It is possible the craftsman was paid to never made another so the buyer can show off something unique.
It's possible that Facebook will ring me today to make me VP of R&D and pay me $5m a year. But I have no reason to believe that is so, and nor do you, and nor does anyone about the craftsman who made the Antikythera Mechanism! There is no reason to believe that the thing was customized from a menu of functionality - it's just as likely that a machine like this was the tool of a navigator or sea captain and one of a hand made, very expensive, but standard type. Rather like a marine chronometer would have been in the 16th Century. I could argue that it's much more likely because we found the thing on a ship and so on - but there is just no evidence either way really.
On the other hand we do have references to similar machines, autonoma and so on, in ancient sources. So it certainly wasn't completely unique. The interesting thing to me is that it doesn't seem that this was translated into clock making.
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It's possible that Facebook will ring me today to make me VP of R&D and pay me $5m a year. But I have no reason to believe that is so, and nor do you, and nor does anyone about the craftsman who made the Antikythera Mechanism! There is no reason to believe that the thing was customized from a menu of functionality - it's just as likely that a machine like this was the tool of a navigator or sea captain and one of a hand made, very expensive, but standard type. Rather like a marine chronometer would have been in the 16th Century. I could argue that it's much more likely because we found the thing on a ship and so on - but there is just no evidence either way really.
On the other hand we do have references to similar machines, autonoma and so on, in ancient sources. So it certainly wasn't completely unique. The interesting thing to me is that it doesn't seem that this was translated into clock making.
I agree with everything you wrote. I hope people don't mistake the possible for likely