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The Apple Watch Edition could ship with around $900 of 18-karat gold on board, which is over five times less than the expected $5000 price tag.
That’s according to Greg Koenig, founder of Luma Labs, who worked out the approximate value of gold included on the 42mm Apple Watch Edition (via CultofMac).
The Apple Watch Edition is, of course, Apple’s priciest Apple Watch variant, boasting a ritzy gilded chassis.
His ‘very rough estimate’ puts somewhere in the region of 29.16 grams of gold on the watch. That translates to $853.82 (£550) at today’s gold price.
Koenig did note that the estimation does not include corollary parts of the watch like the digital crown or strap clasps.
The model used an approximation based on a wall thickness of 1.15mm, extrapolated across the entire chassis.
Apple has yet to release final pricing for its Edition watch model, but it’s widely tipped to cost north of $5000 (£3200).
It’s also worth noting that the raw gold price doesn’t include the actual tech included in the watch. For reference, Apple’s cheapest watch – the Sport – will price up at $349.
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While marking up the Apple Watch by five times its raw worth might sound extreme, even by Apple’s standards, it should be noted that luxury watchmakers typically run with a similar model.
Koening himself notes that a gold Rolex Sub costs somewhere in the region of $38,000, despite having a raw gold value of $4000.