There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
The thing that surprised me is that the cases used in most of these boutique watches are standard off-the-shelf cases, "catalog cases," available to and used by many companies. I know that Weiss Watch in Los Angeles designs its cases and a contractor makes them using a CNC milling machine, but apparently that is not the norm, and it's probably why Weiss charges $1,000 for a somewhat bland field watch design.
Let's say you want to sell a dive watch of your own. It turns out that you can order as few as 100 units. Does that number sound familiar? How many watch runs have been in the realm of 100? It's the minimum risk for the new watch marketer, and reduces risk if they have lead content that requires that they be scrapped. If you want to sell cheap but not have the watch seem too cheap, you choose a Miyota movement, or maybe a Seiko, a catalog case and crystal, maybe customize the back and crown and hands and bezel or bezel insert, and definitely customize the face. The more parts you choose from the catalog, the cheaper the watch will be. If you want to customize everything and have a small unit run, the watch price goes into four figures.