-irony-night-flight-black-dial-steel-case-bracelet-watch

Nowt as queer as folk. That kind of queuing insanity just makes me NOT want whatever it is.

Anyway I thought Swatch already had the speedmaster-alike above? Just buy one of those?? 🙄

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118849152#Comment_118849152

In steel too FB. And with a date(which to be fair is better integrated than quite the number of far more expensive watches out there). I'd have thought it uses the same movement as the Swatchmaster, though IMHO the subdials are more balanced in that model. For the money that's a pretty OK looking watch, again IMHO. Certainly better than most of the "fashion" brands at that pricepoint. And dearer actually.

Cienciano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118849152#Comment_118849152

Sorry, it may be metal, have a bracelet instead of a crappy velcro strap and date but it's missing the word "omega".

funkyouup

https://youtu.be/Uk6Nwy5kMy4

Color is leaking from the watch itself, not the battery cover.

Birneybau

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844989#Comment_118844989

I have a Speedmaster Pro (2.7k and I'm keeping it) and yeah, prices are going mental BUT I stand by my point that people will pay waaaay over the odds for what's hot. I've a fecking t-shirt that's now worth 3 times what I paid for it because it's Supreme X My Bloody Valentine.

StockX gives a good measure of these markets. Fecking trainers for 15k.