Flipping The Script

Buying the watch you want can be a chore, but you could also see it as a hunt, which might be fun. We consult a few specialists for their perspective on trading, auctions, and the digital approach to both

- Ashok Soman

A funny thing happened on the way to publishing this story. Actually, it began long before the first word got typed. If you ever attempt to address the question of investing in watches, you will quickly find that there is only one answer: buy what you love, not what the upside might be. In fact, whatever the language, the answer boils down to that message. Broadly speaking, that works just fine, unless you love only gold, like a certain classic Bond villain. Even then, it does not explain the phenomenon of brand new watches appearing at auction and fetching many times the retail price. It is enough to make a person who loves Rolex chronographs feel like the joke is on him.

Now, we realise that some of you reading this may very much want the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona, with the meteorite dial variant new for 2021. While we are not poking fun at anyone’s tastes or desires here, we are pointing out that virtually no one can just walk into an authorized distributor’s boutique and buy this watch. Actually, you could not buy the standard version in steel (pictured here) either. After all, these are versions of what happens to be the most valuable watch in the world. We will return to the word valuable later, but for the standard version, you can register your interest and wait for some undefined period and simply expect that it will eventually be your turn.

A thought may cross your mind though: why does no one seem to want to sell it to you immediately, or tell you how long the wait will be. Instead, it turns out that the watch is immediately available but at a totally different price, brand new, on Carousell and a random store in some quiet mall run by the equivalent of the DVD pirates of yore. That is the funny business we are referring to, and it is not only limited to just one watch, or one brand.