Today is a fabulous day – I just bought a new watch!
It is a small manufacturer called Serica – a French company that seeks to bring normalcy to pricing for field watches.
I have been looking to buy a Rolex for a while now (partly as an investment), but unfortunately it is not looking too good given how competitive it has gotten. There is also rumor that Rolex has cut its 2022 allocations to its authorized deals in UK to 30% of what was expected- which would only exacerbate the supply constraint.
I did not want to comprise and find a Rolex replacement – that would achieve nothing because 1) I would not be getting my first choice in the category and 2) it would not have much investment value if it is easy to get.
I was super close to getting a Tudor Black Bay 36 with blue dial, but then I realized I could like 3 $TSLA shares for the price. So I decided to go for a watch whose price is below share price of one TSLA stock
What I did is I went hunting for great value watches – and landed at Serica. 4512 model was particularly exciting – and even better with California dial.
What is California dial? It is a watch dial with Roman numerals on top half and Arabic numbers at the bottom- just check out the picture below
With simple yet elegant design, the watch just really catches attention on its own.
The price is around $700 and it comes with a manual, mechanical movement that is Swiss-made.
I placed an order today and I cannot wait to try it on. I will have the watch on my wrist, drink coffee, and read my book!
Interestingly, watch industry is shaking out to be similar to other industries in that the leaders are really moving ahead of the pack and low end products are moving up in quality – squeezing out the middle guys who are losing their competitive positioning of “being mediocre”.
We continue to see large bifurcation – our world is becoming an increasingly polarized place – and watch world is no different. We are probably going to two camps – 1) super high end and 2) great value models with great technology and finishing – and nothing in between.
For investing, we must always pick one of the two camps – I prefer market leaders as they are more desirable.
Anyways, I am super excited about my Serica purchase – will follow up when the watch with Califonia dial lands in California, USA!
*not investment advice
