10 November 2014

How the 0.1% spend their money


Sotheby's expects the bidding for this "supercomplication" watch to reach $17,000,000.

A video at the Wall Street Journal, which I can't embed, attempts to explain why this watch is worth that much money.  It doesn't address the question of why a person should spend this amount of money on a watch rather than, for example, improving the world in some meaningful way.

8 comments:

  1. What a remarkable concentration of human skill and artistry!

    Also, I'm sensing a theme with today's postings.

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  2. "It doesn't address the question of why a person should spend this amount of money on a watch rather than, for example, improving the world in some meaningful way."

    The money doesn't disappear. It may well be that the seller of the watch has plans to use the money to do just that.

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  3. DUH! It's the most important watch in the world!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a stunning piece of craftsmanship, a work of art. The observations and experience it took to produce such a fine item is outstanding. The type of mechanical vision that our atomic world often forgets helped us understand what we can today.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Henry Graves Supercomplication sold Tuesday for approximately $24 million, smashing the $11 million record it established in 1999, at Sotheby’s Geneva sale of Important Watches. Important or not, what a mind blowing masterpiece of mechanical/mathematical modeling and engineering. Leave it for your nephew and be the cool uncle..

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  6. The Seller of the Supercomplication seems to have died the day before the sale. Time waits for no one. Life is short, Art is long.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Pshh...that's nothing.

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-11-12/warhol-s-elvis-brando-portraits-sell-for-151-dot-5-million

    ReplyDelete
  8. And then there's other forms of money laundering....

    http://www.artfixdaily.com/news_feed/2014/11/11/9551-hedge-fund-manager-steve-cohen-revealed-as-buyer-of-101m-giacomet

    ReplyDelete

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