Yeah......the miniature engineering of watches and clocks is amazing. I really do get that, and the precision clocks made in the 19th Century. We have a carriage clock which belonged to my great great grandmother's family from that era, and it still works perfectly. It's had a hard life because the case is very badly worn.
When I lived in Wales my friends had a beautiful old mantel clock in a very simple wooden case. It hadn't worked for ages, but I managed to get it going with a bit of cleaning and tinkering, and it ran perfectly. I tried to get them to let me take it with me when I left, but it was a family piece so they understandably didn't want to part with it. Worth a couple of hundred or so - always on the look out in antique shops for something similar but the cases are usually far too ornate.
The prices watches fetch is a little reminscent of the art world. At some point society has decided that Watch A/Artist A is more valuable than Watch B/Artist B which has in turn made them more desirable and people are therefore prepared to pay massive premiums so they can say that they 'own' one.
There used to be a programme on BBC called fake or fortune, where they tried to attribute paintings to famous artists that could change a price tag from £600 to £60,000. The painting didn't miraculous change or suddenly get 100 times better, it was just the attribution that increased the value. In my eyes the biggest 'fake' was the pretentious art world......
