Holy moly! I never realised the speedmaster was ever that cheap!
If only we knew then what we know now eh!?
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Holy moly! I never realised the speedmaster was ever that cheap!
If only we knew then what we know now eh!?
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US Soldiers stationed in Europe used to buy now very rare Rolex models for less than that.
I remember seining one valued at $80,000 that the soldier paid $150 for.
He said he was the lowest rank soldier and it was a months wage.
Today a months wage for a basic soldier would not even cover the deposit for the modern equivalent.
My flightmaster was originally purchased in a USAF PX in Germany. I have no idea of the original price but it would have been a lot cheaper than the modern equivalent I should think (in relative terms)
Watches were a tool before the became the luxury item / collectable they are today.
I wonder how much the Seiko is worth today?
Anyone any idea what year this advert is from?
£158 is likely to have been a lot of money at the time. What is spectacular is the relative cost of both watches but until we know of the year it is difficult to expand.
Also, the market for a brand like Omega developed into luxury territory when good quality cheap watches became available, in the late 80s/early 90s. Before that You had 'traditional' luxury (PP, AP, VC, etc.), Rolex (luxury but tough, very aspirational), cheaper but high quality Swiss (like Omega) and cheaper Swiss (Tissot).
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Another difference worth noting is scalability - it turned out to be much cheaper and easier to build more quartz than mechanical watches.
Assuming mid-70s, inflation calculator puts this at just over £1300, which makes sense for the Speedy. Not sure the Seiko is as good an investment though.
Where did I leave that time machine
House prices have always been relative, though - My Mum and Dad paid £10,000 for theirs in Dorset in 1972 (3 bed, 'linked detatched' - Garages join to the next house).
Having sold the previous one for £11,000 in Surrey, my dad bought a brand new Ford Cortina with the difference (having only just learnt to drive at the age of 40!)
Houses have been a better bet than watches, though - My Mum still lives there and the houses sell for around £350K now, whereas the inflation calculator says 10K then is about £140K now... You can get a used Speedy for £2K...
M
Last edited by snowman; 15th January 2020 at 11:33.
Quite amusing that the digital Seiko was more expensive than the moonwatch.
Which is why I thought house prices would blow the guys mind if a £1300>>£2000 (in real terms) Speedy price difference seems amazing.
Mid-70s was a time of very high inflation, around 10-15% if I remember rightly. To accurately compare the price in todays money would require the exact year of the advert to be available.
Houses prices are at least double the mid-70s value in real terms, but interest rates are far lower and that affects affordability. For me, the most alarming statistic regarding watch prices is the increases since 2005. My December 2004 price list has the 3570.50 Moonwatch listed at £1575, nowadays it's £4k ish. According to the data inflation over the period accounts for a 50% price rise to 'only' £2377......make of that what you will!
Wow. The Speedmaster was cheaper than the Seiko.
Worth noting that quartz was a new and relatively expensive technology, with huge research investment costs to recoup in outs early days, whereas mechanical watches used older well embedded tech and costs.
It's just a matter of time...
It's easy with hindsight, but I wonder which people would choose if they didn't know what they know now. The Quartz might even look the better buy as the Speedy was old hat even then 👍
Correct, but the younger folks struggle to grasp that. In the mid-70s the future for mechanical watches looked bleak, nostalgia wasn`t a factor, everyone was forward-thinking and the new quartz technology was very attractive. The moon landing was fading into history too, folks had lost interest.
Absolutely true...assuming the advert is 1975 is very different from assuming 1979 in terms of inflation.
Totally agree with you about the luxury watch market since the 2000s. I started watch buying/selling in the late 90’s and the price rises have been incredible. I can’t pinpoint the exact time the majority of the price increase occurred...the 2007/8 crash seemed to propel luxury prices higher. Whereas Rolex seem to do the yearly increment to prices, I seem to remember a big push from Breitling and Omega to raise their RRP in quite a short space of time to try and position the brands alongside Rolex, often accompanied by in-house movements (eg Breitling shifting from ETA movements in Navitimers to the B01).
Thinking about my new watch purchases, I bought a new Navitimer in 2005 and the RRP was £3200. I subsequently sold this and eventually bought a Navitimer B01 in 2014 when the RRP was about £5800.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing though...since 2004, I must have bought and sold a good 10 sports Rolex watches..subs, SeaDweller, Milgaus, GMTs. Wish I’d just kept them all! Worst move was selling a SeaDweller for £1800 in about 2005.
being a young man in the early to late 70s I had other things on my mind watches was not one :-) there are thousands of things I should have bought back then that would have made me a fortune now, but the only thing I own now from the 70s is a car bought in 1974!! good judgement no just blind obsessiveness .
A bog-standard (the only kind available, TBF) colour TV was about £350 or £400 in the early- to mid-seventies.
Average gross weekly wage in 1973, from Hansard:
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-h...8/average-wage
Average Wage
Mr. Thomas Cox asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the present average wage paid in Great Britain.
§Mr. Chichester-Clark The latest available comprehensive information on average earnings is obtained from the New Earnings Survey and relates to April 1973. The following are estimates from that survey of average gross weekly earnings in April 1973 in Great Britain of full-time adults whose pay for the survey reference period was not affected by absence:
Average gross weekly earnings £ Full-time manual men (aged 21 and over) 38.10 Full-time manual women (aged 18 and over) 19.70
______
Jim.
It isn't that different than today! In reality the price in absolute terms hasn't changed:
Back in 1960 1 GBP = 12 CHF! (today 1 GBP = 1.26 CHF)
So, the price in the 1960s was around 1900 CHF for a Professional Speedmaster. Today the equivalent is about twice that, around 4700 CHF
in the 60s, the "minimal" salary was around 1500 CHF. Today, the equivalent is 4000-4200 CHF
So, in reality, it takes the same amount of "work" to buy a Speedmaster Professional in 1960s and today (at least in Switzerland!)
There are contemporary parallels.
Last edited by crimsondynamo; 15th January 2020 at 20:33. Reason: Better photo
My father bought a speedmaster at the Naafi in Germany for the princely sum of £30 in 1962, it had dauphine hands. He sold it in the 70'ies for £30 as it was not working( he dived in it and thought 30m depth rating was sufficient). Have lost count of the number of times I wish he had kept it.
Your gut feel is spot on. See. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate...flation-charts
The following article has been posted before (apologies to whoever first posted it) but I think you’ll enjoy the read, especially the chapter before the conclusion
https://medium.com/trends-watch/how-...s-a2c5e9aeb329
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Always surprised me how bare those old Rolex boxes were. They kind of presented the watch on a piece of cardboard in a not very plush wooden box. I do like the old hand written receipts though...much better than shopping for an expensive watch and getting a till and credit card receipt stapled together.
I think you’re referring to this video.
He paid $120 in 1960, and it was valued at $65/75,000.
Was pretty funny at the end, when he said he was speechless, as he’d have been happy if it had been valued at $1,500! 😂
https://youtu.be/li0mRLcGbU8
I bought that very Seiko in 1976 for £165 (I still have the receipt, the watch is long gone), at the time LCD quartz watches were the latest novelty and this was the first LCD chronograph on the market. Of course I would have preferred
the Omega Marine Chronometer Megaquartz, I believe that was about £450 at the time, a Speedmaster wasn't even considered.
In 1981 I bought a Milgauss 1019 (which I now realise had probably been sitting in the AD's window for at least 5 years) I remember getting fed up with the lack of a date, the fat case and the stamped aluminium hands. I was pleased when
the dealer kindly let me trade up to a Datejust 16234, a far more elegant timepiece!
Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing!
I bought SKX011 (orange, jdm) for 135€ before 2 yrs...now is double or even triple (?!)
I mean, really Seiko...or comparing my sarx with new coctail line, sarx is just a better watch and new cocktail with 4Rxx is more expensive...
little cosmetics and marketing and double prices, seiko is not a best buy anymore
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That is a lovely watch MJC. Priceless.
To me there is something special about handwritten receipts rather than printed till receipts.
A few years ago I read that PP still write out receipts. If I win the lotto I may get to experience this.
Honestly if I had that from my Dad doubt I’d own many more watches. Wonderful.
If we assume the Speedmaster is a 145.022-71T which was sold through to the mid 70’s, that very watch today with that bracelet is is a good £4.5k+ and increasing, like houses some items will outstrip inflation..