Bracelet/Leather pricing

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JAFO
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Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by JAFO »

With regard to a current thread about a Tudor BB, and Downer's rule about buying the bracelet, how much extra should a bracelet cost.

Speedmaster pricing always surprises me, you see, although it now seems to have changed. It's now £270/£280 more for the bracelet on the new professional hesalite/sapphire. I an sure it only used to be about £100 premium on the just discontinued watch version. Even so I am sure that an OEM bracelet is more than £270 more than the OEM leather, or am I wrong? I am familiar with Speedy watch pricing, having been looking very hard at them for quite a while, but I can't find a way of checking prices for accessories. Watchobsession price their Omega straps at around £200 to £250, (but that might be without a closure) so that would make a speedy bracelet about £500 on it's own. Is that about right? I thought it was more than that, to be honest.

The thread about the Tudor BB seemed to suggest a premium of £400 Aussie Dollars for their equipment, which seems to be about £230.

Now CW charge only about £100 more for their really high quality bracelets, so what sort of premium ought we be paying for bracelets.

If it comes to that, are luxury brand straps especially worth the high prices? I can see you are stuck somewhat with bracelets.
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ricardo75
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Re: Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by ricardo75 »

Having just purchased a Bremont I was wondering the same about their straps - £175 for a leather strap PLUS £85 for a buckle seems like a lot compared to CW - does the quality justify the price?
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Re: Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by JAFO »

ricardo75 wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 1:31 pm Having just purchased a Bremont I was wondering the same about their straps - £175 for a leather strap PLUS £85 for a buckle seems like a lot compared to CW - does the quality justify the price?
Don't get me wrong - I've no complaint with virtually any OEM strap that's arrived with a watch. They always seem better quality than after market straps (although maybe I'm just thinking or cheaper priced after market straps), but for £175 you ought to be getting Alligator or Cordovan, rather than calf, a real premium strap, and probably a tang/deployant option.
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nbg
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Re: Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by nbg »

For Omega the difference between buying on the bracelet and buying with a strap was indeed a difference that was generally less than £100.

That seemed to be the case regardless of whether the model was a Speedmaster, Seamaster, Seamaster 300, AT etc..

The difference re. the new model Speedmaster is more, maybe reflecting an improvement in the quality of the bracelet?

I think it is difficult to generalise as to what constitutes a reasonable price differential for buying on bracelet vs buying with OEM strap/buckle/deployant when looking at the well known higher quality (or higher priced) brands. This is because there is a large difference in quality amongst the bracelets used by the higher quality brands.

I could envisage a situation in which I was prepared to pay a difference of up to say £1,000 for the bracelet option vs leather, if I thought it would make the difference between whether I would likely wear the watch regularly or only infrequently.

Similarly a poor fitting, even if reasonable quality, bracelet would (and does) drastically reduce the number of times I would otherwise wear the watch on the bracelet.

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iain
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Re: Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by iain »

This is going back a few years so prices quoted aren’t current but I looked into this when I bought my IWC MkXVIII.

At the time it was £3,200 on the strap but £4,000 on the bracelet. The cost of a bracelet on its own back then was a pound short of £1,000 and a strap was £200 with £100 for the buckle (deployant was significantly more).

Now at that time I preferred the look on the strap, so to buy the watch on the strap and include the bracelet would have cost me £4,200. To buy on the bracelet and include the strap and buckle would have cost me £4,300, £100 more.

I went for the strap option and by the time I decided to add the bracelet, the price had gone up so it ended up costing me more in the long run.
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TigerChris
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Re: Bracelet/Leather pricing

Post by TigerChris »

ricardo75 wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 1:31 pm Having just purchased a Bremont I was wondering the same about their straps - £175 for a leather strap PLUS £85 for a buckle seems like a lot compared to CW - does the quality justify the price?
In my opinion/experience Bremont leather straps are fantastic - I have 6 of them, 5 calf and one alligator (I think the alligator retails at £375?). I like the OEM straps due to the curved ends - somehow straight ends don’t look as good to me due to the case/lug design. However, never pay retail for them - keep an eye on eBay. I’ve paid, on average, about £65 per strap, all new in box. The last one I managed to snag was £77 for brand new, in box and included a brand new tang buckle.
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