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Comment by EB-Barrington | Hacker News Reader

Price: $1,888,000 US dollars.

Apparently that's also how much you have to pay to get a device that won't choke on their website.

It's impressive that they've actually managed to make the websites for these products as overwrought and unnecessary as the products themselves.

There must be a very happy web design team somewhere in there world that's been told "you don't need to care about any kind of optimisation, our clients will always have the tippest-top computers and phones and so that you get it right we're going to buy one for each of you too, just in case you accidentally do something that makes it work on a pleb-grade device".

This strikes me as a product that the Chinese could copy and mass-produce for -- I dunno -- $500? And it would work 75% as well. I don't see a huge barrier to entry here except for IP, which never stops the Chinese.

Tiny titanium parts aren't trivial to machine and tolernaces need to be tight to get them interchangeable and have them work. Not sure if all the parts are made by conventional machining, if so, probably doable, if it needs chemical etching or EDM might cost more.

Do the parts need to be titanium for the watch to work? If not, then the Chinese counterfeits will just use aluminum or something instead.

Good point, probably not, I don't know if you could get the wear resistance with aluminum but probably steel.

From what I understand the Chinese are still working on duplicating far more common movements from the likes of Omega and Rolex. They have certainly mastered the external components, but the giveaway for fake chinese watches is always the movement.

I could be wrong, but I have yet to see a teardown of a superfake where the movement held up to even amateur scrutiny.

Good superfakes of the Rolex submariners come with a cloned movement that looks pretty damn close to the real thing. It's not just a generic movement shoved into a rolex-like case anymore. Either way, all rolexs have closed casebacks, so nobody is gonna even be able to see it. If the exterior looks correct, nobody is going to notice. But, the Rolex 3135 is a 30+ year old movement, so you'd hope modern technology could copy it pretty well by now.

what sort of yearly income do you need to be able to buy this? I assume people in this tier just pay cash and already own a sizable Ferrari collection.

Otherwise with 30% down. current market interest rates, you would be looking at $20,000 / month to lease it.

So you could flex considerably as a double digit millionaire. Its just fascinating how wealthy some people are and how limitless it is.

insane...so you need at minimum upper 3 digits.

i got anxiety from reading it. it almost seems like at the very top, its lonely and dehumanizing when every whim challenge is met leading to time scarcity.

i think the sweet spot is $270MM. 250MM generating 3~5% a year, 20MM in cash. you can buy everything but wouldnt spend it on this watch (you shouldnt)

which means this watch is for ppl with 800MM minimum.

This is not for people who work for a living.

It’s also probably not for people who gained their fortune via their own intelligence.

Limited run of only 150 units! Sheesh ...

Pretty cool, but it costs like $100K per mm.

Think of it as art, not a tool.

We see Leclerc wearing it as a watch on that very site.

More like $1M per mm.

Stacked on top of each other, that’s less than a foot.

one of the few watch brands (the only one?) that makes a ferrari look cheaper than a clearance item at a dollar store.

Is there are meaning behind this number (apart from nazism, obviously)? Otherwise it seems kinda odd.

In China 8 is considered to be a really lucky number, signifying wealth. https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/it-s-in-the-numbers-l...

Indeed. Note that Swiss Watch exports to Hong Kong alone (7m inhabitants) were more than to the USA (330m inhabitants) in the last decade, until HK's recent demise. Asia is a 3 to 4 times bigger market than North America; Europe is between those.

So, it is no wonder that the number 8 figures prominently.

In 2021, in Swiss watch exports in CHF bn:

to USA, China about 3 each; HK about 2; Japan about 1.5; Italy, Germany, Singapore, UAE, France about 1 each.

http://www.fhs.swiss/scripts/getstat.php?file=histo_regions_...

http://www.fhs.swiss/pdf/regions_210112_a.pdf

1888 is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (so far). But it’s probably just to make it seem more of a bargain than $1,999,000.

we should be able to write MDCCCLXXXVIII as MCXIIM

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