Who would have thought that Australia would be cheaper than China to buy a luxury watch. Apparently some Chinese tourists are snapping up mega expensive watches… because they can and because we sell them cheaper than their own country. Luxury watch sales are up 25% in Australia and although the world wide trend in luxury watches is up to 36.9 percent for retail sales, Australia has done us proud. Recently a stunning watch was sold for a world record price for a Swiss made Girard-Perregaux Haute Horlogerie Cat’s Eye Tourbillon, which was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, to hold a price tag of a staggering 650 K.
This watch took 700 hours to make, and so obviously labour costs were incorporated into the price , a system which is well over due here in Australia and something I personally think is appropriate (speaking as one, who spends many hours making new designs). The components of this spectacular time piece are numerable but worth mentioning is the 280 baguette diamonds with a total weight of 20 carats! adding a whopping boost to the value. This was sold to one of our own, a punter from Victoria, who bought it at this brand’s world record price. This mega luxury watch does not even gauge the depth of the water or alert you of the date and needs to be rewound every few days, but ah…what a status symbol it is! Not everyone can afford to buy a watch for over 1/2 million dollars but we can take a quick look at it… and so I thought I would share it with you.