/fa/ - Fashion

>>18023508
Yess, was tough to find an original one.. most you see online are fake or frankensteins. Im also on the lookout for the small white dial one, but that one is even rarer. Havent decided yet which one i prefer

>>15677314
I was already really interested in clocks and had been for a while. For the longest time though, it seemed that watches was mostly a lot of samey pieces flying for ridiculous prices because "lol luxury", justified with overengineering everything. The luxury segment of the market in particular I didn't get, it seemed to be either gaudy or so understated it's hard to justify paying over 10 grands for something that is both mechanically basic and has no unique design features.
Digging into the vintage market for clocks is something I was used to but looking at the vintage watch market made me realize just how much variety exists in there too. What helped the most was looking into eastern/cold-war pieces. At first I was just interested in soviet chess clocks which were typically east-german, and that exposed me to how different the russian makers were.
I've started to appreciate the variations in watches a lot more and I am still discovering a lot.
I still have absolutely no interest in the luxury brands though, digging into watches has sort of confirmed what I already believed, it just showed be that there is a lot going on between the Swatch level and the 10k+ level.

>>15343139
That's because every watch is marked up to death.
Sure, any swiss-made watch that is actually swiss made will necessarily be more expensive than a japanese, russian let alone chinese watch based on labour cost alone, but not to the extent they'll have you pay.
Vostok and Raketa make automatic and mechanical watches in the ranges most watches should be if it weren't for massive markup, which is 60-150€, 100-300€ if you want to get fancy or add complications and more water resistance.
>>15343146
Raketa has a pretty interesting story too, being an "official watchmaker" during the USSR years, in charge of making all the commemorative watches and reward watches for officers and administrative officials, completely crumbling because that was their main business and it disappeared with the USSR, then be bought and completely rebuilt in the very same factory, based on the same models and hiring the same former employees.