Are Independents Becoming Unobtainable?

[TimeTexas]

It seems that even despite the overall watch market slow down, independent brands remain strong and are actually seeing growth and increased interest. I've heard several people complain recently about not having access to watches they were interested in purchasing, despite being big collectors and a buying history. 

I think this is a function of two primary driving factors. 

The first is that one of the biggest shifts in the industry over the last couple years is a distinct shift by collectors and investors from the hype brand watches to smaller independents. For better or worse, frustration over the hype insanity and sales strategy by these brands, has pushed many of these collectors and investors away from those brands in search of something new. The prices finally reached a point where the physical value in the watch was dwarfed by the value of the hype. And that's simply unsustainable, especially at the dollar amounts these watches were being sold. 

The actual value in a timepiece is the cost of the physical materials and the time investment by the watchmaker to assemble and provide the finishing. There is a tipping point where collectors bow out of hyped value because you reach a cost level where you can obtain so much physical value in other brands. Physical value is sustainable and healthy for growth in the industry. So many collectors and investors have recently shifted from the hype brands to watches with physical value to match the cost. Which gets to point number two.

The lack of available supply. These are not mass-produced, machine-made products. They are valuable because of the skill and time required by the watchmakers to make each and every watch. The watchmakers are making efforts to increase capacity, and there are also relatively new up and comers in the independent industry. But with the influx of interest, these brands are simply unable to keep up with the increasing demand. Each timepiece require a significant investment in manhours  (many into the hundreds of hours), to achieve the level of finishing and overall quality expected at higher price points. And labor is the limiting resource and, as a result, wait times for timepieces has increased. In some cases, people are simply unable to purchase timepieces they wish to own because the demand has already outpaced the available supply. 

While the industry is working to train and increase the labor force, this takes time. Qualified skilled labor is in short demand and cannot be ramped up in short order. And even as new watchmakers become more skilled, it is likely not going to keep up with the increasing demand, furthering the problem. 

So this isn't an issue I see being solved in the near future, if ever. As I've personally discovered, once you are interested in independent watchmaking, its hard to go back to mass-produced watches. So relative newcomers to independent brands are more likely than not to continue to purchase more watches from the independents as time goes on.

Thoughts?

[TimeTexas]

And another

 

 

[TimeTexas]

The entire video is great and has a lot of news on independent brands. But the first few minutes discuss the current state of the independent industry.