That's what I was alluding to, that the engineering and quality control would add the most amount of cost to the production of the genuine. The movement is outsourced to ETA, just like in car manufacturing where gearboxes are made by a different company, the car maker simply designs, engineers, assembles and then markets the car, with the majority of components being outsourced. As such, in watches, in theory you could get the same ETA movement and throw it into a replica case and it'd still be significantly cheaper than the genuine that has higher quality control, engineering of pressure testing/HEV, warrantees, marketing, distribution and then margin. So the actual cost of production of the rep is probably around 10% of the retail price, most likely no more than £200. The cost of development, plus marketing would be the rest of the cost that is passed onto the retailer who then adds their margin.
So with a rep with ETA movement costing around £150, you're not THAT far off Omega's costs...
But I'm not across the different types of ETA movements to know how different the co-ax is to the one in the rep. I understand the co-ax movement is very new and exclusive to Omega at the moment, so it'd be safe to assume that once it is available in more models that we'll eventually see it in high end reps. Maybe a silly assumption, but we can but hope!
Do you think there's a market for a rep with such a high quality movement? To be honest, I don't think £1800 is that much for the gen Omega, and my next Omega will probably be a gen. I'm thinking more that you'd put these co-ax movements into replicas of more expensive watches (over £5000).
Another question, how often do you need to service the reps? Anyone know someone that services reps in London? The gen PO has an extended servicing interval because the co-ax is more efficient, so they said around 5 years.
Cheers
PS, watch tool has been dispatched, so hopefully I'll have it before my birthday!
