Quote:
Originally Posted by tony20009
I'm not familiar with any stats such as the one you cited, but I guess that is what it is, both my unfamiliarity and the stats. I'm pretty sure most of the rich folks I know own and wear a Rolex, but then that's not representative of much of anything other than my casual observations of folks at certain gatherings, and I certainly have no specific idea of how liquid they are or aren't. I do know they are well off because the property taxes on all their homes is well over $250K, so I know they come up with at least that much cash annually.
I am posting as a "watch guy" just to say that when it comes to mass market brands such as Rolex, Omega, Tag and others, it's very hard to say much about the wealth position of such folks. So many folks buy them, many buy them pre-owned, many are given as corporate gifts, heck, lots of very regular folks will just save up to buy one.
Indeed, Rolex et al are so common that as a "guy into watches, " I don't even bother enjoining a Rolex wearing stranger in a chat. Not even so much as to just say "nice watch." (unless they are wearing a Cellini) I will do that if I see someone wearing some of the more esoteric, if you will, watches. Folks wearing Nomos, or Glashutte Original, Obris Morgan, or Sea-Gull, for example, but for sure there are lots of other brands that would inspire me to chat, at least briefly.
I don't know how rich those guys are, and really I don't care as I am certain they aren't about to gift me a tidy bundle of cash. LOL. The one thing that I'm generally pretty sure of, however, is that they are into watches. For me, that a person is "into watches" is far more interesting and worth a little banter than whether they buy expensive ones.
All the best.
EDIT:
FWIW, The price of entry for many of IWC's lines is sub-$10K. That's so in even for their Portuguese line (manufacture), which is the one that is most desired by "watch folks." That sum won't gain one entry with AP or PP, even used current models run above $10K. That doesn't make anything wrong with IWC watches, and God knows one doesn't need to spend $10K to get a very fine watch. I just wanted to clarify.
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Good post. Regarding the bolded part, again it's important to make the distinction between the following two statements:
Statement 1: A lot of rich people wear rolexes
Statement 2: A lot of Rolex owners
aren't rich.
Both of these statements are true. If you limit your analysis a priori to only rich people, then I'm sure a lot of them own Rolexes and other comparable brands. I don't have statistics on the percentage of rich people who own rolexes, but I don't doubt that your casual observation likely maps very closely to reality.
My statistic deals with the percentage of
rolex owners who are rich (well, $1M isn't rich but whatever, that's not the point of the discussion).
There are similar statistics for car brands (although I don't have them off hand). "What percentage of rich people drive luxury cars?", and "what percentage of
luxury car drivers are rich?" are two very different questions.
Imagine a room full of 100 people. 1 guy is worth >$1M. 9 are worth $100k-$1M. 90 are worth <$100k.
The guy worth >$1M wears a Rolex. The 9 guys worth $100k-$1M wear Rolexes. 20 guys in the <$100k range own rolexes.
Assume >$1M is "rich."
(1) What percentage of rich people own rolexes? 100% (1/1)
(2) What percentage of rolex owners are rich? 3% (1/30)
(3) What percentage of people are rich? 1% (1/100)
The statistics I posted are comparing (2) and (3) (6% > 1%). You may have been alluding to (1) with your observation.