03 Jun 2011, 10:10
If you think this is bad now, imagine what was going on in 1980, when solid gold Pulsars had absolutely no value beyond the metal they were made of (the collector market was many years in the future at that point). Gold has still not hit an historic high; adjusted for inflation, $850/ozT would be equivalent to $2429 today...we're about two-thirds of the way there. A few years ago, I was talking to a jeweller who remembered the gold-scrapping frenzy back then, and showed me a drawer full of Rolex and Patek(!) movements that had been removed to scrap the 18K cases. And, believe me, if they were melting Rolexes and Pateks, they were having no qualms about melting Pulsars. And the goldfilled cases...well, if gold hits $2K/ozT, you're going to see all but the nicest GF cases go the way of the dodo and dinosaurs, too. Like it or not, we are in the midst of another mass-melting (of EVERYTHING made of precious metal), and that's not a "rummor", it's a FACT.
BTW, the $2100 price of a P1 in 1972 works out to about $11,200 in today's inflated dollars, so as a collectible, it's held its' value pretty well (in the long term). But, as just an obsolete, heavy chunk of gold in 1980, then suddenly worth more as scrap than its' original purchase price, there would have been little-to-no incentive to hang on to it, and plenty of reasons to let it go (not the least of which would have been the opportunity to break even, or even make a few hundred bucks, on something that could not even have been used for its' intended purpose, as jewellers would not usually bother to replace batteries in LED watches by then; my 3100 got its' last battery change in 1982...then got packed away for over 20 years...had it been a 3130, I doubt I would have it today).
Last edited by
bruce wegmann on 06 Jun 2011, 21:19, edited 1 time in total.
