I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.
I don't know anything about the secondary market for Hermes bags but it seems like it's pretty healthy.
But watches from certain brands (and certain models) can be sold immediately for a profit. For example, a Rolex steel Daytona retails for $14k from an MSRP. You'll sell it in a heartbeat on the secondary market for $30k. The Rainbow Daytona a handful of years ago was $100-150k IIRC. It's now closer to $500-600k.
The market is off its peak of 2021-2022 quite a bit but I've bought several luxury watches that could be sold for a healthy profit if I was so inclined.
What makes some of these products go crazy heights, while (I guess that) some other just lose value or never gain value ? Are those products better than others or is it just some pure coincidental mix of factors ?
It's really difficult to predict and has to be managed well by the company. But a big one is when a model gets discontinued because at that point no more will be made so supply is fixed.
So the current generation of professional (ie steel) Daytonas have a ceramic bezel. This is to avoid scratches but means they can shatter with enough force. The ceramic itself is baked in a plasma furnace. The tech behind these things can actually be really cool.
So Daytonas have historically sold above MSRP on the secondary market but not by this much. About 10 years ago the new ceramic Daytonas were released and what happened was a lot of people sold their previous DAytonas to "upgrade". This meant that what was 6 months earlier a $13k MSRP watch was selling for $10-11k and that seemed crazy to me given it was now discontinued so I bought one. At the peak of the market, that watch would sell for $30-35k. Now it's probably under $25k but that's still a good investment.
But steel Rolexes never really appreciate that much because the volumes ard really high. You're not going to get rich buying a steel Submariner. There's simply too many of them out there.
But one exception is the really vintage Daytonas, particularly what are called Paul Newman Daytonas [1]. These were watches that back in the 1980s sat in a display case for years (at $500 or less) because no one bought them but an association with Paul Newman skyrocketed them in the public consciousness to the point that a 1960s era Paul Newman Daytona in mint condition can easily be worth $500k-$1m+.
The market dynamics are really fascinating but it's now become essentially impossible buy an in-demand watch from an AD unless you're a big spender on other products there (they're all typically jewelers as well). The history of Rolex was in utility not luxury (eg the GMT was invented for Pan Am pilots who suddenly were flying cross-country, the Submariner is a dive watch, the Daytona was originally for racing drivers, etc).
I would say: Careful marketing. Who gets access to buy this kind of watch? All you need to do is Google: Rolex Rainbow Daytona. Look at all the celebrities that appear wearing that specific model. It is not an accident.
A mix of quality, management of scarcity, x-factor (call it what you will, some kind of intrinsic appeal to the in group who buy this sort of thing or otherwise inherent desirability), and marketing
Yup and it's not so easy to buy them, you need to get into a queue and wait. People with access shops/employee privileges (sometimes you can buy a watch out of the queue if someone doesn't show up to get theirs) are making a killing.
Well, this is a bit different. It is a way to safely park one's money. Not paying 10x price for a thing with the whole purpose being to show that I am fucking rich.
Sure, they are obviously very high-quality products, but they are clearly not worth the money you are paying for them. You're very obviously paying primarily for the opportunity to brag that you've got a "genuine Birkin". It's like those silly restaurants putting gold flakes on food: you can't taste or smell it, so you're paying solely for the opportunity to be ripped off.
If you've got money to burn, why not get a fully-custom product made exactly to your wishes by a local atelier and end up with a far superior product for the same price? What's the point if you can't even fully enjoy the fruits of your labor?
Yes, I know a guy who is of old Indian royal family stock (of course they have no special rights any more), and he will just show pictures of expensive bags and so on to his tailor and get them made for orders of magnitude less than retail.
>"Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?"
Does that really matter? I just expressed my opinion. And I am not that different. I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse.
I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse.
Obviously. But are there more people 'like you', than people willing to pay 'too much' for something they know is irrational, just because it brings them joy. I might not want to buy that specific hand bag, but I'm not going to sit here and judge since I too have made plenty of irrational purchases in my life, many of which have brought me great fun and joy.
I do make plenty of irrational choices too. Same people who do not mind paying thousands for a gun laugh at me when I pay $5000 for an EUC. Hard to explain but I think it is a bit different than paying for "status symbol"
Unironically saying that you have no interest in status symbols and then going on to talk about a purchase of a $5,000 electric unicycle is really something.
That $5,000 electric unicycle is a status symbol. You’re welcome to believe that I’m a fool and don’t know what I’m talking about.
Don’t you think that’s what every Rolex wearer and Birkin carrier thinks, too? “Oh they’re just really nice ________ with features I like and can afford.”
The only reason I've got EUC is because they're an incredible fun to ride. I've become a bit of an addict as for me it is pure mental and physical joy.
I do not give a flying fuck about its status value. It is most likely big fat zero since most people have no clue about the price.
Even though it was not a factor at all when buying it turns out to be very practical as it lets me run errands very fast and efficient. Nothing else beats the convenience. When I visit my current or prospective clients on a bicycle I have to leave it outside and risk it being stolen (nice bike and Toronto are very bad combo). Car - only if I want to ruin my day driving downtown. EUC comes with me into the office and 90% of the time it makes client very curious / amazed which is a good thing for conversation.
> I do not give a flying fuck about its status value.
It doesn’t matter whether you care about its status value. If I bought a Birkin and said, “I don’t care about the status value” you’d scoff and think I’m a sucker.
And yeah I guess I am surprised to learn that $5,000 is the cheapest available EUC.
An Hermes Birkin bag isn't fungible with other bags of equivalent design or quality. That it is that bag by that brand is essential. Most of the price and scarcity isn't for its qualitative or quantitative attributes but rather to maintain the appearance of exclusivity.
I doubt paulcole feels that way about their unicycle.
Yes, fundamentally, the possession of things of value is a signal of means, but that's mundane. Everything you own or do signals means to some degree, but that's different from signaling being an essential property of those things or activities.
Not the cheapest but one that has Smart BMS, IP rating, good suspension, big range and big power margin for safety. Otherwise yes, you can buy cheaper one starting I think with as low as $1000.
Oh wow, $4,000 more for the one you bought. Not everybody can afford to drop money on an item like that, especially when there are serviceable but cheaper alternatives.
It's almost like you have to have a certain something to buy it...
> Hard to explain but I think it is a bit different than paying for "status symbol"
I mean, yes, this is what all buyers of status symbols think. No-one is going out buying a Birkin bag or a Ferrari or a Rolex or a monkey NFT or whatever saying "better go buy a status symbol today". Or, at least, very few people.
Well you can interpret it like this and there is a logic. But truthfully my reply was to express my attitude towards the sellers of "status symbol" when the equivalent in everything but brand name is easily available for a fraction of the price
> When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.
This phenomenon is (or must be) so fundamental to existence that it has been produced over and over again by the process of biological evolution.
There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
Why not waste your money on literally anything else? Build a museum, fund a public library, get your name plastered on a university by giving tuition to some poor kids!
> There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
The modern world has much better ways to show this than relatively low cost jewelry/clothes/accessories.
Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts, and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
> Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts
Those are all way too expensive for regular folks.
> and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
That's too cheap to work as a status symbol for regular folks, plus provides all kinds of value (entertainment, relaxation, etc.) so it's not even a good way to burn money.
Regular folks show off by e.g. buying engagement rings that are multiple of the fiance's salary, or making other purchases whose defining characteristic is that others know it's expensive.
Jewelry, clothes and accessories are good for showing off because the more expensive ones aren't more useful or pretty at the margin. You're not buying utility for spending extra, other than that conferred by status games.
> There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
That's the whole deal with engagement rings, and more generally with romance.
And so they should be, there is absolutely no reason to pay more a mined diamond than lab-grown, it's synthetically produced but it's not a synthetic product if you see what I mean, it's not like say cotton vs polyester.
It only makes sense to mine diamonds if it's cheaper to do so than to manufacture one of equivalent quality.
There's a great documentary about this called Nothing Lasts Forever which I think I caught on Netflix.
The outfits with big skin in the natural/mined diamond sector have told a story about something that's been in the ground for eons and being pulled out and turned into something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge.
There are various attempts to keep the synthetics out, and/or identifiable, but even the main players are admitting that a significant percentage of synthetics are now in the naturals market, nobody knows how many, and that they're undetectable. That means the naturals market has to come back to actual costs plus some markup over what they've been for 100+ years: costs plus insane markups.
> something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge.
It's just BS, my wife's engagement ring stone is a size we picked, and then a quality (colour, lack of occlusions etc.) that I did some research on and picked to be a level for each that basically you needed to be trained & have equipment in order to determine the defects, i.e. I can't ever give her another one (natural or not) that looks better (it could be bigger but not more brilliant) to the naked eye. (And it's for her to wear, not an investment or whatever, so I figured really no reason to care beyond the naked eye.) If I'd added an additional requirement that it be formed over millennia in the earth, either it would have cost us a lot more, or more likely she'd have an objectively worse ring. Nothing romantic about that IMO!
Well I work as an independent company, I find clients, develop products for them on my own premises and get paid, sometimes it is licensing fees. I am not rich but do well enough and can retire. So no, except the government nobody tells me what to do and as long as I pay taxes the government not really interested in people like myself.
I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.