Welcome to our new series! Through the episodes of Undervalued, we’ll discover some real hidden horological gems; watches that are extremely underrated both from an aesthetics and technical point of view, as well as ones that have a lot of potential to appreciate in value on the market. We’ll cover a large range of brands, from household names like Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Rolex, all the way to independent watchmakers
“With the IWS Market segments, we tracked the market growth of today’s trendiest watches through graphs and diagrams. But lately, we’ve asked ourselves: why must we get caught up in the hype around the watches of today, which are near-impossible to get our hands on, when we could focus on the trends of tomorrow?” – IWS Team
How is the series structured?
1) Retail Price
This is also known as the list price or the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price)… this one’s pretty self-explanatory. Back in the day, you could get away with some negotiation here and there to lower this price, but nowadays, given the soar in demand, the retail price has become far less flexible.
But is this the case for everyone and indeed everything? Well, yes and no. Many brands do not allow for retailers to offer discounts for the majority of their models, with some not willing to budge on anything in their catalogue. However, when it comes to the undervalued models (the ones that are overlooked), sometimes, retailers can knock a few dollars off the pricetag (but you didn’t hear that from us).
The retail price could be subject to change at any moment in the year, and all watchmakers reserve the right to do so, even without warning or notice. You can find an example of this happening in this article here.
On UNDERVALUED, we’ll report and record these kinds of changes.
2) Current Aftermarket Price and its history
This series is also composed of graphs and diagrams to help you better understand the fluctuations in the UNDERVALUED timepiece’s aftermarket price.
The Law of Supply and Demand governs pretty much every type of market that you can imagine, and the horological one is no exception. Over the years, we’ve seen our fair share of trends (of which some could even be classes as crazes… blue-mania, anyone?), with the most dominant ones being those of sports watches and steel models.
Consequentially, all the other models have been overshadowed. Now is the time where you can find some really splendid, sophisticated and – by virtue of being a non-steel or non-sports watch – undervalued timepieces for some surprising figures.
3) Why you should buy it
Last, but certainly not least (in fact, most importantly): why should you buy this undervalued watch?
IWS will give you 3 main reasons why we think that you should buy the watch featured in the episode. We always try our best to make balanced, fair and objective points, but some of these reasons might not convince everyone. Thats alright, though! Because at the end of the day, every one of us has our own taste, and some of us will appreciate certain characteristics more than others. After all, it would get pretty boring if we all liked the same things, right?
For example, some people will go crazy over Breguet numerals… others might not, and prefer Roman numerals instead. Some will automatically equate a steel variant with rarity, whilst others will think that “precious metals are precious for a reason”.
Now, all that’s left to do is to get started with the first episode… wanna read? Click here for the full article!
Why should you buy it? It’s cool, it’s UNDERVALUED
-Translated by Patrick R.
