Kickstarter: 24K Gold Plated Apple Watch

Well, that didn’t take long.

A quick search for “Apple Watch” on Kickstarter and it looks like a company by the name of Very Good Plating Co. is offering 24K gold plated Apple Watches at a starting price of $1549 and $1599 for the 38mm and 42mm sizes, respectively. These come with your choice of black or white Sport Bands. (However, for $100 more, you can get one with a gold plated Milanese Loop, and $400 more gets you a gold plated link bracelet combo.)

The company says that they’ll provide a lifetime guarantee on the finish and one year on parts and labor for the Apple Watch itself. The first part of that is weird, because industry-standard gold plating tends to wear off fairly easily. The second part isn’t as weird, since the third-party plating process will void the Apple Watch manufacturer’s warranty altogether.

There is this red flag to be aware of, as stated on the Kickstarter page (emphasis mine):

The biggest risks with electroplating are conversion of the material and damage to the device itself. We’ve already developed processes which minimize the risk, and we’re eager to test out the quality of our process on Apple’s watch. The fact remains that we don’t have a unit to test on yet, but confidence is high based on results from similar units.

I’m more interested in these so-called “similar units” than I am in Very Good Plating Co.’s actual finished product. I can’t even imagine what they might be.

Do yourself a favor and ignore stuff like this. It’s only a matter of time before Apple releases their own (much less wear-susceptible) gold plated Apple Watches, and they’ll probably cost about two-thirds of the price being charged for this untested plating service.