Couldn't tell you why because I don't agree with it. It's like one of those watch nerd check list that people put together to "rate" whether the watch is "worth it" without much consideration as to whether the sum of the parts is worth more than the parts themselves.

I'd categorize it alongside the conversations about "if a watch cost $xxxxxx it must have sapphire crystal", or "at that price point why is water resistance so low".

 

I'll even go as far to say for a watch in the price range of ONLY a few thousand dollars/euro/pounds. I may prefer an off the shelf Sellita/ETA. And by that I mean fully off the shelf and not modified so that it is easily serviceable/replaceable.

I think @Sonar made a similar thread not long ago about the appear of in house basic movements, and what's the appeal. I didn't get a chance to post in that thread, but I'm with him. It seems silly to demand in house movement if it doesn't have any functional benefits, be it dimensional or complications.

Doesn't mean I don't appreciate in house ... it's just not a requirement for me.

 

In the case of the Sellita SW200 my issue is that it is a very basic movement. There is a superior model available: the SW300. So if you’re going to launch an expensive (say €2k+) watch with the cheapest movement model it doesn’t sit well with me (looking at you, Doxa).

 

Anyone any idea what's the price differential between the SW200 and SW300?

Of course a manufacturer is not going to buy them from ebay they buy wholesale. But even then the cost has to be calculated.

From a manufacturer's point of view would they really sell more watches with a SW300 over a SW200?

No manufacturer is a charity (surely Rolex is one and a great many of bumpkins fall for that marketing crap).

 

I don't get hung up so much on whether the movement is third party or not. I'm more concerned with performance/spec. If I'm paying a premium, I expect to get something more or better for my money. Power reserve, finishing/decoration, magnetic resistance, accuracy, warranty duration... I'm not going to pay a huge upcharge for a brand name alone if the product I'm getting is no better spec'ed or finished than something from a "less prestigious" brand.

 

I don’t get it either. Does polish, engraving and purlage improve performance? Yes, I understand that there are other seemingly important differences; size considerations, power reserve, and such. They seem relatively insignificant when I have 20 year old 2824s that still run as when they were new.

 

Does polish, engraving and purlage improve performance?

Is this a rhetorical question? Of course it does.

After I've waxed, cleaned, and chromed my motorcycle, I'm confident it goes faster.

 

In the case of the Sellita SW200 my issue is that it is a very basic movement. There is a superior model available: the SW300. So if you’re going to launch an expensive (say €2k+) watch with the cheapest movement model it doesn’t sit well with me (looking at you, Doxa).

This + movement grade. Sometimes it’s easy to grasp that they are trying to cheap out, for example, with an unmodified basic SW200-1. 1500€ with a Premium grade SW-200-1 is another story.

 

How much should a watch with ETA 2824-2 or Sellita SW200-1 cost according to common opinion, so that it is not too expensive?

I’m very much in the I don’t know and don’t give a damn camp (and maybe I’m in it in my own). A watch is so much more than just its movement. As long as it has a movement of reasonable quality which ticks fairly accurately and reliably I’m happy.

 

I have a hard time paying thousands of dollars for a currently produced watch made out of stainless steel with a $150 movement. Same reason I have a hard time paying $800 for a stainless steel bracelet with Swiss company's name on it.

 

There are many other aspects of a watch that may make it more expensive than another but I don’t agree with the movement being a great driver of cost. Yeah it’s nice to have a visually decorated movement like the 8900 that’s in my PO but when I owned an Aquatimer I never thought any less of it because it had a modified ETA. If anything it was comforting to know it could bring the watch to just an out any reputable watchmaker if there were any issues. It was an outstanding watch for many other reasons and worthy of the cost IMO.

 

When it comes to watches with ETA 2824-2 or Sellita SW200-1 movements, the price can vary depending on the brand, materials used and other factors, Generally, you can find watches with these movement ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.

 

Fair question
Christopher Ward can put out a very decent watch with COSC Sellita 200 for £1000
OK, they dont have overheads n retail outlet costs like many major brands selling through ADs
so I would expect these to cost perhaps 50% more, although larger scale of manufacture & sale should also whittle cost
So when I read of some main stream brands selling watches with basic grade SW200 for over £1500 I call rip off

 

There will come a day and George Clooney will become a CWard ambassador and people will pay for that life changing event through the nose.

 

Cost is subjective to what each person considers "value" for a movement, IMHO.

 

Hmmmmm, gotta include, Thomas Prescher.

 

To be honest a lot of brands get flak for this. Tag Heuer comes to mind.
The truth is, I don't care that much if a watch has a ETA or whatever.
One of my grails, the blue Tudor Sub has a ETA movement and I still want it.

 

For me it is the whole package, not only the movement (and grade of), that attracts me with an overall value. There are visually attracting "avantgarde" watches from several microbrands where the movement type is not the reason to buy.

I would emphasize the serviceability and guaranteed replacement over many years for mass production movements. As @cheu_f50 and @Sonar correctly laid out.

Regarding luxury watches of the big enterprises: In the last couple of years they encase more and more rather heavily inhouse modified calibres to avoid exactly this discussion. It is more about their medium priced brands, where we see what is discussed here. And I couldn't agree more: IMHO the brand name is just a small % of the whole package. They have to deliver more technical value than a microbrand to get substantial more money from me.

 

I therefore wonder why the price demanded by the manufacturer for the complete watch is so often reduced to the value of the movement and why this usually only happens with manufacturers who use movements from ETA or Sellita.

Because everbody knows the price of an ETA or Sellita movement. Need an SW200-1? You can just go online and order one. At ofrei.com it'll cost you $189. Which makes people painfully aware that every penny north that is for the rest of the watch: case, crystal and strap/bracelet (ignoring major things like marketing costs etc.). Makes people wonder: "Wait a second, am I being charged thousands of dollars for the case, crystal and strap/bracelet?! I can get the same movement in a $250 San Martin?!!"

In-house movements don't have a sticker price as they are not for sale to the public. So people can bullsh** themselves and just pretend that those are super mega expensive movements so the price of the watch is justified.

 

Edit: to clarify I am in agreement with you and offering the following as additional examples. People look for ways to justify otherwise frivolous purchases.

Yes and you can get yourself ribeye steak for $20/lb, yet restaurants charges $30-40 for an 8oz. steak cooked to your preference.

I've always consider it futile to judge value based on material cost. Imagine assessing home prices based on cost of lumber, concrete, or steel pricing ... it'd be a gross miscalculation of value the completed structure provides.

 

I don’t get it either. Does polish, engraving and purlage improve performance? Yes, I understand that there are other seemingly important differences; size considerations, power reserve, and such. They seem relatively insignificant when I have 20 year old 2824s that still run as when they were new.

This. Let’s not forget that the 2824 started its lifecycle as “Eterna 12824”, being a very decent movement at the time.

 

Still is.

 

For some people, movement means something to them. Others, not so much. Watch appreciation is a broad thing people approach because of different interests. Movements can simply be one person's arbitrarily drawn line.

Right now, I'm looking for thinner watches, which generally rules out thicker, more commodity movements. Not specifically hunting for watches with higher end movements, but it just so happens that many happen to be used for thinner watches.

Like, I'm not particularly interested in the Zenith 680 movement, in and of itself, but it happens to be used in the Elite Ultra-Thin, which very much does interest me.

 

For some people, movement means something to them. Others, not so much. Watch appreciation is a broad thing people approach because of different interests. Movements can simply be one person's arbitrarily drawn line.

Right now, I'm looking for thinner watches, which generally rules out thicker, more commodity movements. Not specifically hunting for watches with higher end movements, but it just so happens that many happen to be used for thinner watches.

Like, I'm not particularly interested in the Zenith 680 movement, in and of itself, but it happens to be used in the Elite Ultra-Thin, which very much does interest me.

Flipside: I would totally rock a Franck Muller, and pay too much for an ETA 2824 to do so.

 

I don't buy a movement - I buy a watch.
So price expectation for me comes to the whole thing - history\heritage, brand reputation, fit\finish, decoration, innovation, accuracy, etc...

Two of my pricier watches and favorites in my collection are both using outsourced movements... and I find both offer great value.

Older gen Omega SMP with ETA2892 that I had for 16 years now - great watch, versatile, comfortable, accurate. I prefer it to modern itterations of SMP with new coaxial movements as mine is thinner and more comfy. I also appreciate that I can easily have it serviced by anyone. Great watch at $4K (back 15 years ago)

My Jaeger & Benzinger is a work of art - front and back. It has ETA 6498 - easy to services and repair. But the degree of finishing (hand-engraving, guilloche, etc) makes it well worth the price of $4K+

Now, if a brand takes a basic off-the-shelf ETA, puts it into basic case, with basic dial, simple strap\bracelet and slaps a $$$$ price on it due to brand name - then yeah that holds no interest to me and won't get my money

 

For me it’s simply that when I spend more, I am doing so with the intention that I’ll be getting something in return that I couldn’t get if I had spent less. That’s the reason for the larger investment for me.

I also think this sort of value driven discussion always veers toward an almost absurdly cold and logical perspective that we don’t experience most other times. I can’t remember when we lauded say, a Bel Canto, because it’s practically “better” than a sandhurst. The attention we gave/give it comes from a place of enthusiasm about the thing itself. The effort and time and skill that we imagine having gone into the creation of a unique product is of importance to an enthusiast not because the product created must be “better”, but because all of those things were done in pure celebration of the qualities that draw us to the hobby in the first place. They did it because it was hard, and that produced details that can’t be recreated if you’re only interested in doing what’s easy.

and this, to me, even extends to something as basic as an in house 4hz automatic. Yes, the effect it has on the hands of the physical wristwatch is not different. But, did you spend thousands just to see hands move across a dial at a predictable and measurable speed? I doubt it. I’d imagine the reason you spent such absurd amount solving this problem is something a lot closer to the slight kick of excitement you get when you look down at your wrist and see something that isn’t ordinary. A watch thats not about telling time, but rather telling time in a specific way.

 

In the case of the Sellita SW200 my issue is that it is a very basic movement. There is a superior model available: the SW300. So if you’re going to launch an expensive (say €2k+) watch with the cheapest movement model it doesn’t sit well with me (looking at you, Doxa).

The SW200 (or ETA2824) has a larger balance wheel which has more momentum and helps protect accuracy when the watch is subjected to shocks. So I’d rather have that than a SW300 personally.

 

I know that for quite a few decades now mechanical watches are more jewelry/trinkets/luxuries/antiques/craft than a practical or inexpensive way to tell time. What appeals to us about them might not interest a lot of people who don't have an interest in this hobby/obsession.

However, it's been interesting to see a few Chinese companies go past merely copying existing and well-proven Swiss and Japanese movements (the Hangzhou 5 and 7 series are good examples of that). It will be interesting to see what affordable or mid-range offerings emanate from that part of the world as they continue to improve their QC (granted, it might be just a handful of companies that achieve that). That progression hand in hand with the democratization and mass-production of silicon parts (especially balance springs) and the use of even more novel materials* by Swiss companies makes it an interesting time for an enthusiast. Granted that the latter developments might not be in large enough numbers to see economy of scale drive down prices as well.

*The ideal would be to make the relative motion/impact of the pallet and escape wheel well nigh frictionless. That Swiss lever escapement coexisting with novel regulation organs such as FC's Monolith or Zenith's oscillator (and other escapement substitutes using compliant mechanisms).

As to the question regarding what a particular movement might be worth as a part/fraction of the entire cost of the watch ... that's probably more of a subjective, rather than an objective fact.

 

It's like one of those watch nerd check list that people put together to "rate" whether the watch is "worth it" without much consideration as to whether the sum of the parts is worth more than the parts themselves.

I get the same impression from time to time. If a check mark can be placed behind "in house movement", "sapphire crystal", "ceramic bezel" and "screw-down crown", then virtually any price is justified.
… however, if the correct name is on the dial, then one or two checkmarks may be missing from the checklist.

So if you’re going to launch an expensive (say €2k+) watch with the cheapest movement model it doesn’t sit well with me (looking at you, Doxa).

Doxa is actually a good example for my last sentence in the answer to @cheu_f50
The Sub 300 uses the supposedly cheap Sellita SW200-1 movement, but in the highest quality level, chronometer. The watch costs here in Germany around 2,700.00 EUR incl. 19% VAT.
When Tudor launched the Black Bay in 2012, the watch cost 3,200.00 EUR here. For this, there was an ETA 2824-2 in the Tudor in the top version and thus chronometer-capable, but without COSC certificate - about the cheap movement in the 3,500.00 dollars grumbled was not.

 

Aristotle reportedly said, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ This phrase and concept explains why many considerations other than the movement determines the price of a watch as members have pointed out. How much of the price a watch is or should be determined by its movement is obviously subjective as different persons will value the individual considerations in play besides the movement (as they may complement or even supplement the movement and impact the whole) differently, thus making the determination of the value of the whole subjective to some extent. Some may also approach the issue differently and attribute a larger-than-usual premium to the whole over and beyond the simple addition of the value of the parts and then simply assigning a generally acceptable premium. Hence the movement is only one factor and not necessarily the most pertinent factor in the final determination of the price of a watch.

The above doesn’t even mention modifications and/or enhancements to a movement. Also, marketing and brand history or heritage have not been factored in. I don‘t think there will be any generally accepted consensus on the price of a watch and how it is determined except to simply point out what a watch is selling for in the secondary market as a proxy. This is in itself is already contentious. Anything else will definitely be even contentious and subjective.

My 2 cents.

 

After I've waxed, cleaned, and chromed my motorcycle, I'm confident it goes faster.

It’s true!

 

As someone a year into collecting and a very empty wallet, I guess for me value is determined by how well it suits my needs. I need a watch to be comfortable, look good (the subjective part), and be reliable enough that I don't have to constantly worry about it. In-house is a cool addition to be able to brag about and I appreciate it but it has never made me feel any less attached to a watch. I only feel backed into a corner by a price tag if I can't find a competing product for the same money or less. That is how I determine value, a watch is worth whatever it says it is until a better price comes along and says otherwise.