According to a recent article in Newser Magazine – shown here – there is the longer-term potential for smartwatches to siphon off enough sales to the high-end luxury watch market, including Rolex watches, to really doom the market over the longer-term.
While long-term it could conceivably have such an effect, we think that the concerns are overblown. It’s been true for some decades now that inexpensively priced quartz watches and clocks could keep more accurate time that even the highest-end mechanical wristwatches and clocks – including such watch brands as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantine and Jaeger LeCoultre, just to name a few, and mechanical clocks – including such makers as Howard Miller Clocks, Hermle Clocks, Kieninger Clocks and Ridgeway Clocks.
Buyers of high-end clocks and watches are drawn to them as pieces of art, with mechanisms and craftsmanship that defy time and are truly wondrous artworks to behold and be appreciated. For many wristwatch and clock owners and collectors, the more complications and the more sophisticated the skills are in making these masterpieces, the more appreciated these timepieces are by their owners, who frequently pass these works of art from one generation to the next.
This explains why so many individuals and families choose to have antique or new mechanical clocks, especially grandfather clocks, by brands such as Howard Miller Grandfather Clocks, Kieninger Grandfather and Mantel Clocks, and Hermle Grandfather and Wall and Mantle Clocks. The same is true for the Patek Philippe owner, as but one example of holding a timepiece to transfer from one generation to the next.
Hermle Tellurium model 22823-740352 close-up view