Watch expert says $100K Trump gold watch only costs $25K to make

ICYMI, Donald Trump is selling watches. Introducing “Victory Tourbillon”: 122 diamonds, 200 grams of 18 karat gold, and a tourbillon movement. With a hefty price tag of $100,000, to boot.

But the internet’s favorite Swiss watch technician – Alexander Colvin, aka @thewatchregulator – said that the watch is only worth probably a quarter of its price, at most. 

Movement: $3,000

First up, what’s moving the watch? The Victory Tourbillon’s movement was made in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, by Olivier Mory, who founded the watchmaking company BCP Tourbillon, Colvin said. Mory’s productions were known to be accessible and affordable, starting around $3,000.

(A Wired article pointed out that Mory’s tourbillon was, ironically, half made in China, and half made in Switzerland.)

Even then, Colvin compared the Victory Tourbillon to a $7,350 ballard Onyx Tourbillon that BCP made:

We can clearly see that the level of finishing on the Trump tourbillon versus the finishing on the 7,500 dollar watch is far, far inferior, making me believe that this is probably the very cheapest tourbillon that BCP manufactures.

Gold: $13,000

Now, onto the price of the gold, which usually makes up the most value of, well, a gold watch. One gram of gold costs about $65; Trump claimed that his watch has 200 grams, so that’s 200 times $65 = $13,000. 

Diamonds: $1,500

Colvin’s friend Shanyn Linklater, aka @shanyn.the.jeweller, added that the 122 Very Slightly Included 1 (VS1) diamonds on the watch were unlikely to cost more than $1,500.

Manufacturing: $7,500

Lastly, Colvin kindly added the cost of manufacturing the watch and said that the watch is worth $25,000 at most, so I subtracted that by the materials cost we’re left with about $7,500 in other production charges.

According to the GetTrumpWatches website, these watches are sold by a company called TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC.

(Please excuse us briefly while we rename Sherwood News “TheBestNewsPlaceOnEarth”).

If you still plan to buy it, just know that the shipping starts “October/November/December,” so only pre-orders are being taken at this point. There are no refunds, either, with all sales final. But you can pay in Bitcoin, if that’s your thing.