DEFINING AND CONFIRMING A WATCH'S VALUE NOW AND IN NEAR FUTURE. FROM ITS NAME, REPUTATION, MATERIAL, TECHNOLOGY, COMPLICATIONS, RARITY AND PRICE

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“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person.”

BY FEYYAZ ALINGAN

Branding

I believe the market value of wristwatches is mainly defined by the demand of the brand.

That’s why more simpler stainless steel Rolex watches, such as the Oyster Perpetual are sold for a premium:

Granted there is a color difference of the dial, but it’s not any special material or a process that is extremely difficult to do. It’s just Rolex’ branding and standing in the market, causing its prices to skyrocket.

Material

The material used in watches has a big effect on its price, although not exclusively. You can probably find a more expensive Rolex in stainless steel (new), than a complicated Audemars Piguet in Platinum (used).

Which goes to show that the material only plays a role at the beginning of the sale of the watch, not after its sold, not even in vintage pieces.

Funnily enough, before the 1970s almost all Swiss watches in the luxury segment were made from precious metals, such as gold.

The Royal Oak 5402, introduced by Audemars Piguet in 1972 was the first stainless steel sports watch that demanded a price, much higher than its usual competitors. Unthinkable at that time, today it’s the norm.

Since then stainless steel is a material that is being used on almost all sports watches and demands a higher price for special models such as the Nautilus from Patek Philippe or the Royal Oak.

Complications

Generally speaking you can assume that the more complicated the watch, the more expensive, such as this Patek Philippe:

It would be difficult to buy this for 20′000 USD, the entire market would agree.

Yet there are some exceptions to that rule. Look at this Frederique Constant:

A perpetual calendar with a Tourbillon complication would cost at least 100k USD with every other luxury brand, but they are selling this for 15′000–20′000 USD.

Another example is this IWC:

These are selling for 133k+ USD in retail. Same complication, different case material and more importantly, different brand!

Let’s look at this heavy hitter:

Again, same complications by A. Lange & Söhne, so perpetual calendar and Tourbillon, yet, this costs north of 250k USD.

So while complications can make a watch more expensive, you can’t compare apples to oranges and have to compare the brands that are in the same league with similar materials etc.

Rarity

Rari, y does play a huge role, as the rarer the watch the more sought after it seems. That’s why watches like this from Omega, tend to smell quite a lot:

It’s technically “just” a Speedmaster Professional, yet it goes for 3x-5x over its retail price, due to its special dial, its special connection to the NASA Moon landing but more importantly, it was a rarer piece as it was only produced 5441 times.

“Of course, there is a reason for this number. The number reflects the elapsed time of the Apollo 13 mission: 142 hours, 54 minutes, and 41 seconds” - as is being written all over the web.

Generally you can assume that the rarer the material, the less the production numbers are.

Similar to this Patek Philippe, which I think is made out of platinum, only created 25 times, specially done for Weir & Sons in Ireland and is currently selling for 450k USD in the grey market (also: very difficult to get):

So while a complicated platinum Patek is selling for 100–120k USD, a rare variation of it, is selling 4–5x the price, due to its limited production cycle.

FEYYAZ ALINGAN runs Watch Newsletter where he sources and curates interesting luxury watch deals around the web.