<p>Lizard, do you have specific tips? Otherwise, it’s just a rant against overpaying – well, no one wants to overpay!</p>
<p>It’s rare to find an “investment grade” watch and even more rare to find a young person who will wear it and keep it in a condition that it remains investment grade.</p>
<p>Rolex is a common place brand and not “investment grade”. Most will depreciate over time but are more likely to retain their value depending on the amount of gold and valuable stones in them.</p>
<p>If you really want investment grade buy a watch with a lot of gold or limited edition designs. Watches with a lot of gold, however, are heavy. </p>
<p>Rather than focusing on investment grade, I would focus on beauty, functionality and long term appeal.</p>
<p>If you want to see some really beautiful watches, pick up a copy of Watchtime at your local book store.</p>
<p>Tip: most jewelers will negotiate price, don’t be afraid to haggle with jeweler…you’re not going to offend him making a fair proposal.</p>
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<p>Try talking about someone else doing one’s laundry, and watch the masses go crazy! ;)</p>
<p>PG,
I like your gift idea and considered it for my Ds, but for a college graduation gift, not 21st birthday. At 21, they were still in college and I didn’t think they would appreciate the gift as much at that particular time in their lives as they would when starting out in the working world. At graduation, I starting shopping for the watch (my oldest wanted Rolex), but what I decided was that women’s watches are less likely to be “classic.” The face size for womens watches changes a lot over time; now the larger faces are popular whereas they were much smaller 20 years ago, and this led me to decide that it might not actually be a gift with lasting value (for women, anyway). In the end, I gave them cash for their grad gifts, and I noted that neither of them spent it on watches. They did end up asking for fashion watches for Christmas (Michele).</p>
<p>Razor sharp - I mean this in the sense of classic investment dressing, not actually “investment vehicle in case you need to sell it down the road.”</p>
<p>pizzagirl, as lizard says, most reputable jewelers (preferably owner operated stores) will negotiate on price. Never pay the asking price. Ask them ‘what’s the best you can do’. They expect people to do this. My husband has several of these types of watches and he’s never paid what the asking price was. Typically, he gets a 20-30% discount.</p>
<p>pizzagirl – this is for your twins, right? Happy Birthday to them!</p>
<p>Do you have enough time to search out what the auction houses have to offer? Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Doyle’s – they all have online bidding now and you might get a really great piece at a discount.</p>
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<p>Especially if you’re buying two!</p>
<p>Here is my rolex story…</p>
<p>I was looking for a white gold and diamond watch 5 years ago. I used to be on ebay quite a bit, so I saw this jeweler getting of Rolex dealership business and he had a beautiful watch exactly what I was looking for. The watch was substantially less than the full retail price. On impulse I bought it using my AmEx because I figured I could get my money back if it wasn’t real - I had paper trail with the merchant claiming it was real.</p>
<p>H flipped out when he found out who I bought the watch from, he said just not to cry to him if it turned out to be a fake. When the watch arrived, it looked beautiful and I was thrilled with it. I wore it for few weeks and it STOPPED running. I was thinking to myself, “Holly crap, what am I going to do?!” So I took it to the Rolex headquarter in NYC to have them take a look. I told them that I didn’t have the receipt because it was a gift. They told me to come back in few hours so they could either fix it or give me an estimate if it’s going to be major. I fully expected them to tell me it was a fake. When I went back to pick it up, they said to me, “It was just the battery (cellini is powered by battery), we replaced it for free. It is a beautiful watch, our newest style for this season.” I was very happy to tell H everything was fine.</p>
<p>Great story, oldfort. Glad the watch panned out. It sounds gorgeous.</p>
<p>Glad it worked out! Phew!</p>
<p>I don’t suggest for you to get it from ebay.</p>
<p>A bit OT…but…</p>
<p>My dad who is now 93 immigrated in the mid 1950’s. He had lived a rather privileged life in his country of origin, but all that was left behind. Very early on, purchased himself an 18K gold Omega self winding watch. I think it was about $400.00 ‘back then’. He has worn that watch every day of his life. He worked as a machinist. Each day after coming home and cleaning up he would put on that watch. </p>
<p>Dad’s Omega broke once in all these years (mid 90’s). He took it to several watch repair places …all with the same result…parts to old, no one knows how to work on this. While on a trip to Switzerland he walked into a random jewelry store. They took a look at his watch, told him to come back in an hour…it would be fixed. </p>
<p>So…I’m an Omega fan (bought H one as a wedding gift). And a fan of trips to Switzerland ;).</p>
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<p>Maybe you should try to work in a Silicon Valley computer company where “professional outfits” (if you mean stuff like business suits) with accompanying accessories are not mandatory (or that common) to wear at work.</p>
<p>“Maybe you should try to work in a Silicon Valley computer company where “professional outfits” (if you mean stuff like business suits) with accompanying accessories are not mandatory (or that common) to wear at work.”</p>
<p>I would definitely look at that as a serious perk of the job. I was able to convince my son to get some new jeans for work that didn’t have holes in them. I guess NYC tech workers are a little more uptight than Silicon Valley. You’d probably fit right in, in Silicon Valley, with the holes.</p>
<p>We have a Rolex store in Westfield Century City. (Los Angeles). There is also another watch store in the mall which has a lot of different brands. We also have (in West Losangeles) a private store, Feldmar, who also carry used and new watches.</p>
<p>I bought my Rolex from a shopping mall jeweler 20+ years ago, and about 5 weeks later, I bumped my wrist on my car door while getting in the car, and the crystal cracked. It was a light bump, nothing big, less impact than if I had dropped the watch on the ground, but the impact must have hit a <em>sweet spot</em> on the crystal. I took it back to the jeweler, arguing that it was normal wear and tear (which it was), but he would not replace it, and despite my written appeals (this was before everyone was online) to both the Rolex USA office and its world headquarters in Switzerland, my request for repair at their expense was denied. I was very unhappy because the repair cost me hundreds of dollars and weeks to get it back. I stopped wearing the watch a few years later because I thought it looked boring and out of date.</p>
<p>Someone with excellent and understated personal style could surely wear an elegant watch for everyday, even in a casual environment. It’s people who don’t know to dress well who think that these things “stand out.” </p>
<p>And this has nothing to do with business-suit wearing at all. I have no idea whether my kids will wind up in jobs requiring traditional business suit wear. (I don’t, and their father doesn’t.)</p>
<p>Those people who just don’t know how to dress well are so disgusting. I personally would not even acknowledge the existence of someone lacking excellent personal style. Good Lord, I am so glad to live in the PNW where we don’t judge others by their dress. The ultimate of understatement are those who don’t obsess or boast about it.</p>
<p>My parents bought me an Omega wristwatch (the old-fashioned kind you have to wind) when we visited Switzerland in 1972 after I graduated from high school. It still runs, although I haven’t worn it for many years for obvious reasons, and it runs slow, so it would have to be fixed in order to be usable. I offered to give it to my son, or to buy him a nice watch for his college graduation, but he turned both offers down, explaining that “nobody he knows who’s his age wears a watch.”</p>