The guilloché pattern on an Ashford dial is cut on a rose-engine lathe that’s older than anyone currently working in the shop. It takes the better part of a day per dial, compared to a few minutes to print the same pattern.
What you’re paying for isn’t really the pattern — a good printer can fake the pattern. It’s the way the cut catches light differently depending on the angle you hold the watch, because the grooves are physically there rather than printed flat. Under a loupe you can also see the very slight human variation between one dial and the next, which a batch of printed dials never has.
We’ve been asked more than once whether it’s worth it. We think so, but we also think it’s fair to say plainly that most of what you’re buying is time, not a functional improvement.