What luxury watch brand would you pay retail for?

Almost never makes sense to buy new for many brands given recent price increases unless you want the experience (for instance . . . Getting a watch at the Grand Seiko studio in Iwate, Japan or getting a souvenir after a Glashutte trip). If I can get a year or two or warranty for a pre-owned or refurbished watch from an AD or online then that’s a done deal.

Short of smaller brands that only release on a batch cycle (and even then I pass way more than I buy) the only one would be Rolex. After that, everything is a deep discount.

The reality is many of the brands started enjoying the smell of their own farts and tried to compete against Rolex, not realizing, outside of the watch community not one gives a funk. Even before the Covid bubble, no one should have paid more than $4500 for the best used modern Speedy Pro. The best Mk XVIII was $2800. The brands started trying to get in on the hype and outside of a few suckers, the buying public at large did not follow them and for the next few years we will be flooded with great deals for lots of these brands. The sad part is people like the guy who paid $6k for a a MK XX will sour on the hobby when he realizes it is only a $2500 watch.

My strategy is to buy what I like, wear it, and most likely never sell. For watches that lose a lot of value I'll probably buy on the secondary market to save some money.

For me, sometimes, the experience you have buying in a boutique is worth the extra money for a new watch. It’s also nice to have a good relationship with your AD.

Buy second hand or gray market for the watch brands that sell under retail 🤷‍♂️ Only way I can see them competing is to bring back negotiable discounts

I only buy new if it’s Rolex. But would buy a new AP or PP if I had the funds and they allocated to me. Omega I bought grey market and Panerai I bought used

Limit my buying, and buy only what I can comfortably keep indefinitely. Build the rest, and don't see watches in investments, but purely as a cost factor, and invest elsewhere.

I'm a serial stalker. I stalk until the price of a watch I want is just right. If I paid retail for everything I've purchased I'd be bankrupt by now 🥲

I hate reselling. I honestly would rather gift watches I know won't get wrist time to loved ones.

Someone has to buy a watch at retail before it becomes secondhand…

I buy new from a few familiar ads, when there is a watch I feel like owning. Good luck to enthusiasts who wait to buy my discards, sold off exactly 3 during the last 20 odd years, 2 for a few hundred more than I paid, another for thousands more than I paid since it was purchased from an agent friend for cash at his cost. Other watches were gifted to daughters, a son in law and one gifted to a nephew, a few to former colleagues too frugal to test the joyful experience of a good watch.

I find the whole value retention, watches as investment discussion/ debate tiresome, completely not relevant. Rolex watches do not interest me, high horology is for guys with much deeper pockets than the ones on my trousers, I request and receive courtesy discounts unless I am buying from single brand boutiques. My path is uncomplicated: I have dollars, the sellers own products: we can complete a deal if there is one to be made.

The bizarre thing is that we think that all watches should increase in value. Very few things do

Do you have link to article?

Whenever a popular journal provides statistics - you need to be sceptical and scrutinize it a lot (if topic is important enough) ;) e.g. original price is a vague definition - it makes sense only in meaning of transaction price (which would include any discounts)

Yes, it is unlike the stock market, where transactions are fairly public. For example, if somebody had to purchase lesser watches to obtain the watch he/she wanted: Is that part of the overall price?

How many of us do you think believe that? So many of us have spent years typing the same thing over again, so forgive us for not chiming it at length yet again. Investment is speculation.

Yeah, I think overall the chart makes sense just % magnitude will be different.

It’s also interesting how they aggregate. Theoretically, 99 normal APs dropping in price by 1% and 1 limited edition AP going up by 100% would result in reported price being somewhat stable at 0% (too lazy to calculate, but logic is there 😅). So statistics would hide that 99% buyers saw their AP depreciating due to outliers in data. Well, sometimes it’s better to treat things lightly and not go into too much details 😂

Watch nerds? None. Speculators who have nothing to spend their money on during COVID? Lots

Any of them, as long as I liked the model enough. However I would never pay a cent over retail.

Patek and AP are beyond my budget. For Rolex retail is a no-brainer. For other luxury brands, secondhand. That’s how I bought my Tudors and Omegas.

Do you have a link to the original article? Curious to read.

This is the way. It works out well because many of the Tudors that I like are discontinued

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/luxury-hand-me-downs-are-now-worth-billions-of-dollars-68d8ad6b

Good point. It would be hard to find a Rolex or Patek that would devreciate, but AP is more nuanced. Some of their models are respectable but there are a lot of duds imo

If you’re more a fan of VC, A Lange and omega than the top three this is great news if you don’t mind paying second hand. And I do not!

I'm not fussed about discount - if I want something & think it's a fair price & I can afford it I buy it. I don't haggle.

Anything over $10k, I generally will purchase directly from the brand.

Exceptions to that rule are when I get a large discount and can trust the seller.

It makes no sense to save a few a hundred dollars on a five figure watch and risk not having a warranty.

All that being said, I think the question you are really asking is whether we are comfortable purchasing at retail knowing that the watch has lost xx% of its value the minute we pull off the tags.

For me, I'm a collector for my personal pleasure of owning the watches. I don't care if they increase or decrease in value.

When investing I rely on experts and invest in companies. Contrary to the loony watch market of 2020-2023...Watches, for the most part, are terrible investments...no different really from automobiles or other consumer goods.

I buy preowned or gray when it makes sense. For preowned I buy from the same ADs so there is a relationship component and I target a watch well within the manufacturer’s warranty period (Longines, Tudor and GS all have 5 years). Gray is riskier so it needs to be a killer deal.

If i was in the market for a "high end watch", id 100% only go to an AD. The standard of fakes out there is frightening. Would be all your worst days rolled into one paying 10k for a fake 🙄

Thanks. Interesting info.