Yes
No
Back on topic, although it's all relative, £13k is a large purchase for all but the most affluent.
Also, I know compared to a lot of very high-end watches this is not that expensive, but I do suspect that even watches in the £10k-20k bracket sell in very small numbers, never mind six-figure model, so there is a big difference between the simple average price of a brand's watch range and the average price sold (or mode/median etc).
I haven't trawled the last four pages of invective. I assumed that obviously ignoring the concepts not only of mean and median, but also weighted average and logarithmic representation were part of the joke, a joke that no-one (and, for good measure, Peter Noone) seemed to get.Originally Posted by robcat
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
I should have said £1.49, apparently the price of an 800g Hovis Original 7 seeds.
People are conflating expensive with affordable.
Expensive has nothing to do with how rich the purchaser is, it only is concerned with the price of the article.
The argument that something is not expensive because a rich person can purchase it with ease is wrong. This is affordability. Affordability exists on a sliding scale based on wealth and personal preference and can't be defined. Something that is expensive is simply something that the average guy couldn't pay.
This has to be one of the dumbest polls I've read in a long time.
Likewise, ascribing 'value' in economic terms to a luxury purchase is counter intuitive. Luxury goods are by definition 'expensive' , otherwise they wouldn't be luxury purchases 'because you're worth it'. Luxury pricing to a certain degree is recession proof, because higher price tags themselves increase desirability and connote exclusivity. The value of luxury products lies mainly in their perceived value (although this perceived value can be bolstered by the use of intrinsically valuable materials). Hence why Rolex annual price increases are disproportionate to increases in production costs.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Yes it's expensive for a watch.......
Best! Glenn
What's dumber are the arguments going on around it.
Why not just vote? The result should reflect everyone's interpretation of what expensive means.
If you ask a stupid question.........
A sensible idea.
But, unfortunately there are a handful of people on here who only recognise things like polls if the results match their opinions.
They tend to have an inability to admit when they are wrong and tantrum when they are, very frequently, contradicted and out-thought.
Contextually speaking, I can see what you did there... :)
(BTW, I was probably thinking more in terms of quantum gravity... ;)
Can't you get blue label for about 45p? The Parnis of the bread world.
This thread has actually got Worse / More Entertaining [delete as appropriate] than Rolex vs. Grand Seiko. Who'd have thunk it?!
IMHO 13K for a watch is hugely expensive. Whether there is far more expensive watches out there doesn't change that. It's just less expensive than others.
Ah, the good ol' troll thread. Ambiguous and inflammatory question. Yes/No answers required. Much debate ensures. Godwin's law holds. I might as well put my 2p in, why not?
It all boils down to how you define "expensive":
Is 13k expensive compared to other, expensive luxury watches? That's subjective. The answer could be "Yes" if you are mainly talking about Omega, Rolex, etc., or "No" if you are mainly talking about Patek, A. Lange & Söhne, etc.
Is 13k expensive compared to the median income in the first world? Yes. For more than 99% of the population, its even more than De Beers managed to convince people they should spend on worthless transparent rocks as a way to quantify their love for another person. It's also more than the gross annual salary of a minimum wage full-time worker in the UK.
Is 13k expensive compared to the median income in the third world? Yes, you could buy a lot of grain and fresh water with that money. The latter investment would certainly lead to preventing a number of deaths. So by this measure, 13k is greater than the value of several human lives.
Finally, what is the total cost of ownership of a 13k watch, assuming you sell it on after a number of years rather than passing it on in your will? Well in that case it varies. In some cases, you might actually make a profit, so by that measure it's not expensive at all, unless you only count the capital gains tax you'll end up paying.
Disclaimer: The price of watches can go down as well as up and is not guaranteed. In fact you are very likely to lose a lot of money if you invest it in watches.
To answer that question reasonably, one would have to place it in context with the society in which we live, and consider the means of a "typical" member of that society, not simply one's own means and the relativity of such an expenditure on such an item.
If you honestly think that a 13k watch is not expensive then you must surely be in the extremely priviliged position of being completely out of touch with such a society.
Jim
£13k? Expensive as hell!
Just came into this thread and the first post I saw was about the Jew's during WW2.
WTF?
Interesting result
5053 views
14 people think 13K is not expensive
234 people think it is
4805 Think it is a stupid question and declined to vote !
That's not really how it works though, is it?
I absolutely think its expensive but the poll has closed and I can't vote.
Seems like your perspective on watch costs was shown to be an outlier, even amongst your WIS peers, well before I got here though.
Only when it's a General Election.....
Any voting situation begs the question of what the non-voters were thinking, especially when they form a massively overwhelming majority.Only when it's a General Election
TZ has only ~3500 active members.
Many (or most even) of those views will be non-members or repeat visits.
Poll should have been left open rather than just 24 hours. There must be lots who wanted to vote but were unable to.
Of course there areThey just didn't bother when they did have a chance.
Possible they thought it was a really stupid poll asking an even more stupid question.
I have got through several packs of thisreading and contributing to the most stupid thread and poll I have encountered in many years of Watch forum activity.
Kind of sums it up.
In a western representative democracy I believe that those who do not vote are deemed to tacitly consent to the out come of the poll. That appears to be the way that governments claim they have a legitimate mandate when only 30% of the populace vote. I couldn't say whether this is appropriate to straw polls on a watch website.
java photographed earlier today doing a spot of digging, whilst wearing his watch......!
...exclaimed the photographer's child.
I think this is my new favourite thread. Reminds me a bit of cable threads on the hifi forums.
Yes, to me, £13k seems expensive because its a big chunk of money. Simple as that.
There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers.Of course there are
Possible they thought it was a really stupid poll asking an even more stupid question.
I have got through several packs of this
Guess which camp I think your post falls into.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Did you actually say that! Explains a lotThere are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers.
Guess which camp I think your post falls into.
Que?Did you actually say that! Explains a lot
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Here's some (kind of) context:
I saw a DSSD in an AD at £8650, my first cost me £4500 in 2008. I am certainly not earning nearly double what I was then, therefore the DSSD is now too expensive in my eyes.
Haha! So desperate!
Priceless!
Youre really clutching at straws now aren't you!
Just man up, grow a pair, and admit that, on this occasion - and in life there will be many more such occasions - you are wrong...
java photographed earlier today doing a spot of digging, whilst wearing his watch......!
...exclaimed the photographer's child.
Funny and summing things up pretty perfectly.
Don't even try to decipher any meaning to Javas comments anymore.
Hes like a punch drunk boxer in the ring, dead on his feet, swinging desperately, knowing deep down he's getting the hiding of his life, but too dumb to go down...
13k for a watch is a lot of money, especially considering that 99,5% of the watches sold is in the 50~300 area.
I didn't vote because I thought it was an utterly pointless poll.
In elections my vote usually goes to whatever spineless thieving parasite I dislike least.
Should I choose not to vote in the next election it would be because I have joined the masses who have quite frankly lost interest. I haven't consented to anything but then politicians generally do what they like anyway.
+1
I quite agree. I think there should be a way for electors to register a none of the above vote, and like you, I no longer have a political party that deserves my vote. Trouble is the way things are set up if you don't vote you are deemed to consent to what ever you get. As the anarchists say, it doesn't matter who you vote for the government gets in and it seems to me that it's those buggers that cause all the problems.
It strikes me that, having read a lot of this thread, the argument at the centre of all the debate is illogical as participants are treating a relative term as an absolute. There is no answer to the original question: "is a 13 thousand pound watch expensive?" because the term is expensive is relative. As a result this thread may outlive the infamous Rolex vs Seiko.
Not really in this case.
But even if it were, the majority, applying whatever parameters they chose (if, for some reason they chose to apply any) voted in a very very significant majority that £13k is expensive for a watch.
Sure, somebody with a less capable mind could get silly/desperate and mention people who didn't vote - going so far as to speculate why not - despite the absence of any applicable facts - but then he'd be in the realms of clutching at straws/making stuff up/being ungracious in defeat.
And that would make him a very sad person indeed...
I think the £1.49 SimonK pays for his hovis loaf is expensive. A Tesco multi seed one is £1.30 or 2 for £2 on offer.
I'm not going to speak for everyone who said 'Yes', but the logic employed is sound.
The definition is given as "costing a lot of money" – the relative component is the amount a typical item costs, not the disposable income of the buyer.
To twist the logic and use the highest priced item as the benchmark is totally absurd and completely arse-about-face.
Synonyms are: costly, overpriced, dear, high-priced, exorbitant, extortionate.
Personally, I'd reserve exorbitant and extortionate for even higher priced items, as a differentiator.
So, the term is an absolute, but measured relative to a norm.
Dear god, is this thread still running?
The question was (as we all know) seriously flawed, but it could nevertheless have been interpreted in two ways.
1) Within the context of what you (the TZ member responding) would feel comfortable spending on a watch, is £13k expensive? This is, no doubt, the way most people have chosen to respond and - dare I suggest - the expected answer would be "yes".
2) Within the context of watches that you (the TZ member responding) regard as expensive, does £13k represent the cost of an expensive watch? This is the point Tim was making in another thread; bearing in mind that at a recent GTG one watch being passed around lists at £250k, you can understand why anyone interpreting the question this way might have voted "no".
Right, can we talk about something a little more interesting now?
Those are not synonyms. Some are absolute, some are relative to value.
Synonyms: costly, dear, high-priced.
13k is certainly costly.
Synonyms: overpriced, exorbitant, extortionate.
Whether something is overpriced depends on how much it cost to make (ignoring demand for now). Is 13k overpriced for a Roger Smith piece? No. It's still expensive, but a relative bargain.
Is HS2 is expensive? Does it depend on the relative parameters for a national rail project or affordability?
Given the quality of your reasoning earlier in this thread, I don't quite understand where your last conclusion comes from. (Unless it's a throw away remark because you don't like the question but are still enjoying the twists and turns of the mad banter that's ensued... :)
In the OP's question we have a subject; watches (presented in a way to presume "all watches"), we have a qualifier; the term expensive*, and we have a specific value; the unambiguous and discrete £13000. Also it is worth noting we have nothing else. These three elements don't need further context and on their own they do create a perfectly valid logical argument.
That people either don't like, don't understand, choose to ignore its validity or add their own unnecessary "relative" perception is fair enough, but it does not make the question illogical or unanswerable.
*expensive (adjective) (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition © Oxford University Press 2009)
2.a Of a thing: Attended with expense; costly, dear.
1634 Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 70 The two late expensive and chargeable sieges of Buss. 1664 Evelyn tr. Freart's Archit. 119 Till‥the remedy [be] impossible or expensive. a 1715 Burnet Own Time (1734) II. 658 The Law of England is‥very expensive and dilatory. 1726–31 Tindal Rapin's Hist. Eng. (1743) II. xvii. 109 He‥lived at so expensive a rate. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. i. xi. (1869) I. 232 To collect the produce of unimproved lands‥would be too expensive. 1838 Dickens Nich. Nick. iv, It's expensive keeping boys at home. 1865 Bushnell Vicar. Sacr. ii. i. 192 God‥will bend Himself to any most expensive, lowest burden of sympathy. 1883 Froude Short Stud. IV. i. ii. 16 The father‥was unable to give the child as expensive an education as he had desired.
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