Well, at Least it is Probably Right Twice a Day
The grift just keeps on griftin' along.
This feels like a combination UHF commercial from my childhood and an SNL parody. But no! It is the man who was, and might be again, President of the United States.
Notes Wired, Trump’s $100,000 Watches Are the Most Tragic Celebrity Watch Yet.
the collection consists of two pieces. One is called “Fight Fight Fight” and is priced from $499, and the other is the “Victory Tourbillon.” The latter is claimed to be made from solid 18-karat gold, with 122 diamonds and a tourbillon automatic movement. It’s priced at a nice, round $100,000—about three times the price of an equivalent Rolex Submariner—and, yes, crypto payment is available.
The watches are claimed to feature “premium, Swiss-Made materials and intricate details,” but so far as we can tell, the Fight Fight Fight uses a movement by Japanese company Seiko, while the Victory Tourbillon has a movement alleged to be partially built from Chinese components.
But wait, there’s more!
It gets better. In what quickly starts to resemble the tweet-riddled fever dreams of the extremely online, the watches are produced by a company called TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC, which is based in Sheridan, Wyoming, and, despite no watchmaking history to speak of, has a license agreement to use the Trump name for its timepieces.
In regards to the $100k version:
The watch is claimed to use a “TX07 Tourbillon” with 105 hours of power reserve, but finding any record of such a movement online is tricky. Watch commentator Nico Leonard van der Horst said in an Instagram post: “This is hilarious … the manufacturer of this movement is Olivier Mory, who ironically is known for making very affordable Tourbillons half made in China, half made in Switzerland.” Van der Horst added: “If you were to buy this movement and put it in your own watch, you would be able to buy it for under $3.5k.”
In general, here’s a shocking summary:
Back to Barber for more informed analysis: “The watches are as tawdry, ill-designed, and generic as you’d expect, and look as though they’ve been assembled from leftover bits in the parts bin of whichever white label company was prepared to take Trump‘s dime. These would suck as $50 mall watches, let alone as a facsimile of luxury watchmaking.
There is something to the following observation:
It does kind of remind me of how politicians write books and then organizations buy them up to provide funds straight to the authors. Although I suspect that the proceeds are going into Trump’s pockets, or maybe to pay legal fees, rather than to the campaign.
This is the man who wants to be the most powerful person in the world. This is just another bit of revealed character, in my view. He is an unserious person and a grifter. It should be an obvious problem. We shouldn’t put TV pitchmen/scammers into power. But then again, a lot of people put a lot of trust into TV evangelists who are clearly just scammers using their positions to bilk money out of their followers. This is just more of the same.
A side note, these commercials make me think of this (it won’t let me embed, so here’s the link). Weird Al would make a better president than Trump, BTW.
I’m reminded of an old Eddie Murphy bit: “What a bargain! What a bargain for me!”
As I read this, I was thinking about how we would never have considered voting for Ron Popeil, yet at least that guy was an actual inventor, and when he said “but wait there’s more” there was.
JV Last deconstructed the the Felon’s watch gambit, lots of fun details. Best guess is that the $500 watch can be had for $50 at the mall w/o the Felon’s name.
I wonder if JBK and Paul have ordered theirs?
A Wyoming LLC just means it is registered there with a registered agent (lawyer) and state secrecy laws that make it difficult to determine actual ownership – and avoids some state taxes. This is similar to big corporations being registered in Delaware (or Bermuda like U-Haul).
I figure I can write $1 trillion crypto, and buy 10 million watches, then sell them for $1,000 each and make a billion real dollars.
Legal fees, campaign funds. What’s the difference to Trump? I suspect no difference.
Ummm…
Solid gold isn’t 18 carat. Just sayin’.
I like watches. Fancy ones. Spendy ones. Ordinary ones. Cheap ones. Odd WWII military ones. Can’t explain it. It’s sorta like stamp or coin collecting (both of which I’ve flirted with very hard). I just like it.
I once bought a build your own watch kit. Pretty cheap. If you can read instructions, follow them, and are physically adept at using tweezers, you can build yourself a pretty bad-ass watch.
I wouldn’t buy a Trump watch if the world depended upon it.
Mark that! In about three years (if the election goes the way I hope it does) I would freaking love to buy a stupid, dumb-ass, crap Trump “gold” watch just to have it. Pennies on the dollar.
I’d want it just to make fun of it.
Did Mussolini have a branded watch? No. Trump did. He’s that stupid.
Here is another piece on this:
“Meidas”
Also at the link extensive discussion of what these products are really worth.
@de stijl:
You know, a bunch of them would be fun to have for doing the smashed watch magic trick. You just get to really smash a watch. And if you fail to restore it, no one would even care.
@charontwo: This. It’s a way to bribe Trump with a veil on. He’s posted his for sale sign. That’s all. The fact that the watches are junk is the point. No one buying one is going to be under any illusions about what, or rather, whom, they are buying.