Ben Clymer

These were really engineering-focused or motorsport-focused watches.

They were not for consumers.

They were not for guys like you and me, unless we were driving at tracks on the weekend.

And similarly with the Submariner, which I have right here, this was not for the... The idea of a desk diver, which is somebody that sits at a desk but pretends to dive, is really a very modern, very recent introduction.

And back then, you bought a Submariner if you were actually diving.

It wasn't because I'm going to my pool in upstate New York on the weekend.

You were really diving.

Otherwise, you were buying a small dress watch.

And whether it's Rolex or Patek or any other Vacheron AP, Omega, the most expensive watches, historically speaking, in the mid-century or last century were not sports watches.

They're not even complicated watches.

They were ultra slim watches.

So if you look at Patek or AP or Vacheron being the three big boys at high end, the most expensive watches were not the perpetual calendars of chronographs.

They were the ultra slim watches.

And that represented the highest end version of watchmaking at the time.

We're starting to see that a little bit now.

Actually, Richard Mille, just this past week, introduced the thinnest mechanical watch ever made, and it's $2 million.

And Bulgari released one earlier this year that was, up until last week, the thinnest watch ever made.

And that was about $500,000, where the standard Bulgari would be, say, $15,000.

So different times, for sure.

Or your iPhone.