What watch? Ten watch. Such much!

There's a scene in Casablanca in which a couple of refugees, in preparation for leaving for America, are practicing their English. 

The husband, asking his wife for the time, says, "Sweetnessheart, what watch?" Looking at her watch, she answers, "Ten watch. Such much!"

Frau Leuchtag - soon to be Mrs.-in-America Leuchtag - is referring to the time being later than she thought.

But "such much" were the first words that came to my mind when I read about the European Watch Company (EWC), which is not in Europe at all, but is on Boston's Newbury Street, a few minutes walk from my home.

They've got a watch for sale that's going for $2.9M.

Such much, indeed. 

Of course, if you aren't looking for a wristwatch with "a rotating bauble called a tourbillon that’s designed to compensate for the effect of gravity on the watch’s mechanical parts", you can settle for something a lot more affordable. But we're not talking Timex here. Each month, EWC sells about 400 watches, and the average cost for a watch is around $40K. (Compare and contrast: I haven't worn a watch in years, but the last watch I had was a Skagen that cost about $100. Needless to say it didn't have a tourbillon.)

Anyway, EWC has been around since 1993, founded by Albert Ganjei a software engineer by day, and a "watchaholic" the rest of the time. When he started out, the watches he sold averaged $300. But that was then, and this is now. There are a lot of watch connoisseurs out there, and apparently plenty of them have enough discretionary income that their eyes don't roll into the back of their heads when they see a price tag of $40K or more. Au contraire: those eyes light up. 

The pandemic hasn’t hurt business one bit. Reginald Brack, an independent watch industry consultant, said that costly timepieces have sold well despite the COVID crisis, partly because so many other luxuries were out of reach during the lockdowns — fine dining, for instance, or foreign travel. But even when the pandemic was at its worst, you could always order a $100,000 watch online. (Source: Boston Globe)

Most of what EWC sells is pre-owned, what we used to call "used." 

During a recent visit, about 140 vintage Rolexes were on hand, as well as dozens of watches from other elite firms, such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin. The great majority of sales involve trade-ins. A customer might swap five $10,000 Rolexes plus $50,000 in cash for a single $100,000 Patek Philippe, an even more exalted brand famed for making virtually every part of its watches by hand.

A thing of beauty, as Keats poeted, is a joy forever. Whether a joy or not for the entire time, a well-maintained, high quality watch can last forever. (Even a cheap watch lasts pretty long. I'm pretty sure if I found that Skagen and replaced the battery, it would keep good time.) Over the years, expensive watches have proven to be a good investment. Like art, they're considered "investment vehicles." Plus, as the article points out, unlike an NFT, "high-end watches are tangible, touchable, real."

You can't just pop into EWC to browse their tangible, touchable, real wares. While customers sometimes do drop by:

...there’s no showroom here. Nearly all business takes place in a spacious room where 10 watch traders make transactions by phone and e-mail. 

In addition to the sales staff, EWC employs a crew of skilled repair men, including a master watchmaker, and three full-time photographers to take pics for the EWC website and app. One of the sales people, Ganjei's son Joshua, specializes in watches that cost $400K plus. Selling pedestrian watches for $150K had become boring to Joshua. Now he's looking for a buyer for the $2.9M watch with the tourbillon.

What watch? Such much!