If you ask me, I would recommend against buying a watch from a young independent company. This is my general rule, and this has nothing to do with the quality of the watches, because young independents make some amazing watches, and I do mean amazing! My recommendation is simply based on the economics of the watch industry itself.

Currently, buying a watch brand new has never been a bigger ripoff. If one compares prices of watches today to even 20 or 30 years ago, factoring for inflation, watches are one of the few things in our world that are actually much more expensive.

Every year we have our "new year's resolutions", but given the holiday season has just ended, which is always filled with the standard commercialism and retail therapy, I thought it might be worthwhile to give my perspective on the subject. Specifically when we refer to a certain type of spending as "materialism" - this ties in nicely with the watch world, since 2016 was officially the worst year on record since the early 80's!

First, what is materialism?

It has now become common knowledge that this past year has been one of the worst on record for the watch industry. Data released by Bloomberg and the FHS (Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH) show that sales have dropped over 45% between 2015 and 2016, and the level of Switzerland’s watch exports dropped 11 percent during the first 10 months of the year.

In celebration of July 4th, here is an article discussion the formerly great American watch industry (originally published in September 2014):

It needs to be said and clarified: The American watch industry was once the envy of the entire world, including the Swiss watch industry.

Period.

The problem is that this is far from known or even close to being known. Myself included, it took a while to take that statement anywhere close to serious.

But, again it's absolutely true.