State of the market

I have been collecting since 2017 and I feel in general watches have become increasingly expensive in general. When I started a Sinn 556 was a 600 usd watch, now its around 1000 usd or more. All the new omegas are over 5000k and even Seiko has raised their prices (rip sarb and skx lines) .

It seems that watches are becoming more and more of a luxury, but don't know if it's because of greed, or because the pool of customers is narrowing so they need this to keep afloat.

But yes, luckily speculation has calmed a little bit.

If the pool of people buying these watches was narrowing, wouldn’t the prices be going down? I feel like there are more people buying matches than ever, which is pushing up the prices.

Or has pushed up the prices I should say.

You can’t forget about inflation. We have had record inflation in the recent years.

Definitely agree 👍, feel you with Sinn 556. I've experienced quite a quick change within just a short while, when I sold my Tudor date day prince and a year later it went up a shit ton 😅. Missing that watch quite a bit ngl, but thought that getting Sinn 556 was more worth it at the time.

Prices are going down and the fake scarcity on certain brands is going away.

There you go.

New watches are increasing due to inflation, but a lot of them seem to get discounted quickly. High demand watches are still holding value, but even then they are softening in a lot of cases.

Personally, I'm waiting out the market.

Graph credit- WatchCharts.com

Don't think it's narrowing, on the contrary, there's a lot of public interest in watches recently.

Just notice all the posts on here about “I GOT THE CALL!” 🤣😂

Yeah, you all got the call because the market is crashing and AD’s are starting to panic.

The brands that saw inflated prices for many/all of their watches due to speculation of those models as assets is definitely cooling. I see the market softening overall, but it may be leveling out. Timing the top or bottom of any market is hard.

Thank you for this, sort of to my point. If you draw a straight line from early 2021 to today, it’s just a slight increase in prices. If you forget about the bubble things sort of makes sense.

Inflation is a fact of life. Always has been, always will be. The Covid years were the exception.

You think prices have gone up recently, compare them to 2006 prices which is when I got into "serious" watch collecting. 🤑

They gotta bring this back !

Love that Tudor

RIP North Flag

Thanks. It’s what made me think of this. I’ve been wanting one since mid 2020. Prices were $4k-$5k for a while but have come back down around the $3k area if you’re patient. I have a feeling in the long run values on these will increase regress if Tudor reissues.

Not sure if “crashing” is right but for sure has corrected.

Oftenly hearing watches are more expensive. True, no debate here. How about other things in life? How about our salary level?

In Europe my current VW car that is 4 years old is still offered in same specs as in 2019 ( exactly the same car with incremental changes ) but is 70% more expensive. Olive oil is 200% more expensive than 2 years ago, bread at least 50% since 2019.

My point is this argument is valid but price increases happened across the boars, we call this inflation. Taking only this without comparing to general inflation and salary increase level is worthless data.

On other hand base and average salary in my country is also app. 45% higher than in 2019 so almost as much as Sinn or Omega increased their price levels. BTW I am not sure new Sinn 556 was ever 600$ new, here is an article from 2014 and price is over 1000$ https://wornandwound.com/review/sinn-556i-review/. In 2018 I was close to buy one and price in EU was app. 900€.

I think we are still headed down. I definitely would not buy a modern Rolex. When their new factory starts pumping out watches, they will need to be selling them.

Pre-covid it all seemed fine. Then came that thought that if people didn't buy watches during covid, the prices would go down. That wasn't the case. Somehow they managed to either stabilize the price or increase it further due to lesser buying channels. The fact that they will always come up with a reason why you always end up paying at a high price.

I only buy in the pre-owned market and I'm still holding out. I've been tracking a few Omega and Breitling models I have my eyes on and I see the same watches on the website week after week.

For example, DavidSW has had the same panda dial Breitling Chronomat 42 on it's website for $5,750 now since well before Thanksgiving. It's still there. WatchBox has three of the same model in different colorways and they have been on there for 6 weeks and were recently discounted by 3-5% each.

That's not a highly desirable model, I get it. But it's a luxury brand of high esteem. Move over to Omega. I couldn't find a Seaweed 300 Professional Seamaster for under $5,800 a year ago. Now I see them all day and twice on Sunday for $4500-5000.

If you are willing to play the waiting game, I think the best time to buy a luxury watch will be in the second half of 2024 before things maybe (MAYBE!) start to climb again.

Of course, if we ever get the recession that has been long predicted, all bets are off, but that doesn't seem to be probable any longer.

Coolest Tudor ever. Still sad they discontinued it

Hate the market. Worst part of watch collecting. I’m here for the history and craftsmanship. I love the story of a watch. I hate when someone knows that story and charges thousands for a vintage piece because of it.

Unusual, kind of playfull design for Tudor.... Hell yeah!

There is a market for anything. Watches are no exception. I get hating the state of it for watches though. Especially if you’re a collector who never sells anything.

Most definitely. I love niche enthusiasm and the community but it’s a double edged sword!