First of all, thanks to Shaun for raising a great subject, and kicking off the topic with an excellent message.

It's just past 2:00 in the morning, and too late for a full reply on all points, but I wanted to share at least a couple of thoughts.

Mark compares the marketing accomplished by Rolex and BMW, and the describes how the public reacts. No doubt, the marketing accomplishments of Rolex are unique in the watch world . . . producing so many watches each year, but achieving a very special place in the world of conspicuous consumption. Amazing achievement for Rolex!!

We saw a different variety of powerful maketing in the world of vintage Heuers, with the Bonhams auction of the Haslinger Auction one year ago. Arno and the folks at Bonhams conducted some fantastic marketing, and achieved some extremely high prices, and through Google and eBay (and probably this discussion forum itself), much of the vocabulary from that marketing event lives on one year later. So we saw "Flat V"s, "Dark Lords" and the "Derek Bells", and guess what . . . one year later, we see these terms being used more broadly, sometimes by people that know little about the Heuers. But Google shows them the phrases that seems to have value, and so now we see the high volume "Viceroy" being marketed as a "Flat V Derek Bell". And the next guy onto Google sees more discussion and more value, and his Viceroy also becomes a "Flat V Derek Bell". One year later, we can just be glad that we haven't seen any more of the "Albino" Sifferts!!

Apart from the marketing of the oddities (Flat V, Albino, chocolate, non-Calculator), we saw a second phenomenon in the Bonhams Haslinger Auction: Fat Wallets being attracted to the Heuers. Wealthy collectors who had never focused on the Heuers suddenly heard about them, and wanted them, and when two or three of the guys with the fat wallets chased some of the rare Heuers, prices went through the roof. And guess what, this seed that may have been planted one year ago, with the Bonhams auction, has gained momentum over the past year. The venue for selling the "Dark Lord" and other high-end Heuers has moved from Bonhams in London to dealers in Carmel, or South Florida, promoted -- among other channels -- by the very influential Hodinkee website, and its love of the Heuers. But for Haslinger and Hodinkee, and Arno and Rich and all of us who celebrate the old Heuers, I doubt that the fat wallets would be chasing these watches.

In the end [as the clock strikes 2:30 in the morning], I believe that the market for vintage Heuers is very healthy at the moment. We can all wonder about the "what if?"s . . . what if no Haslinger Auction, no Hodinkee, no Monaco book, no discussion forum, no reference tables charting the esoteric details of the Heuers. Yes, we might still be dealing in the $500 Viceroys and $2,000 Chronomatics, but I'll say that the world of vintage Heuers is a better place because of all these phenomenon. Yes, the room is crowded with the hundreds of Rolexes and the new guys with the fat wallets, but I'm still having fun with this hobby, and hope that you are too!!

Thanks again for introducing this great topic, and I look forward to more perspectives.

Jeff

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: Rolex makes some great watches, I would never argue that. The thing
: that gets my goat is the way they have got themselves perceived
: as the luxury watch non plus ultra by the man in the street, and
: the marketing continues to play off that. Whilst all the time
: being as ubiquitous as they are, despite making something in the
: order of 10 times as many watches as most of their competitors.
: And playing the market by artificially restricting the supply of
: certain models to keep demand stoked.

: I'm sure someone like our own David DeVos knows that and buys
: anyway because he likes the watches enough to ignore the
: marketing flim-flam, but I feel for the average uninformed
: purchaser and especially those who aspire to the Rolex
: "dream", it feels like a bit of a confidence job. And
: the marketing never does anything to dispel that.

: Not that Heuer weren't above marketing too, of course; getting the
: name on the F1 cars, calling what was essentially a continuation
: of the long-standing triple calendar line a Carrera for a few
: more sales and so on, but there was a more innocent naivety
: about it that's more appealing to me than the Rolex marketing
: juggernaut.

: Perhaps ironically, I drive BMWs and their marketing in the UK has
: often been just as guilty in their field as Rolex. Luckily, I
: have also seen German marketing at the same time - the
: "Freude am Fahren" (Pleasure in driving) tagline was
: always less hyperbolic than the UK's "Ultimate Driving
: Machine", and the marketing in general less strident.
: Nonetheless, 3 series have become pretty ubiquitous in
: themselves for the last couple of generations and the reputation
: of the drivers certainly isn't the best (though when I commuted
: to Heathrow every week, I found Golf drivers to be the least
: considerate on the road, so there you go!) and yet they still
: appeal to me, mechanically and aesthetically. Though it wasn't
: the marketing that turned me on to them, it was more being in
: the right place at the right time and seeing fleets of E30 M3s
: being delivered to various dealers around Munich. Yummy. That
: and the association with perhaps still my favourite city in the
: world and the deal was clinched. At times I have liked them
: despite the marketing.

:

: And yet not the same with Rolex. I've never had that initial spark
: with them, so the marketing gets in the way and alternatives are
: perhaps more readily available than they are for small
: rear-drive sporting cars with straight-six engines :) So I'll
: forgive BMW what I don't forgive Rolex. Completely rational?
: Perhaps not, but it's the way it is. Oh, and watch fairs would
: be a whole lot easier to navigate without having to wade through
: floods of 3-hand Rolexes!!!