You look on the Rolex website and find a watch that you love, then turn to the internet to look for one for sale, only to find shops asking £100s if not £1000s more than the recommended retail price for a second hand watch. It seems crazy; why would someone pay more than the new price for a used watch?

The answer is availability.

Thanks to Rolex’s policy of producing slightly fewer watches than they can sell, some models, and in particular their sports watches, can have waiting lists ranging from a few months to over 5 years!

Therefore, if you decide to buy one of the sought after Rolex models you have two options; either pay more to get one now, or put your name on a waiting list to get a brand new one in the future. Because of the saving available, waiting for a new one can look appealing.  However, even if you put your name on a waiting list now there is no guarantee that you will pay the current retail price. The price you will eventually pay is not fixed at the point of placing an order so you will be expected to pay the retail price at the point of delivery.

Thanks to the devaluation of the pound the UK is currently one of the cheapest places in the world to buy luxury watches. Historically, Rolex have not allowed any substantial price differences between countries to stand for long, so everyone in the watch industry is expecting an imminent price rise of 8-10% in the UK to bring us in line with the rest of Europe. The Rolex GMT Master II pictured above currently retails at £6550.00 and has a waiting list of up to 2 years. An imminent price increase will drive it up to over £7000.00 and it is likely that there will be another price increase within the waiting period.  This means that while £7950.00 (our asking price for this unworn watch) is over the current recommended list price it is unlikely to be much more than you would pay if you waited 18 months to 2 years, with the added bonus of taking delivery of the watch immediately.

This Rolex Sea-Dweller DeepSea was created to celebrate James Cameron’s dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench: a specially made Rolex Sea-Dweller was strapped to the outside of his submersible. The watch was launched at the premiere of Cameron's 2014 film 'Deepsea Challenge' and is intrinsically linked with it.  Ever since the launch, Rolex collectors have been speculating about how long the model can stay in the range as the link with the film essentially gives it a 'shelf life'. This speculation has resulted in the watch being viewed as a potential investment timepiece, as history has shown that any Rolex with a short production run tends to become particularly sought after once out of production.  The watch is currently selling for £1000s over the list price; however, if it is discontinued the prices are likely to rise further, so this could be a great investment as well as a fabulous watch to wear and enjoy.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post.  As always there is a lot more to know than we have space for here and we have focussed on a couple of watches that we have in stock right now.

If you would like any advice about Rolex watches our jewellers are always happy to oblige