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Shelley Thompson asked:


Jewelry watches are great gifts for those who can afford and if you have the money, one of the best jewelry watches this year is the Vacheron Constantin Kallania watch. Created in 18 karat white gold, it is the world’s thinnest mechanical movement watch with 186 beat set emerald cut diamonds embedded all across the watch, from the bracelet to the dial. This 1.64 mm height watch won the Best Jewelry Watch Award at this year’s Vogue Jewels Awards Show in Madrid, Spain. The cost of such a watch is around 5 million euros or close to 7 million dollars. That’s not too bad considering it’s the world’s thinnest jewelry watch with 170 carats of diamond. The record of the world’s most expensive watch belongs to Chopard. It had 3 diamonds incorporated in the watch: the pink is 15 carats, the blue is 12 carats, and the white diamond is 11 carats. The bracelets is encrusted with 163 carats of diamond, which makes the watch more like jewelry than time piece. The cost or value is 25 million dollars for this 201 carat jewelry watch. Estimated cost per carat is 125 thousand dollars.

There are jewelry watches that fit all kinds of budgets and one shouldn’t break the bank to purchase these timepieces. Casio has great fashion watches that start from around 18 dollars. You can even buy a peal watch for less than 60 dollars as well. Named brands like Cartier, Rolex, Patek Philippe and the like are pricier though but they do bring the craftsmanship which they are known for and do have a higher resale value.

The true appeal of jewelry watches are the fusion of engineering and precious stones and minerals. Men are attracted to fine watches because of its hand crafted and automated movements within the watch. Women are attracted to jewelry watches because of the encasing and bracelet which may be made of precious metals of be embedded with precious stones or the watch face itself that is filled with diamonds from one end to the other. To be able to combine precise engineering and precious stones and metal together is perhaps the ultimate marriage of a worthwhile investment. The jewelry watch market is around close to 10 billion dollars for 2007. Real collectors may spend more than a million dollars a year collecting time pieces that they know will appreciate in value over time. The 1939 Patek Philippe Supercomplication which was made in that time for around 100 thousand dollars was sold for 11 million dollars in 1999.

These days you can customize watches to become jewelry watches by having its bezels changed to have diamonds and precious stones embedded in them. These alterations may cost you around 5 thousand dollars and for that investment you would need to go to a reputable jewelry store that does such changes. The best place to find such information is from your favorite jewelry store, the one that you trust and get a reference from them. Information can also be taken from the internet by searching for the official website of the maker of that time piece and asking for a reference where to have such bezels made.

Jamila Shaikh asked:


The first timepieces were believed to have been sundials, though non mechanical, these devices were able to give a good indication of the time of day by tracking the suns movement. The portable time piece did not arrive until the 16th century and continued to evolve throughout the 17th century. With advances in technology the portable time piece developed from the pendant watch to the wrist watch. Now sufficiently small to enter the jewelry section, more and more elaborate designs were being created, with such beautifully crafted artwork to suit individual tastes, the designer watch was born.

For a watch to be a designer watch, by definition like any item of designer clothing or accessory, a designer has to be associated with its creation. Though there are a limitless number of designers out there, only a few of these do we usually accept as authentic designers and their creations as being designer made. The reason being the term designer is usually given by us after millions have been spent branding the person, so much so that they become a household name. It is this branding and marketing which elevates the prices of these watches and tempts fraudsters to create cheaper imitations. Agreed the reliability and quality of a watch has a part to play in enhancing a company/ designer name, though compared to the image created through marketing, this is usually a small part.

It is not always easy to tell the difference between a genuine designer watch and an imitation, e.g. a fake Rolex or an authentic Rolex, but there are a few tell tale signs to look out for. The key one being movement, a smooth sweep is a must for most designer watches, followed by craftsmanship. With cheaper mixes of alloys generally being lighter, fake designer watches will tend to weigh less than their more expensive authentic counterparts. However the weight rule may not always apply to the mid designer watches range such as Armani watches, Dolce and Gabbana watches ( D&G watches ) etc.

As a child, the colour, the look and the feel, are just some of the attributes of watches which intrigued me. With so many to choose from, so long as it looked good, felt comfortable and I was able to tell the time should anyone ask me, that was all that I needed from a watch, the brand name just did not matter. These days the above is only half of what many of us look for; the watch must be a big brand name at least and preferably depending on our budget restrictions a designer name.

Like any fashion accessory, yes the look and feel is important, but the image designer watches perceivably create may be equally important. Big brand names after huge efforts in marketing creat a perceived great image and everyone wants to have a good image, preferably one that stands equal or above those people they tend to mix. It is this obsession with image that continues to drive our fascination with designer watches.