You guys break me up! I was beginning to wonder what had happened to good ol’ banter.
I just followed down this page of this thread and my suggestion is that the winter sales - or the accompanying winter weather - has induced a level of frostiness not often seen here. I hope I'm wrong though.
For me, this is all in good fun but I am tapping out before it goes sideways.
iain wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2025 10:08 am
^^^^ I don’t know Steve, it could be helpful to the person who is weighing up whether to buy a watch in the CW sale, or use the money to go towards buying a Rolex now in order to beat the inevitable/possible price rise which is coming this year/next year/in 4 to 8 years time…..
I will add an observation. I do feel that occasionally you can pick up new watches from higher priced brands at sale prices that bring them down to CW levels, or near CW levels at any rate.
Obviously not Rolex or Omega but certainly Longines Oris and many others at times.
My unscientific data is simple, I and many members of my family have been Rolex enthusiasts for a very long time and owned many of their watches purchased directly from jewelers (aka Rolex ADs). We also follow the cost of our own and new watches mostly for insurance purposes.
This started in 1967 when my mother bought my father his first Rolex: 1967 Air King. His next was a new 1983 DateJust.
I purchased my first Rolex in 1994, a new Explorer II Polar. Then (all new from authorized dealers) a 2010 DateJust, 2018 Submariner Date 40mm, 2019 Explorer II 42mm, 2023 Submariner Date, and so on.
My Uncles all have multiple Rolex watches.
A few of my brothers have multiple Rolex watches.
While I cannot prove 100% that every year since 1967 Rolex has raised prices, I believe if not all of them in many years they did and still do.
What is your hypothesis based on?
Personal experience, which is of course no more or less relevant than yours, combined with excellent powers of recall of various ADs in London telling me that a price increase was coming, because there hadn’t been one for a couple of years etc.
Mind you I also had at the back of my mind that I had seen a few charts on the internet, which based upon the source, I put more store by than the oft quoted “Rolex increase their prices every year”.
Oh I have found a couple that I remembered are out there…
Based upon the sources that I have linked to I will accept them as indicative that it is indeed the case that Rolex do not (always) increase prices every year. One in US$ for the USA territory and one in UK£ for the UK.
I certainly remember the four year period, as that’s the one when ADs kept telling me about a forthcoming increase that took rather a long time to turn up.
The eight year period was before my time of being interested in and buying the occasional Rolex.
Neil
I just quoted you Neil to keep things in context. I plotted this a while ago with RRP info going back to the first Submariner. There have been two periods of drastic price rise. The first was right at the end of the 70s. The second right around 1990. The third was in 2002-2004. It has been drastic since then. I only did popular steel sports models and no precious metal. The black line is the average salary for a college graduate in the U.S. I can't remember where I got the RRP data but it was extensive. The salary data I got from government statistics.
These users thanked the author rkovars for the post (total 2):
My unscientific data is simple, I and many members of my family have been Rolex enthusiasts for a very long time and owned many of their watches purchased directly from jewelers (aka Rolex ADs). We also follow the cost of our own and new watches mostly for insurance purposes.
This started in 1967 when my mother bought my father his first Rolex: 1967 Air King. His next was a new 1983 DateJust.
I purchased my first Rolex in 1994, a new Explorer II Polar. Then (all new from authorized dealers) a 2010 DateJust, 2018 Submariner Date 40mm, 2019 Explorer II 42mm, 2023 Submariner Date, and so on.
My Uncles all have multiple Rolex watches.
A few of my brothers have multiple Rolex watches.
While I cannot prove 100% that every year since 1967 Rolex has raised prices, I believe if not all of them in many years they did and still do.
What is your hypothesis based on?
Personal experience, which is of course no more or less relevant than yours, combined with excellent powers of recall of various ADs in London telling me that a price increase was coming, because there hadn’t been one for a couple of years etc.
Mind you I also had at the back of my mind that I had seen a few charts on the internet, which based upon the source, I put more store by than the oft quoted “Rolex increase their prices every year”.
Oh I have found a couple that I remembered are out there…
Based upon the sources that I have linked to I will accept them as indicative that it is indeed the case that Rolex do not (always) increase prices every year. One in US$ for the USA territory and one in UK£ for the UK.
I certainly remember the four year period, as that’s the one when ADs kept telling me about a forthcoming increase that took rather a long time to turn up.
The eight year period was before my time of being interested in and buying the occasional Rolex.
Neil
I just quoted you Neil to keep things in context. I plotted this a while ago with RRP info going back to the first Submariner. There have been two periods of drastic price rise. The first was right at the end of the 70s. The second right around 1990. The third was in 2002-2004. It has been drastic since then. I only did popular steel sports models and no precious metal. The black line is the average salary for a college graduate in the U.S. I can't remember where I got the RRP data but it was extensive. The salary data I got from government statistics.
Rolex Price Chart.jpg
I remember when you did that Rich
Presumably even though you can’t remember the source, the underlying data on your Excel spreadsheet indicates the specific dates and amounts that you used to plot the data that you turned into a chart?
Be interesting to check it against the source data that I linked to of US$ RRP as recorded by minus4plus6…
nbg wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2025 9:50 am
Personal experience, which is of course no more or less relevant than yours, combined with excellent powers of recall of various ADs in London telling me that a price increase was coming, because there hadn’t been one for a couple of years etc.
Mind you I also had at the back of my mind that I had seen a few charts on the internet, which based upon the source, I put more store by than the oft quoted “Rolex increase their prices every year”.
Oh I have found a couple that I remembered are out there…
Based upon the sources that I have linked to I will accept them as indicative that it is indeed the case that Rolex do not (always) increase prices every year. One in US$ for the USA territory and one in UK£ for the UK.
I certainly remember the four year period, as that’s the one when ADs kept telling me about a forthcoming increase that took rather a long time to turn up.
The eight year period was before my time of being interested in and buying the occasional Rolex.
Neil
I just quoted you Neil to keep things in context. I plotted this a while ago with RRP info going back to the first Submariner. There have been two periods of drastic price rise. The first was right at the end of the 70s. The second right around 1990. The third was in 2002-2004. It has been drastic since then. I only did popular steel sports models and no precious metal. The black line is the average salary for a college graduate in the U.S. I can't remember where I got the RRP data but it was extensive. The salary data I got from government statistics.
Rolex Price Chart.jpg
I remember when you did that Rich
Presumably even though you can’t remember the source, the underlying data on your Excel spreadsheet indicates the specific dates and amounts that you used to plot the data that you turned into a chart?
Be interesting to check it against the source data that I linked to of US$ RRP as recorded by minus4plus6…
Neil
I'll definitely take a look. For all I know that is where I got it. There are some anomalies as I am certain there were no decreases at any point but the overall trend is clear. You can also see where in the 2000s several models held steady for short periods of time.
The SeaDweller has seen the sharpest increases. Largely due to the move to Deep Sea models I would guess.
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. Jack London
but I am tapping out before it goes sideways.
