Pieces of Titanic transformed into luxury watches

[mark414]

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) - Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.

*snip*

"It is very luxurious and very inaccessible," said Yvan Arpa, chief executive of the three-year-old company that hopes the limited edition watches will attract both collectors and garrulous luxury goods buyers.

"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches without understanding how they work, because they want a story to tell," he said. "To them we offer a story."

*snip*

To make the watches, which were offered for sale for the first time in Basel for between $7,800 and $173,100, the Swiss company created an alloy using the slab from the Titanic with steel being used in a Harland and Wolff replica of the vessel.

The gold, platinum and steel time pieces have black dial faces made of lacquer paint that includes coal recovered from the debris field of the Titanic wrecksite, offered for sale by the U.S. company RMS Titanic Inc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070413/tc_nm/luxury_titanic_dc;_ylt=AimvW_Y4yhEfhxYrenr48FRk24cA

so when are we going to start selling 9/11 WTC Watches??? :puke:

edited to say that if i ever meet someone wearing one of these watches, i'll tear it off their wrist and smash it - then give em a nice smack upside the head like they deserve

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. How utterly tacky. n/t

[blondeatlast]

2. My husband just returned from the Basel show

and everyone there thought this was disrespectful and disgusting.

He says all the watch message boards are saying the same thing. He's a fanatic collector and attending the Basel show was his dream, but the says that put a bit of a damper on it.

He says it was pretty universal that this was just wrong.

[mark414]

4. that's good to know

maybe they'll end up pulling it due to no interest from buyers

[Warpy]

7. Are you kidding? These will sell out

because having a watch made of something that killed over 1500 people would really massage the egos of the type of men who think they're worth those megamillion top executive pay packages.

They'll be prized for their rarity, not their artistry or anything else.

Nothing is too tacky for that class.

[mark414]

9. *sigh* you're probably right

i should jump into the marketplace - right now i'm offering Hindenburg umbrellas (made with real canvas!) and Alfred P. Murrah stone birdbaths...hurry before this great offer expires!

[Warpy]

Just make sure those umbrellas have

the doping they used on the exterior of the Hindenburg.

Mythbusters proved it produced a very small scale thermite reaction when it burned.

[hlthe2b]

10. just think of the possibilities: watches made from the gold teeth

or bone of WTC victims or if serial crime is your "guilty pleasure," maybe from the dug up bodies of our executed criminals, like Ted Bundy or William Gacy....

Wealth certainly can and frequently DOES corrupt absolutely... We need few more examples than this...

:mad:

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Marrah_G]

5. They sell those WTC coins

Made with "silver recovered from ground zero" it's nauseating.

[mark414]

6. oh god you're right

i'll have to smack anyone with one of those upside the head as well

[slowry]

8. How bout this little item:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/ussnewyork.asp">http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/ussnewyork.asp

[Loge23]

11. How times have changed

The possession of a pocket watch and fob in 1912 was the sign of a gentleman. It was a common item for even a third-class passenger on the Titanic. Many died with their watch still in their pocket, many bodies were found floating - some a month later - with the watch still intact on their possession. The accounts on that night still shake me to my soul. It was a horrible, slow, way to die.
Mr. Rossmore Edward Abbott, a jeweler by trade ironically, was one of those passengers.

Oh, how wonderful it must be to be so incredibly conspicuously wealthy that we can show off a watch that contains the screams and dreams of young Mr. Abbott.

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/612/

[blondeatlast]

14. Apparently, watch buyers (as in retail trade) are NOT buying them.

As I mention above, my husband attended the show and knows many in the business. It's a hot topic on the watch collector message boards and he says that it is pretty universally considered loathsome.

I went to the Titamic exhibit when it was touring and I felt like I was disrespecting those that died. Regardless, I didn't leave as I probably should have. The entire time I thought I was walking through a graveyard, regardless of how they "spiffed" it up. I know I wasn't the only one.

I just had to leave the USS Arizona Memorial when I was there--the sight of tourists giggling, snapping photos, and gorging on Cheetos made me quite litaerally ill.

[newyawker99]

12. This is really disgusting.

:puke:


:argh:

[elehhhhna]

13. My hub's Great Aunt, Bridget Donahue, perished on that ship.

Gruesome trinket, imo