I think most would prefer without (unless of course they were functional). But honestly, you don't really notice them on the wrist and nobody else would unless they got up close with the watch. The watch also works really well on the Vanguard rubber strap or a nice suede or leather band.
The Black Bays are great watches. I had one, pic attached, with their new in-house movement at the time. The movement caused the cases to be slightly thicker than the ETA version. The ETA version is a hot commodity nowadays.
Funny how non of the other brands have understood that they should be more like Rolex. Obviously what Rolex is doing with their business model is working insanely well with 25% of the market share. I mean 25, it is almost unbelievable!
Understanding is one thing. Replicating is much much harder and takes years, even generations. For some it's a nigh impossible task given where the brand is starting from.
Example - Skoda make good cars these days, but they will never be thought of the same as Ferrari. Each brand has to find it's own niche.
Ah yes sorry I wasnt talking about the Skodas on the list like Longins, Tissot and Swatch. I was thinking more about TAG and Omega who both keep making three obvious mistakes:
1. "Hey look here these are our 2500 new SKU's for this year"
2. Producing more than demand, keep pushing stock into grey market
3. No consistent identity within specific product lines. What is a Carrera/Speedmaster? "Well we are not sure but lets say its anything you want it to be dear customer!"
TAG are mostly marketing at a slightly different group of people to Rolex
Yup and if they want more than 2% of the market they need to change this and do a long term strategy more similar to Rolex
But my other point is that because of people's preconceptions about the various brands, it might be a lost cause, and erode the market they already have carved out. Can they really compete with and take on Rolex? It's certainly a risky strategy.
Of course impossible to answer but I just think its funny how short term all other brands are. This is of course due to the disease called listed companies, where share holders dont allow companies to invest in any real long term plans which have any big negative impact on the short term profits. But just looking at the numbers it looks very obvious to me that what Rolex is doing is indeed working and I would at least guess that brands like Omega, IWC and TAG could gain quite much in, say ten years, if they adopted more of the Rolex recipe.
