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A High-end watches forum. Why?

91K views 135 replies 76 participants last post by  dbostedo 
#1 · (Edited)
Recently one of our members contacted Hartmut Richter, moderator of our Zenith forum and asked him if a Ulysse Nardin forum would be possible here on watchuseek.com.

While this could have been a good idea we at Watchuseek believe it would be rather better to create a "high end watches" forum than a UN forum.

Potential brands to be discussed here are:
Patek Philippe
Audemars Piguet
Vacheron Constantin
A. Lange & Söhne
Breguet

... plus a whole load of brands like Harry Winston, F.P. Journe, Christiaan van der Klaauw, etc.
 
#89 ·
Surely any watch above 25K can be considered "HIGH END"..?
 
#98 ·
Not sure why you'd think that... you can talk about Lange all three places (German, High-end, Lange). There's even the occassional Lange thread in the Public Forum. I'm still not sure why @Contaygious posted his note.
 
#104 ·
I'd suggest starting with a read through this thread:


There are many others if you search, some linked in the thread I posted...
 
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#122 ·
OK, then I'll resubmit my objection to that. :) It's overly reductionist, doesn't actually speak to any particular qualities of a high-end watch, and as inflation goes on it tracks less and less closely with watches that do meet other criteria - the price is arbitrary. (There are MANY more watches now over $10K than there were even 5-10 years ago.) And if you set the price higher, you can easily run into the opposite problem.

I know it's grey and/or fuzzy, and sometimes people want some kind of clear line of high-end or not, but it just doesn't exist. Better to acknowledge that, IMO, than set a clear line that doesn't actually mean anything or tell anyone what high-end really is for this forum. I like that we can talk about the qualities and debate whether or not some watch is high-end.
 
#125 ·
Some have referenced this thread for a discussion on what constitutes "high-end" but I think there is an easier starting place for building a list of houses.

In 2005 Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, and Richemont founded the non-profit Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie which is based in Geneva and is essentially a trade group for haute horlogerie, obviously dominated by Richemont, but still interesting.

The current members (partner brand) list is as follows:

A. Lange & Söhne
Angelus
Armin Strom
Arnold & Son
Audemars Piguet
Baume & Mercier
Bovet
Breitling
Bvlgari
Carl F. Bucherer
Cartier
Chanel
Chopard
Cyrus
Czapek
Ferdinand Berthoud
Gerald Charles
Girard-Perregaux
Greubel Forsey
Grönefeld
H. Moser & Cie.
Hermés
IWC
Jaeger-LeCoultre
Laurent Ferrier
Louis Moinet
Louis Vuitton
MB&F
Montblanc
Oris
Panerai
Parmigiani
Piaget
Rebellion
Ressence
Roger Dubuis
Romain Gauthier
Ruclis Sylva
Speake-Marin
Tag Heuer
Trilobe
Ulysse Nardin
Vacheron Constantin
Van Cleef & Arpels
Zenith

While clearly not every watch produced by all of the members would be universally considered high-end, most produce or have produced watches(and/or contributions to horology) which have led to the broader world of high-end watches we see today. And most of them also do produce timepieces that meet the other proposed requirements of cost, materials, construction techniques, etc. And the list does not include all of the Richemont subsidiaries and ventures - it excludes some such as Ralph Lauren watches, Dunhill, etc.

We could likely all agree that "high-end" is a subjective term that will never have an objective definition, but the industry itself seems to have done a good job collecting many of the houses together that could generally, and mostly, be considered to produce some if not many pieces that fall under that category.

Some obvious names missing because they aren't associated with Richemont include:

Patek Philippe
Breguet
Blancpain
F. P. Journe

and who else?

It seems easier to start with what the industry is doing itself and add to it, rather than try to come up with a definition or list from scratch. But that's just one way that came to mind while reading through this.
 
#128 ·
Generally speaking... no. With a few exceptions, Rolex doesn't tend to engage in the type of case, dial, and movement finishing and materials and complications to be high-end, despite making outstanding watches. I'm not familiar with that chrono, but I'd assume it's similar in that regard to most other Rolex watches.
 
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