Horolonomics

Last week, Icebox / Swiss Watches GA, a third party retailer of pre-owned watches, officially acknowledged receipt of a lawsuit filed by Rolex USA in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia - Atlanta Division. A screenshot of the Icebox / Swiss Watches GA retail location Source: Rolex's legal filing. The cause of action for Rolex's lawsuit against Icebox / Swiss Watches GA is "Trademark Counterfeiting, Trademark Infringement, False Advertising, Designation of Origin, Descriptions, Representations, and Unfair Competition." I've previously covered lawsuits of this sort filed by Rolex against independent retailers who sell modified watches. But this one is an order of magnitude different. Icebox / Swiss Watches GA has some very high-profile clientele. For example, a YouTube video from five years ago entitled "Post Malone Buys Rolex For 21 Savage & Autographs A Bugatti!" has over seven million views (the video content is pretty ...

Anarchy is a society without laws. AI generated image of a law rendered void. I sometimes wonder if watch collecting is a near-anarchic niche given the number of laws and regulations which are normally reliable but often weakly enforced when it comes to watch collecting. Take, for example, theft of a $20,000 car. According to the Insurance Information Institute, 85% of stolen cars are recovered. You have decent odds of retrieving a stolen car. Or, if your insurance company disburses cash to compensate the victim of car theft, then the insurance company has a very good chance of getting stolen cars back, selling them, and maintaining lower premiums as a result. I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that a stolen Rolex Daytona ref 116250 worth $20,000 is recovered far less than 85% of the time. For example, The Watch Register claims to have over 100,000 stolen watch serial numbers in its database. Over a decade, it also claims to have seen the recovery of 4,500 watc...