“The Nautilus has held its value.” “The Daytona appreciated 40% in three years.” “Patek Philippe is generational wealth.”
All of these statements are technically true. All of them are deployed in service of a conclusion that the data does not support.
Luxury watches are not investments.
They are extraordinary objects. They are, for certain references from certain manufacturers, stores of value. They are heirlooms. They are statements of taste and of time.
But an investment — an asset class deployed with the expectation of risk-adjusted returns superior to alternatives — they are not. And the conflation of the two has become the watch industry’s most profitable piece of marketing.
The Peak Was Real. The Lesson Was Misread.
Between 2020 and 2022, the secondary market for sports watches from Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet experienced price appreciation that had no historical precedent.
A Rolex Submariner that retailed at CHF 9,550 was trading at three to four times that on secondary platforms. The Nautilus 5711 reached six figures. The steel Royal Oak was similarly transformed.
This was not the watch market finding its correct level. It was a global liquidity event — ultra-low interest rates, pandemic savings, and a commodity mindset applied to portable luxury — creating a temporary premium that evaporated with equal speed when the conditions that created it reversed.
From late 2022 through 2024, secondary market prices for the majority of sports watch references fell 30–50% from their peaks. The people who bought at the top — many of them explicitly as investments — are sitting on losses against that framing.
What Watches Are Actually For
A Patek Philippe acquired today and held for thirty years will, with high probability, retain meaningful value in real terms. This is not an investment thesis. It is a statement about the durability of craftsmanship and the irrationality of collectors, both of which are reliable.
But holding a Patek for thirty years while your capital could have been deployed elsewhere is not wealth creation. It is wealth preservation with aesthetic benefits — a meaningfully different thing.
The ultra-wealthy who own exceptional watches are not managing a watch portfolio. They are wearing extraordinary objects that happen not to depreciate as quickly as other luxury goods. This is a quality worth appreciating. It is not a substitute for financial planning.
The Industry’s Complicity
The watch industry has not discouraged the investment narrative. It has, in the quieter corners of its communication, actively cultivated it.
Because the principal who believes their Nautilus is an appreciating asset is a principal with a reduced psychological barrier to the next acquisition. The collection grows. The logic that each piece is both a pleasure and an investment removes the friction of the expenditure decision.
It is brilliant marketing. It is not accurate.
The Correct Frame
Buy the watch because you love it. Because the movement is extraordinary. Because wearing it is a daily encounter with human craftsmanship at its highest expression.
Buy it because you will leave it to someone who will understand what they are holding.
Do not buy it because your wealth manager suggested it as a portfolio diversifier.
If they did, find a different wealth manager.
A watch tells you the time. It does not make you money. Both of these things are worth knowing.
