It’s 2021 and the secondary market premium for certain luxury watches continues. There are plenty of Gregory Paus out there, taking a new, highly sought after [insert sports design from century-plus-old Swiss brand] and selling it for well over retail. Highway to the Profit Zone There’s been a collective gasp now that Rolex has found its voice and issued a public statement about the whole matter. That’s how unprecedented the situation is. As an economist, though, the dialogue about flipping is quite reminiscent of two magnets approaching each other with the same poles facing. They get closer and closer and then the forces become too great and the magnets slip away from each other. The discussion over flipping and the secondary market premium is quite similar: we never quite get to the crux of the matter, but we get close. At the end of the day, flipping and above retail pricing on the secondary market are a consequence of many different circumstances. If you leave any o
Hello again. It's been two months since my last post but there is an issue and topic I thought I'd comment on. It is an aspect to the watch market that hasn't been adequately discussed, in my opinion. But first, an explanation for my absence from this blog. In my last post I mentioned that I paused writing here due to the fact that I was focussed on two long-term projects. I don't write with a pen but I liked this stock image. One is continuing apace, it is a book on Rolex. I can't remember exactly when I started writing in earnest, I think at the beginning of summer, or perhaps halfway through. I was waiting to get responses to some archival requests and I also had to do some in-depth background research from other archival materials before I could start pecking away on the keyboard. I did start, though, and I crossed 30,000 words not long ago. For professional and experienced writers, that may not seem like much. For me, it is the most I've writt