A 1965 Rolex valued at £8000 fetches £230,000 at auction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-41597833

 

I saw this come up on my alerts, very nice watch! I wish someday to find something like this in the wild!

 

Or even in a cement mixer.

 

I know, I wonder what the original owner would have different if he knew how much it could be worth in the future.

 

...give or take.

 

Another report here. After all the fees it eventually cost the buyer £280,000

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4673528/auction-bidding-war-rolex-watch/

 

"The auctioneers said the market for vintage watches "seems to be very hot"."

You heard it here....

 

These have to be straw buyers for Rolex.

Rolex has created the worlds first perfect economy, immune from all economic theory, rules or tradition.

Why waste money on traditional advertising when you can just purchase your own products at inflated prices? The more inflated, the better. I mean I know Rolex still does corporate sponsorships and akward brand ambassadorships but that only helps the perception and the endless confirmation bias.

Most of these straw buyers don't even realize that they're straw buyers and besides, why ask too many questions when all this money is escrowed and you've no risk?

In the United States, Rolex has hired the best IP attorneys money can buy and has used our Lanham Act to created a perfect racketeering operation. The ironies are breathtaking. Rolex very literally uses our Border and Customs personnel as a private security operation with zero oversight.

I feel like Omega is trying to get in on this scam but they appear too unfocused and not as brazen as Rolex. Perhaps Omega recognizes they don't have the same level of brand? Rolex is looked at as G-d like by civil servants of the U.S. Administrative State.

 

Another possibility: that the watch is a correct Explorer dialed Submariner and is decent (impossible to judge either from those pictures and beyond my expertise in any event), which would garner big dollars (or pounds) in the collector's market. If that is the case, the auctioneer was clueless,, but the reference is fairly obscure.

 

I once heard that Patek ran around buying up their own watches in auctions at inflated prices.

 

I've heard that this was a private collector in Italy, not Rolex.

 

As long everyone is rowing in the same direction, the ship keeps sailing (cool mixed metaphor). There were tons of bidders for this auction and they all had one goal in mind: hammer up the price as high as possible.

As long as the perception remains that Rolex retail buyers are smart because they buy and enjoy luxury goods which go up in value then everything is all...um, good!

 

Speaking as a potential buyer, it is never my intention to "hammer up the price as high as possible" !

 

TBH that's the best Explorer-dial Sub I've ever seen at auction - not that I've been watching closely at all though - but most of them seem to have a lot more degradation on the dial. This one may have been relumed (I don't know, just speculating) but still - it's powerfully attractive. Not surprised at the result at all

 

Are you guys warming up here, before Philips auction?
I think it is a cool and unique watch, but £230K....wow...
Look at the other good news in my feed)

 

On a side note, how are we realistically able to value watches for insurance purposes when an auction house says something is worth £8K, yet it sells for a whopping £230K?

 

It's interesting for me to think through the demand side for these vintage Rolex. I mean, how many people are there that can throw upwards of $400k at these watches? I often wonder if there will be a point of saturation. Like every major collector will have "completed" their collection and then the market ends up moving in a counter direction.

I think that, but then here I am still looking through my watchrecon/ebay/dealer feeds despite saying "i'm done for the year" after that Doxa black lung reissue . . . .

 

Hmm, good point.

Do you ever top tick auction watches (or, purchase 6 figures watches @ auctions) ??