4 ms·

If a Chinese sweatshop in Hangzhou, was able to make a perfect replica of a F1 race car or a jet engine (that performed to the same standards as their contempor

by _nedR 9y ago

If a Chinese sweatshop in Hangzhou, was able to make a perfect replica of a F1 race car or a jet engine (that performed to the same standards as their contemporaries) i would be in complete awe and give total respect. If a similar Chinese sweatshop were to make a perfect functional replica of this Patek Philippe watch (without having had physical access to it) at 1/100th the cost would you express similar appreciation? Would you wear it with the same level of pride as you would a Patek Philippe watch?

eo3x0 9y ago
I know you're asking this question as a rhetorical but the answer is not what you think it is. The answer is "yes" of course a Chinese made Patek Philippe would be an object of appreciation. But there isn't one. There's actually a rich history of Chinese watch making and it's worth reading up on if you're into mechanical watches at all: http://chinesewatchwiki.net/History_of_Chinese_watchmaking http://chinesewatchwiki.net/History_of_Chinese_watchmaking In fact the project 304 chronograph is still considered collectible, even the reissues: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f71/review-ed1963-chinese-military-chronograph-reissue-3361546.html http://forums.watchuseek.com/f71/review-ed1963-chinese-milit... However, back to answer your question precisely, China simply doesn't have an industry or heritage or history that can support a Patek, which is why it doesn't exist. Even with the history I've linked to above, the Swiss industry is light years ahead and it's not even close. I don't think you should let your bias, if any, of the very inferior counterfeit movements and counterfeit casing industry color your opinion of watches. Anyone in the know would trivially identify the differences. To your analogy it would be like producing a cheap engine and simply calling it an F1 engine. That's not how it works. Furthermore, if you asked this theoretical Chinese sweatshop to build a modern highly complicated Patek Philippe, it wouldn't cost 1/100 the price, it would cost 100x the price if not more. They'd have to start by sourcing synthetic materials, reinventing tools, or recreating components that a theoretical sweatshop wouldn't even have access to. Part of why counterfeits are so cheap is because they source really cheap Japanese or local Chinese movements that have had decades of build up to scale to the current counterfeit prices. Meanwhile, the real deal modern watch movements are decades more advanced.
- _nedR 9y ago
  I am sorry to say you haven't assuaged my scepticism. The watch in question made in 1989 is valued at 6 million dollars (according to wikipedia). OK fine, that might be an extreme example. Lets take a typical Patek watch which costs tens of thousands of dollars. I can't believe that the price reflects the materials, the complexity and labour that went into the watch. I admit i know next to nothing about horology but as a software engineer i have trouble believing it has more complexity than a similarly priced family saloon or even a mobile phone, or a microprocessor. My point with the Chinese sweatshop example was its really about the image that they want to be associated with. There seems to be a typical formula: An aristocratic sounding family name of the founder, a founding date sometime in the 1800s and a founding place in Geneva or some town or village with a quaint name in France. A making-off video which features men with Germanic features, wire-frame glasses and who is never smiling(we're portraying gravitas here), delicately assembling the watch components. Oh yeah and make sure you get celebrities, powerful politiciansand pro athletes to be photographed wearing the watch (the fact that some of these people couldn't reasonably afford such watches seems to suggest they were given the watch for free or even paid to wear them). edit: I know there are examples of watch manufacturers like Richard Mille who break the mould (at least with the historical legacy aspect), but it seems to be an unclear path to convince the gatekeepers of this clique that you're not just another poser trying to pry hundreds of thousands of dollars from the wealthy.
  - eo3x0 9y ago
    A more "common" Patek like a Calatrava would be a different story and you've changed the goalpost in the discussion. So we're no longer talking about the highest levels of horological achievement -- that's fine, but the answer is still not what you're looking for. As a software dev, you're aware of diminishing returns. Fine watchmaking is an extreme case of this. The reason it costs what it costs is because everything is done to an extreme, by hand. Engraving, finishing are all unique on each piece. Quality assurance makes sure that it's passed a variety of brutal tests (and if it doesn't, you're on the hook for fixing it for free under warranty). That's not even getting to the raw material costs, which of course is precious metal 18K for the casing and silicons and alloys and synthetic lubricants for the movement. All of these pieces are proprietary and uniquely fit for the watch, so the Chinese sweatshop would need to reach a certain scale before they could produce it at profit. Just take a look at the extreme lengths Rolex goes to manufacture these watches with automation (linked in the original comment post). Patek has to do most of that by hand to keep each piece unique. Is there a high margin in the business when done right? Absolutely. Should the Chinese all give up the counterfeit industry and move in high quality watches instead? No, because the pricing would be within the same order of magnitude (though no longer out of reach like the earlier example with the highest levels of watch making) with large gains on labor and marketing cost but minus the heritage and history to actually sell the pieces. I think you're inaccurately making some assumptions about watchmaking that's fundamentally cutting your estimates down significantly to state that a Patek could be manufactured at 1/100th the price by a sweatshop or even 1/10th. It can't be done for the same reason why there isn't a Chinese Bugatti Veyron. The product is that good and true expertise and industry is backing that product. At the end of the day, we don't need to argue hypotheticals. If this were possible, it would already be done. In the wild, there are plenty of cheap counterfeit watches with Patek written on the dial but there are no "fake" Patek level watches that a person familiar with watches wouldn't immediately spot as a fake. And ultimately it's disengenuous to make any argument using "image" or marketing as a basis when it's done with fanfare plenty in our industry (a la Apple)
craigsmansion 9y ago
> If a similar Chinese sweatshop were to make a perfect functional replica of this Patek Philippe watch then the costs would be in the same ballpark as the actual watch. The reason these watches can be used as a "super"-currency for the very rich is that it is impossible to duplicate (so to forge) easily.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  A Seiko autowinder will keep time as well as a Patek Philippe. Even Rolexes, which are much better made than PP, are cheaper. PP is just one of those brands that gets away with being so expensive because it is so expensive. The point of owning a PP watch is to demonstrate to the world that you can own a PP watch.
  - craigsmansion 9y ago
    Timekeeping is not the objective of grandes complications. Artisanship is, making them hard to duplicate economically.
  - eo3x0 9y ago
    I noticed that the commentary in this thread seems to be full of untruthful statements being thrown around as facts. This probably betrays the fact that the audience here is not very knowledgeable about mechanical watches, which was part of the curiousity mentioned in the original post. No, a run of the mill mechanical Seiko (say a Seiko 5 or even a SARB) will not run as accurately as a modern Patek. That's silly. Patek have their own Seal of quality guaranteeing a certain range of drift per day and performs well beyond COSC requirements. The typical Seiko wouldn't come close unless you're starting to get into Grand Seiko territory or Spring Drive movements which is a different league. Rolex vs PP on a typical 3 handed watch will have similar performance, with the Rolex probably fairing better due to the typical Rolex being designed (and QAed) for more extreme conditions. However, the most complicated Rolex is an annual calendar and this is where PP shine.
    - snowwrestler 9y ago

by _nedR 9y ago

eo3x0 9y ago

I know you're asking this question as a rhetorical but the answer is not what you think it is. The answer is "yes" of course a Chinese made Patek Philippe would be an object of appreciation. But there isn't one. There's actually a rich history of Chinese watch making and it's worth reading up on if you're into mechanical watches at all: http://chinesewatchwiki.net/History_of_Chinese_watchmaking http://chinesewatchwiki.net/History_of_Chinese_watchmaking In fact the project 304 chronograph is still considered collectible, even the reissues: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f71/review-ed1963-chinese-military-chronograph-reissue-3361546.html http://forums.watchuseek.com/f71/review-ed1963-chinese-milit... However, back to answer your question precisely, China simply doesn't have an industry or heritage or history that can support a Patek, which is why it doesn't exist. Even with the history I've linked to above, the Swiss industry is light years ahead and it's not even close. I don't think you should let your bias, if any, of the very inferior counterfeit movements and counterfeit casing industry color your opinion of watches. Anyone in the know would trivially identify the differences. To your analogy it would be like producing a cheap engine and simply calling it an F1 engine. That's not how it works. Furthermore, if you asked this theoretical Chinese sweatshop to build a modern highly complicated Patek Philippe, it wouldn't cost 1/100 the price, it would cost 100x the price if not more. They'd have to start by sourcing synthetic materials, reinventing tools, or recreating components that a theoretical sweatshop wouldn't even have access to. Part of why counterfeits are so cheap is because they source really cheap Japanese or local Chinese movements that have had decades of build up to scale to the current counterfeit prices. Meanwhile, the real deal modern watch movements are decades more advanced.

_nedR 9y ago
I am sorry to say you haven't assuaged my scepticism. The watch in question made in 1989 is valued at 6 million dollars (according to wikipedia). OK fine, that might be an extreme example. Lets take a typical Patek watch which costs tens of thousands of dollars. I can't believe that the price reflects the materials, the complexity and labour that went into the watch. I admit i know next to nothing about horology but as a software engineer i have trouble believing it has more complexity than a similarly priced family saloon or even a mobile phone, or a microprocessor. My point with the Chinese sweatshop example was its really about the image that they want to be associated with. There seems to be a typical formula: An aristocratic sounding family name of the founder, a founding date sometime in the 1800s and a founding place in Geneva or some town or village with a quaint name in France. A making-off video which features men with Germanic features, wire-frame glasses and who is never smiling(we're portraying gravitas here), delicately assembling the watch components. Oh yeah and make sure you get celebrities, powerful politiciansand pro athletes to be photographed wearing the watch (the fact that some of these people couldn't reasonably afford such watches seems to suggest they were given the watch for free or even paid to wear them). edit: I know there are examples of watch manufacturers like Richard Mille who break the mould (at least with the historical legacy aspect), but it seems to be an unclear path to convince the gatekeepers of this clique that you're not just another poser trying to pry hundreds of thousands of dollars from the wealthy.
- eo3x0 9y ago
  A more "common" Patek like a Calatrava would be a different story and you've changed the goalpost in the discussion. So we're no longer talking about the highest levels of horological achievement -- that's fine, but the answer is still not what you're looking for. As a software dev, you're aware of diminishing returns. Fine watchmaking is an extreme case of this. The reason it costs what it costs is because everything is done to an extreme, by hand. Engraving, finishing are all unique on each piece. Quality assurance makes sure that it's passed a variety of brutal tests (and if it doesn't, you're on the hook for fixing it for free under warranty). That's not even getting to the raw material costs, which of course is precious metal 18K for the casing and silicons and alloys and synthetic lubricants for the movement. All of these pieces are proprietary and uniquely fit for the watch, so the Chinese sweatshop would need to reach a certain scale before they could produce it at profit. Just take a look at the extreme lengths Rolex goes to manufacture these watches with automation (linked in the original comment post). Patek has to do most of that by hand to keep each piece unique. Is there a high margin in the business when done right? Absolutely. Should the Chinese all give up the counterfeit industry and move in high quality watches instead? No, because the pricing would be within the same order of magnitude (though no longer out of reach like the earlier example with the highest levels of watch making) with large gains on labor and marketing cost but minus the heritage and history to actually sell the pieces. I think you're inaccurately making some assumptions about watchmaking that's fundamentally cutting your estimates down significantly to state that a Patek could be manufactured at 1/100th the price by a sweatshop or even 1/10th. It can't be done for the same reason why there isn't a Chinese Bugatti Veyron. The product is that good and true expertise and industry is backing that product. At the end of the day, we don't need to argue hypotheticals. If this were possible, it would already be done. In the wild, there are plenty of cheap counterfeit watches with Patek written on the dial but there are no "fake" Patek level watches that a person familiar with watches wouldn't immediately spot as a fake. And ultimately it's disengenuous to make any argument using "image" or marketing as a basis when it's done with fanfare plenty in our industry (a la Apple)

craigsmansion 9y ago

> If a similar Chinese sweatshop were to make a perfect functional replica of this Patek Philippe watch then the costs would be in the same ballpark as the actual watch. The reason these watches can be used as a "super"-currency for the very rich is that it is impossible to duplicate (so to forge) easily.

snowwrestler 9y ago
A Seiko autowinder will keep time as well as a Patek Philippe. Even Rolexes, which are much better made than PP, are cheaper. PP is just one of those brands that gets away with being so expensive because it is so expensive. The point of owning a PP watch is to demonstrate to the world that you can own a PP watch.
- craigsmansion 9y ago
  Timekeeping is not the objective of grandes complications. Artisanship is, making them hard to duplicate economically.
- eo3x0 9y ago
  I noticed that the commentary in this thread seems to be full of untruthful statements being thrown around as facts. This probably betrays the fact that the audience here is not very knowledgeable about mechanical watches, which was part of the curiousity mentioned in the original post. No, a run of the mill mechanical Seiko (say a Seiko 5 or even a SARB) will not run as accurately as a modern Patek. That's silly. Patek have their own Seal of quality guaranteeing a certain range of drift per day and performs well beyond COSC requirements. The typical Seiko wouldn't come close unless you're starting to get into Grand Seiko territory or Spring Drive movements which is a different league. Rolex vs PP on a typical 3 handed watch will have similar performance, with the Rolex probably fairing better due to the typical Rolex being designed (and QAed) for more extreme conditions. However, the most complicated Rolex is an annual calendar and this is where PP shine.
  - snowwrestler 9y ago