Patek Philippe

Some interesting tid-bits and macro observations by Mr. Stern in an interview that was published by Bloomberg today. Story reprinted below. Can't find link to video interview but perhaps this is published later today: What does he mean by "when he's not w... 

That is indeed somewhat surprising. Thierry Stern not wearing a watch to tell the time.

When people buy a Patek the cost of the gold is just a little fraction of the watch. Even when speaking about the cheapest Patek you still have to pay more or less 13.000 euro for a simple Calatrava. How much gold does a calatrava use ? 60 grams ? It won'... 

Hi, Add to the gold content value of a watch and this added value is then multiplied by the standard factor. So if a production cost is let's say 3 000 (purely theoretical ) and then multiplied by 5 to arrive to a retail price of 15 000, then if you add 5... 

So the industry wants to make a 5-fold markup on the gold too? Then, they shouldn't be surprised if they loose the market touch ... Eric09

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but the price of gold is only one off the several things that make the price. And if not all the separate items rise with 30% it is imo unnecessary to raise the total cost by 30 %, I know they would want to but if they can't because otherwise the watch wo... 

Hi, Michelin costs are much more linked to raw materials than Mercedes. The more manufactured the product is, the lesser the influence of raw materials. Cheers Dje

I myself would love to own several referances in Stainless Steel. I am sure that I am not alone. I suspect Patek could add this metal in large numbers to many of their referances if gold became cost prohibitive. Maybe the profit margin could be maintained... 

but this presents itself, to many manufacturers, as an opportunity (justification) to increase prices which most folks can understand. What happens when gold levels drift back to the $400-500/oz levels? Folks have a much more difficult time understanding ... 

Almost as interesting is what this means for platinum. With gold trailing closer and closer to platinum, how will the watch companies be able to place such high retails on platinum pieces, specifically high complications, when the retails between their go... 

between platinum and gold even with gold prices and platinum prices so close. Years ago when platinum and gold were within dollars of each other, the spread was still very substantial, about $8-10,000. As I was told then, the reason was in machining and c...