Quote Originally Posted by mindforge View Post
A watch is worth what any given buyer is prepared to pay for it at any given time - so how would you value a collection to check whether it has beat inflation/gained in value?
The OP said "Assuming that predictions of high to hyper-inflation are correct, we are advised to get out of money and accumulate "hard assets" such as gold, Cambell's soup, bullets, blah di blah.

Under such circumstances . . ."

So, with paper money worthless, your collection is valued against things that you need to survive. So the liquidity of your trade goods comes into question. So, if I walk into a grocery store in search of Campbell's soup, which might the counter clerk favor - my proffered 0.999 pure silver dollar or my Patek Phillipe multi-jeweled wonder?

In other words, the valuation of your collection would be affected by liquidity, cuz if nobody wants a high-end watch in hard times your collection has zero value until life improves a bit and knowing the time of day regains some merit.

In the interim, while our fearless governments are printing money as hard as they can go, watches beat dollars anytime, IMHO :-)