The watch secondary market of 2026 is not the market of 2021, and this is, on balance, positive. The period between 2020 and 2022, when a confluence of pandemic-era liquidity, social media amplification and a new cohort of first-time buyers drove certain references to prices that had no relationship to their intrinsic qualities, was damaging to the market's long-term credibility. Watches are not financial instruments, and a market that prices them as such is a market in the process of misunderstanding itself.
The correction that began in late 2022 has been uneven, which is itself informative.
References that have held. Watches of genuine scarcity and confirmed quality have maintained their post-correction levels with minimal volatility. The Patek Philippe 5726A has risen 2.1% over the past twelve months. The A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Up/Down, 3.2%. The FP Journe Chronomètre Souverain, 5.6%. These are not speculative positions. They are the secondary market's assessment of what, at depth, matters.
References that have not. The sports watches that led the 2020-2022 expansion — certain Rolex steel references, selected Audemars Piguet Offshore configurations, the more visible Patek Nautilus variants — have corrected by between 15% and 40% from peak. The Rolex Submariner 124060 is down from a peak of approximately CHF 18,000 to its current CHF 12,200 — a 32% reduction that returns it, roughly, to where it was before the frenzy. This is not a collapse. It is a normalisation.
The vintage market. Vintage watches of confirmed quality, condition and provenance have largely been insulated from the sports watch correction. Early-production examples of significant references — pre-1990 Pateks, first-series Langes, early Journe pieces — have continued to appreciate at rates that reflect genuine scarcity rather than manufactured demand. The auction results we anticipate from Christie's Geneva in May will provide the most accurate read on where this market has settled.
The independent market. Watches from the major independents — Journe, Voutilainen, Dufour — have appreciated through the entire correction cycle. Philippe Dufour's Simplicity, which we track at CHF 340,000 — up 8.1% in the past year — represents the fullest expression of this trend: a watch produced in extreme limited quantities by a single maker, whose work cannot be replicated and whose reputation has only deepened with time.
The market's current equilibrium is healthier than its 2021 peak, its 2023 floor, and most of the commentary produced during either period. The watches that were always good are still good. The watches that were merely fashionable have returned to their appropriate price levels. The market has, with its usual slowness, corrected toward sense.
This is what markets do, eventually. The watch market simply takes longer because its participants are more attached to their positions than most.