Jun 15, 2019 - Highlights Part of an extremely limited series, this specially commissioned Omega Seamaster Professional Planet Ocean Coaxial Chronometer.
With a history of models, finishes, values and ownership as complex as the movements inside, filling your watch box with the world’s most desirable pieces is no mean feat. So to take the sting out of the secondary market, we’ve assembled this indispensable guide to the first six Rolex watches you should buy
14 Nov 2017
The statistics that confirm Rolex’s dominance of the watch industry are everywhere and incontrovertible, from brand-recognition surveys to chronometer-certificate applications via auction prices and retained values. That means you can’t collect watches without at least thinking about a Rolex (and there are plenty of collectors who look no further, there being quite sufficient variety and interest to last a lifetime). And even should you be a Rolex refusenik, the brand’s influence on the whole structure of the secondary market will determine what and how you collect.
Offering to advise on how you should collect Rolex is to immediately invite scorn, considering the volume of experts and writing on the subject, and so what follows should be seen as a way in and a personal view rather than anything definitive. Discussing Rolex inevitably means dealing in caveats as the brand does not discuss the past and even uses careful, nonspecific language in confirming the official reticence. Consequently, much of the detailed information on particular watches can only be inferred from supporting evidence, rather than confirmed through the company’s records. There are, however, authoritative sources, including books by James Dowling and Guido Mondani, excellent auction catalogues (particularly the recent ones from Phillips) and a coterie of highly knowledgeable dealers led by David Duggan and The Watch Club in London.
You may wonder why a story about collecting Rolex should start with caveats and recommendations for further reading, but the serious values that attach to even less rare models mean that the homework needs to be done. For instance, a Rolex Submariner reference 5513 from 1965 can vary in value from around £20,000 (with a newer service replacement dial) to above £300,000 (with the rarest format original dial in good condition), and even without a dial it might be worth £12,000. At those prices, watches faked to high levels of sophistication are almost guaranteed to be in circulation, while even at lower prices it can be tempting for the unscrupulous to fit a less valuable bracelet.
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Necessary warnings delivered, where should you start? Let’s eschew the ultra-rarities, where values can seem to derive as much from collector machismo as intrinsic worth, and instead look at the watches that made Rolex the phenomenon it is today.