The Breitling Watch Source Forums

As we see the price of bullion at such great heights, do you think the price of gold watches should move in step with it?

I'm thinking of buying a gold watch, but am not real intested in its bullion value. I'm not going to melt it down. I want a gold watch, but don't want to play the gold market.

How much of a disconnect could could/should there be with the price of bullion and the value of a watch? You never win at the buy high sell game.

Are gold watches today worth 50% more than a few years ago? Does buying a gold watch make sense now?

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Breitling Colt
Breitling Skyland

There has been an increase in value of pocket watches - especially American ones because the value of the movement is relatively low so a lot of pieces are bought simply for the gold content.

With modern watches that doesn't hold true - the retail price of a gold piece is way higher than it should be based simply on gold content - part of that is because of the difficulty of working with gold but most is markup - people who buy gold watches tend to be a little less price sensitive.

In the secondary market in current economic times this tends to result in the price of gold pieces as a percentage of list being far worse than the value of a comparable steel piece simply because the market for them is less. That's not got anything directly to do with the price of gold, rather it is because of the global economy making pieces like this less attractive.

Without getting too deep in the economics of it, the price of gold is also not really spectacularly high. The benchmark that is used to measure gold is the US$ and on that measure the price is at record highs, but a large part of that is due to the fact that the US$ has been so weak against other benchmarks. There is a move to gold in economic uncertainty, but it's inflated this time by a weak US$.

i just got another gold one today, love it. the gold ones are growin on me fast. what model are you looking at?
g

An Eclipse.
http://www.breitlingsource.com/watch_de ... r_109.html

I found a gold one.
So doing some math.
This watch weighs 80 grams.
There is 31 grams in an ounce.
18kt gold is 75% pure.

Just a guess, but maybe half the weight of the watch is the case (the rest being movement and crystal)

So there is 40 grams of gold that is 75% pure. So there 30 grams of pure gold. So basically an pure ounce.

Gold value is up about $600 the last few years.
This watch sold for $8375 new. 11 years later this watch should be worth half its value so $4200, but bullion prices have risen so I add $600, so maybe the watch is worth $5k-ish.

Would that be reasonable for this watch?

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Breitling Colt
Breitling Skyland

I wouldn't pay 50% of retail for an 11 year old watch, especially a gold one in a subdued market - even allowing for inflation.

As I said before, the gold value is largely irrelevant to these pieces.

Trying to guess a fair price scientifically on these pieces just doesn't work - find some sale prices for comparable pieces (similar age gold models) and then combine that with a price that you are happy to pay for the watch.