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The Value of Time
Thomas Mao, Psy.D.
12/01/2003
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The rise of enthusiast-oriented online communities such as ThePuristS.com, focusing on the interests of the serious connoisseur, or Broadarrow.net, specializing in military timepieces, have provided some counter-balance to larger online marketplaces through their own community-driven sales listing boards. Their more congenial community feel and higher level of specialized collector sophistication tend to more fully and properly value overall condition and provenance for both buyer and seller. Ask the typical seller on an enthusiasts’ board about the item listed, and you will likely receive a complete ownership history, and possibly even a history of the type or brand. Sellers are usually aficionados and collectors themselves, deaccessioning to trim the collection or to finance the next major acquisition. Whereas on eBay, intrinsic value is merely one of several selling points, on the enthusiast venues, it assumes personal implications.
  | | The Sky Moon Tourbillon from Patek Philippe features an asymmetrical design. (Click image for close-up) |
Intrinsic value. These implications are as varied and complex as the movements of the watches themselves. To eavesdrop on the perorations in a connoisseurs chat room is to descend into a kind of bedlam populated by high priests of horology whose madness is mixed with a passion for detail that would stupefy even a bevy of clerics debating the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. The technical underpinnings occupy much of this discussion of a piece’s intrinsic value, but the emotional force that accompanies such opinion usually derives from less empirical factors. Following are the eight primary components of intrinsic value in the watch-collecting world.
 Branding and prestige. This component determines the lion’s share of "pedigree." High horology tends to be a very traditional field, and the history of a brand is critical to the brand value for most consumers, even more so for the typical collector or specialist. For the better part of the 20th century, three high horology brands have maintained the most consistent reputations for quality and the most durable air of prestige. Often known as the Big Three, they are Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, and Vacheron Constantin.
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