NOS watches on demand?

Hypothesis: at some point in the future you will be able to place an order with a manufacturer for one of their historical designs, and it will be fabricated for you on demand.

I'm thinking of music in the 1980s which was incredibly expensive by today's standards. There were even songs or albums that you hunted for and if rare, you'd think that's it, I'll never hear that song again unless it's rereleased at the whim of the record label. Now of course you can go onto Spotify and listen to just about anything you like. Songs that you thought were gone for good are now at your fingertips.

The journey from then to now in the music business has been pretty painful, and has been driven to a significant degree by piracy.

The parallels with the wristwatch industry are clear. Music is just data, as is design. The trend through history is for data to become less expensive. With improvements in 3d printing etc, how long before the improvements in fake watches start to undermine prices and spur a response from the industry such as my hypothesis?



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Can't even order current models at the moment!! :icon_biggrin:

Design may be just data, but a watch is a physical thing, I'm not sure this is going to work....

We’ve already seen car companies like Jaguar, Aston Martin and Bentley cash in on their own heritage by releasing ‘continuations’ of their old cars (eg E-types, DB4GTs and Blowers), only a matter of time before watch companies start doing it imho. There are many similarities between the two industries - inflated prices for classic models being one - and brands are going to wake up to the fact they can get a nice slice of it without needing to invest in any new IP.


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"Can't even order current models at the moment!!"

1989 to 2019 is 30 years. What's the watch industry going to look like 30 years from now? Let's not forget that once highly valuable and exalted status symbols such as pocket watches are now practically worthless.

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"Design may be just data, but a watch is a physical thing, I'm not sure this is going to work...."

Data used to be a physical thing, books were copied out by hand by monks and were incredibly expensive, available only to the literate and the very wealthy.... until the printing press was invented.

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Originally Posted by JoeyTudor

We’ve already seen car companies like Jaguar, Aston Martin and Bentley cash in on their own heritage by releasing ‘continuations’ of their old cars (eg E-types, DB4GTs and Blowers), only a matter of time before watch companies start doing it imho. There are many similarities between the two industries - inflated prices for classic models being one - and brands are going to wake up to the fact they can get a nice slice of it without needing to invest in any new IP.


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They’ve been doing if for years now.

I could see a few manufacturers offering such a service but it will be v expensive like the car makers.

It'll be at a price which is supported by the circumstances at the time.

The music industry has got a grip of the market by two things, a) a crackdown on piracy coupled with b) music becoming so inexpensive that the public are happy to pay for it and not resort to illegitimate behaviour.

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What a lovely idea, I can’t see it happening though. It’s more profitable and simple for them to release modern watches in the style of older watches.

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Originally Posted by crimsondynamo

"Can't even order current models at the moment!!"

1989 to 2019 is 30 years. What's the watch industry going to look like 30 years from now? Let's not forget that once highly valuable and exalted status symbols such as pocket watches are now practically worthless.

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Can't honestly work out how your post relates to mine.

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Originally Posted by JoeyTudor

We’ve already seen car companies like Jaguar, Aston Martin and Bentley cash in on their own heritage by releasing ‘continuations’ of their old cars (eg E-types, DB4GTs and Blowers), only a matter of time before watch companies start doing it imho. There are many similarities between the two industries - inflated prices for classic models being one - and brands are going to wake up to the fact they can get a nice slice of it without needing to invest in any new IP.


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Isn't that what Square did a few years ago with some old dials and cases.

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If that happens, I'd like to put an order in with Omega for the Speedy Grail 376.0822 with the Lemania 5100 movement - two of my favourite design / features combined in one. The age of the existing models is such that they are becoming more fragile, and less everyday usable; a remake would work well, and have decent WR...

What would you go for?

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Music is just data.

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Tell that to Beethoven or Bach. Life is fundamentally just data. Only a matter of time before we are absorbed into the machine.

Crazy idea.

In most cases the tooling to produce parts for vintage watches won’t still exist, and producing by hand would be eye- wateringly expensive. A minimum quantity of each model would be required to make it remotely feasible.

Why not simply buy a genuine original vintage watch if that’s what you want? I own several and after proper restoration they’re almost as good as new.

I like the idea of resurrecting old designs but in most cases the manufacturers ruin the effect by making the watch far too big and too thick.

Can’t help being cynical about the way manufacturers refer to their ‘heritage’ and milk it for marketing purposes, yet they don’t support the genuine old examples out there because they restrict supply of parts..........that’s hypocrisy in my book.