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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 2106764, member: 71234&quot;]<i>If you add the cost of 55 grams of 18-karat gold to the cost of the watch, plus say $100 per unit (which seems quite liberal) for other production costs, you get to about $2,200. The cost of shipping it, marketing it and selling it once it&#039;s arrived in whatever country are priced into the basic watch itself. Those things together would imply <b>a mark-up of about 354%. </b>At least$7,800 of the price-tag would be profit.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>But in fact, that might be too low an estimate. </i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Forbes notes that the actual gold content of the watch is lower than standard 18-karat gold, and estimates that there&#039;s as little as $640 of gold in the model. That&#039;s because it&#039;s a metal matrix composite that Apple has patented</i></p><p><br /></p><p>There seems to to be a lot of confusion here, among commentators.</p><p><br /></p><p>If 55 grams of this stuff does not contain 75% pure gold, it is <i><b>not</b></i> 18 carat gold. Forbes saying the actual gold content is lower than &#039;standard&#039; 18 carat really means &#039;it is not 18 carat gold&#039; . They are saying that it is nearly pregnant or almost a virgin. Or slightly dead.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>If these things are said to be 18 carat gold and do not contain 75% by weight of pure gold in the matrix material they will be illegal to sell in the EU because they will violate hallmarking laws.</p><p><br /></p><p>I still find the 55 gram figure incredible. That would be the case weight of a typical heavy cased late 19th C pocket watch of about 2 inches diameter and half an inch thickness. A&nbsp; typical 1920s&nbsp; watch of the same diameter but little more than half the thickness would be typically 1 ounce.</p><p><br /></p><p>Purchasers of this watch will be (probably unwittingly) copying the Potlatch ritual of the Northwest coast of America, where part of the ritual was to destroy wealth in a competitive manner to show who could afford to destroy the most.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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