Today, I happened to notice that Jomashop is selling a large number of Rolex references, many at a discount relative to the official price. My subjective impression is that this does not happen very frequently, so I wanted to more formally tease out some implications of this development. I assembled a spreadsheet of the listings and ran some numbers.
For this discussion, I will focus on the references which Jomashop identifies as "Men's" (due to the fact that I am unfamiliar with the other references which are listed). Jomashop lists 197 references for sale at a discount relative to list. This is a remarkable variety of watches on the grey market, expecially considering that Rolex contracts likely penalize ADs who resell through third party dealers. The average discount across these references is 10% with a minimum discount of 1% (mostly 36mm Datejusts in precious metals with unique dials) and a maximum discount of 31% (Cellini Pink Dial Automatic Men's 18kt Everose Gold Watch ref 50705RBR). Please note that the average I'm reporting is not weighted by the inventory of each reference (in fact, nothing here will involve such weighting since Jomashop doesn't reveal its stock numbers).
I was curious if the discount was constant across all price points. Scatterplot of Jomashop Rolex discounts. The answer is no. Discounts are typically higher for higher priced references, as shown by the figure here. I ran the numbers and, for every $10k increase in price, Jomashop increases its discount by .46% (approximately half of one percent, this result is statistically significant).
Next, I was curious if the discounted references were connected to materials, in some way. The answer is yes. Approximately 85% of the discounted references (168) were in gold or platinum.
Finally, let's turn to the topic of which models are discounted and by how much. Discount amount by model. Approximately 91% of the discounted references were one of three models. There were 22 Cellini references, 55 Datejust references, and 102 Day-Date references. The Cellini had the highest discount, at 14.2%. As the figure shows, the Day-Date has the widest range of discounts, with an average of roughly 11.6%. The Datejust had the lowest average discount, at 5.4%.
In summary, these listings on Jomashop suggest that buyers should carefully consider whether they are willing to pay full retail for certain references. At higher price points, they should likely expect a lower price from sellers. I'll also note that the overrepresentation of precious metal references in these discounted listings is consistent with my last piece, where I noted that Rolex' costly foundry may not presently generate the type of revenue the brand expects (hence gold reaching its tendrils into the Explorer 1 design, in a coming piece I will share feedback I received suggesting this may not be the case).
Today, I received a dispatch direct from Le Brassus, aka global headquarters for Audemars Piguet. The email cautions collectors that fraudsters are targeting clients of AP and other brands with potentially bad consequences. In the interest of collector protection, and as a bit of "public service," I'm copying the main body of the AP email below. Be careful out there, always check email headers and double-check with your known contacts at any brands before wiring money, for example: "Cybercriminals are trying to scam customers in every industry and watchmaking makes no exception. At Audemars Piguet we want to be sure that our trusted community is well protected against cyber- criminal exploits. Recently, threat actors have been using spoofing techniques to send fraudulent emails pretending to come from trusted brands, such as ours, in an attempt to deceive individuals into disclosing sensitive information, making payment to illegitimate accounts or engaging in fra...
This may not come as a surprise, but I do not read German-language newspapers on a regular basis. Dial of a vintage Omega Constellation, pie pan. I am, however, keenly interested in a scandal involving the Swatch Group and a "Frankenwatch" Speedmaster which was sold at auction a while back for over $3 million. I won't go into all the minute details here, but the punchline is that Swatch Group bought the watch only to discover that some of its own employees may have been part of a conspiracy to assemble a watch which would be quite rare and important if it were authentic. But, apparently, it was not authentic. When the deception was uncovered, various people who were part of the "inside job" lost employment and, reportedly, legal authorities were notified in Switzerland. I originally wrote about this in 2023, you can read my coverage here . There's been excellent reporting on this matter from many sources (see, for example, this story from Bloomberg). ...
The Wethanor building in Le Locle, screenshot credit Canal Alpha. Now and then, an event takes place which reminds us all how important security is to the watch industry. These prompts can take the form of stories about timepieces stolen on the street or during burglaries as well as thefts at watch stores or boutiques. Last week, news broke of a similar crime although this one was more unique than others. At 7:20 in the morning of Friday, February 13, armed thieves broke into a building operated by Werthanor in Le Locle, Switzerland. The window broken during the heist. Screenshot credit Canal Alpha. I wasn't personally familiar with Werthanor (and they don't really have a social media presence), but they manufacture cases and bracelets. As recently as 2023, news reports indicate that the brand Yema sources components from Werthanor. And, Watchpro suggests that Werthanor "works with the world's biggest watch brands." Indeed, according to Audemars Piguet...
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