Analysis by The Rolex Submariner No-Date reference 124060 launched in 2020 at roughly $8,100 in the United States. As of June 2026 it carries a $10,050 retail price after the January 2026 increase, and trades on the secondary market between $11,500 and $14,500 depending on condition and completeness, per WatchCharts and dealer inventory data from mid-2025 to early 2026. That single watch contains the entire logic of the secondary market: retail climbs, resale premiums compress, and the gap between the two narrows toward zero. Reading the market means reading that gap — not the marketing.
What follows is a data framework for interpreting secondary market signals, built on transaction-level pricing rather than aspirational list prices. The boom that peaked in spring 2022 is over. whether luxury watches appreciate is now a question with a far more sober answer than it had three years ago, and the numbers show why.
Scope: This analysis covers secondary market pricing for production luxury wristwatches, primarily the major Swiss brands that dominate transaction volume (Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Omega, Cartier). Figures draw on WatchCharts and Chrono24 aggregated secondary market data, auction-house fee schedules, and S&P 500 return data, with publication dates noted inline. Secondary market values are condition- and completeness-dependent and move continuously; the figures here reflect data published between mid-2025 and June 2026 and should be treated as point-in-time reference, not live quotes. Auction premiums and retail prices are subject to change without notice. This is cost and market-structure analysis, not investment advice or a valuation of any specific watch.
The Numbers That Matter
Five figures frame the current secondary market more honestly than any brand catalog.
| Metric | Figure | Source & Date |
|---|---|---|
| Market peak | Spring 2022 | WatchCharts Overall Market Index |
| WatchCharts Overall Market Index, 2025 trajectory | Stabilizing after three years of decline | WatchCharts, Dec 2025 |
| Patek Philippe Market Index, 2025 YTD | +7.7% | WatchCharts, Dec 2025 |
| Submariner 124060 retail price (Jan 2026) | $10,050 | Rolex official pricing via dealer data, 2026 |
| Submariner 124060 secondary market value | $11,500–$14,500 | WatchCharts / dealer inventory, 2025–2026 |
Sources: WatchCharts market updates (2025); WatchGuys and Chrono24 inventory pricing (2025–2026).
What the Secondary Market Price Actually Contains
A secondary market value is not one number. It decomposes into a retail anchor, a scarcity premium, and a set of condition adjustments — and each component moves on its own schedule. The retail anchor rises almost monotonically; brands raised US prices repeatedly across 2024 and 2025, in several cases more than once in a single year, according to WatchCharts. The scarcity premium is the volatile part, and it is what collapsed after 2022.
Consider the components individually. Box and papers — the original packaging and warranty card — are not sentimental extras. WatchCharts data on the 124060 shows the no-date Submariner losing roughly 3.5% of its value when sold without box and papers. On a $12,000 watch that is about $420 of documentation. Condition tiers compress or widen the spread further: an unworn example with a recent warranty card sits at the top of the range, while an earlier-production piece with wear sits near the bottom, which is precisely why the same reference spans $11,500 to $14,500 rather than trading at a single clearing price.
The premium over retail is the figure most buyers misread. the true cost of Submariner ownership over ten years depends heavily on whether that premium holds, shrinks, or inverts. As of late 2025 the 124060 traded roughly 15% to 40% above its retail price across condition tiers — a healthy spread, but a fraction of the doubling that steel sports Rolex models saw between 2020 and early 2022, per WatchCharts historical data.
The Boom, the Correction, and the Floor
Timing explains almost everything about whether a watch bought in the last six years looks like an asset or a liability. The 124060 first reached the secondary market in late 2020, fell from its initially hyped level to around $13,000, then peaked near $16,000 in early 2022, according to WatchCharts. By the end of 2024 it had settled back to roughly $13,000, and through 2025 it hovered just above $11,000 for much of the year before firming.
That arc is the market in miniature. The broader secondary market peaked in spring 2022 — WatchCharts dates it to spring, Chrono24’s ChronoPulse index to March — and declined for the better part of three years afterward. The cause was structural, not sentimental: rising interest rates, higher borrowing costs, and inflation pulled capital out of a category that had briefly been traded like a liquid commodity.
The 2025 data tells a more interesting story than the headline decline. The first and second quarters of 2025 saw the slowest pace of decline since the correction began, per WatchCharts, and by year-end the Overall Market Index, the Rolex Market Index, and the Patek Philippe Market Index were all in positive territory for the year. The recovery was narrow. the gap between Patek Nautilus price and resale reality closed in the brand’s favor, with Patek Philippe up 7.7% year-to-date in 2025 — led by the Aquanaut at +10.7% and the Nautilus at +6.1% — while Audemars Piguet stayed slightly negative for the year. Gains concentrated in a handful of brands rather than lifting the category.
One macro factor distorted the 2025 picture and will distort 2026: tariffs. US tariffs on Swiss watch imports moved from negligible early in 2025 to 10% in April and surged to 39% in August before being reduced, according to WatchCharts. The largest regional market for Swiss watches absorbed a price shock that fed directly into retail increases, which in turn compressed the resale premium from above.
Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score
The Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score isolates the one question marketing obscures: did the watch hold its money? It is defined as the secondary market value after five years divided by the original retail price, multiplied by 100. A score above 100 indicates appreciation; below 100 indicates depreciation. The 124060 is an ideal subject because it has now completed a full five-year cycle from its 2020 launch.
At a 2020 US launch retail of approximately $8,100 and a current secondary market value at the midpoint of its range — roughly $13,000 — the score lands well above break-even. Two reference points are worth stating, because the launch retail for a 2020-era US Submariner is reconstructed from period pricing rather than a single archived figure, and the secondary value is a range rather than a point.
| Input | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Original retail price (2020 launch) | ~$8,100 | Period US retail, reconstructed |
| Secondary market value (2025–2026) | $13,000 (midpoint of $11,500–$14,500) | WatchCharts / dealer data |
| Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score (midpoint) | ~160 | 13,000 ÷ 8,100 × 100 |
| Score at low end of secondary range | ~142 | 11,500 ÷ 8,100 × 100 |
| Score at high end of secondary range | ~179 | 14,500 ÷ 8,100 × 100 |
Sources: 2020 US retail reconstructed from period pricing (launch CHF 7,700; US ~$8,100); secondary market value from WatchCharts and WatchGuys inventory data, 2025–2026. Range reflects condition and completeness. Model-specific archived US launch retail was unavailable from a single primary source; the figure is a defensible period estimate.
A score near 160 reads as strong appreciation. The honest qualifier: that score measures the gap between 2020’s retail and today’s resale, and almost none of that gain is available to a buyer entering at $10,050 retail today. The retention math rewarded the person who acquired at the old anchor. A 2026 buyer is purchasing into a $10,050 retail base against an $11,500–$14,500 resale ceiling — a far thinner spread, and one the score will reflect for any cohort buying now.
The Comparison Nobody Runs: Opportunity Cost
Appreciation without a benchmark is a vanity metric. The relevant question is not whether the 124060 gained value but whether it beat the alternative use of $8,100. From December 2019 to December 2024 the S&P 500 delivered a compound annual growth rate of 13.6%, per S&P data compiled by SoFi (May 2025). Over five years that compounds to roughly 1.89× — meaning $8,100 in the index became about $15,300, dividends reinvested.
Set against that, the Submariner’s midpoint $13,000 secondary value underperforms the index over the identical window, before transaction costs. The watch appreciated. It also lost the race. That is the comparison the Royal Oak investment-or-expense question usually skips, and it reframes the entire category: even a best-in-class value-retainer competed with, and trailed, a passive index fund during one of the strongest five-year equity runs in recent memory.
The picture worsens once you net out the friction the index does not carry. A watch held for five years accrues insurance, eventual servicing, and storage. It also carries a liquidation cost the S&P 500 does not, which is where the auction market becomes decisive.
Reading Auction Prices: The Premium You Don’t See in the Headline
Auction results are the most-cited and least-understood data in this market. A hammer price is not what the buyer paid, and it is not what the seller received. Between those two numbers sits the buyer’s premium — a percentage stacked on top of the hammer price — plus a seller’s commission deducted from it.
The major houses publish tiered schedules. As of 2025, Christie’s charged a buyer’s premium of 26% on the hammer price up to the first threshold, 21% on the next band, and 15% above it; Sotheby’s charged 27%, 22%, and 15% across comparable tiers, per reporting on both houses’ fee structures (2025). Phillips, which dominates high-end watch sales, raised its base rates slightly in 2025 while introducing a “Priority Bidding” system that offers reduced premiums to bidders who commit binding bids at least 48 hours before the sale.
| House | Top tier | Middle tier | Upper tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christie’s | 26% | 21% | 15% |
| Sotheby’s | 27% | 22% | 15% |
| Phillips | Tiered base, raised slightly in 2025; reduced rates via Priority Bidding | ||
Source: Reporting on Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips fee structures, 2025. Tiers apply to ascending hammer-price bands; thresholds vary by house and currency.
The practical consequence: a watch hammered at $20,000 costs the buyer roughly $25,200 at a 26% premium, before sales tax. The same watch, when its owner sells, surrenders a seller’s commission on the way out. The round-trip spread between what a buyer pays and what a seller nets on the same item can exceed 30%. the true cost of buying watches at auction is why auction “record prices” are a poor proxy for what a watch is worth to an ordinary owner — they include a premium the secondary dealer market often undercuts.
What the Data Shows That Most Coverage Misses
Coverage of the watch market fixates on the resale premium over retail as the headline number. The overlooked signal is the direction of the retail price itself, because it is silently doing the work the premium gets credited for.
Here is the mechanism. The 124060’s retail price climbed from roughly $8,100 in 2020 to $10,050 by January 2026 — a gain of about 24% in the anchor alone. Meanwhile its secondary value held a range that, at the low end, now sits barely above that rising retail. A watch can appear to “hold its premium” while the premium is quietly being squeezed from below by retail increases the brand controls outright. The resale price looks stable; the spread is eroding. For brands that raised US prices repeatedly in 2024 and 2025, partly in response to tariffs, this dynamic accelerated. Most analysis reports the premium as a sign of demand. The data suggests a meaningful portion of recent “premium stability” is an artifact of retail inflation catching up to resale, not resale strength pulling away from retail. The two look identical in a headline and mean opposite things for a buyer.
Methodology
Figures were prioritized in the following order. Secondary market price levels and index movements come from WatchCharts, the primary aggregator of transaction-weighted secondary data, cross-referenced against Chrono24’s ChronoPulse index and dealer inventory listings where model-specific figures were needed. The WatchCharts Overall Market Index is composed of 300 watches across the top ten brands, weighted by transaction value and rebalanced annually — relevant context for why index moves understate the volatility of any single hyped reference.
Equity benchmark data uses the S&P 500 five-year compound annual growth rate for December 2019 to December 2024, as compiled from S&P figures. Auction premium schedules are drawn from 2025 reporting on Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips published fee structures. Retail prices reflect Rolex pricing as reported by dealers following the January 2026 increase. Where a single primary source for the 124060’s 2020 US launch retail was unavailable, the figure was reconstructed from period pricing (a CHF 7,700 launch price and contemporaneous US retail of approximately $8,100) and labeled as an estimate. The Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score was calculated by dividing the secondary market value after five years by the original retail price and multiplying by 100, computed at the low, mid, and high points of the secondary range to avoid presenting a false-precision point figure. Brand-owned “investment” marketing and unverified forum price claims were excluded.
What This Means for a $150k+ Household
At $150k+ household income, a $10,050 watch is a discretionary purchase, not a leveraged bet — and that framing should drive the decision. The data argues against treating any production watch as a portfolio holding. A best-case retainer like the 124060 produced a Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score near 160 for a 2020 buyer, yet still trailed a passive S&P 500 position over the same five years, before insurance, servicing, storage, and the 30%-plus round-trip friction that auction and dealer liquidation impose. The watch that “appreciated” was, on a total-return basis, the more expensive way to have held that capital.
The defensible posture is to separate the two motives cleanly. If the watch is consumption — something worn and enjoyed — the retention score functions as downside protection, the reassurance that a strong reference will not crater the way a depreciating one will. the price at which watches stop being investments is a real threshold worth knowing before stretching for a hyped reference at a premium. Buy at retail when possible, prioritize references with deep secondary liquidity and stable retention, keep box and papers, and budget for the carrying costs rather than assuming the watch pays for itself. The 2026 buyer entering at a compressed spread should expect to hold for enjoyment, not exit. Anyone weighing a watch primarily as a store of value, at any income level, is better served running the opportunity-cost comparison above against their own time horizon — and, for sums large enough to matter to a financial plan, treating it as the discretionary line item it is rather than an asset class, ideally in consultation with an advisor who can weigh it against the rest of the balance sheet.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the watch secondary market peak?
The broad secondary market peaked in spring 2022, according to WatchCharts; Chrono24’s ChronoPulse index dates the high point to March 2022. Prices then declined for roughly three years before stabilizing in 2025, driven by rising interest rates and the unwinding of pandemic-era speculative demand.
What is a good Value Retention Score?
The Finluxy Watch Value Retention Score is the five-year secondary market value divided by original retail, times 100. Above 100 means the watch appreciated; below 100 means it depreciated. The Submariner 124060 scored roughly 142 to 179 across its condition range for a 2020 buyer. Most production watches score below 100 — the appreciating references are the exception, not the rule.
Why do box and papers matter to resale value?
Documentation affects price measurably. WatchCharts data on the 124060 shows roughly a 3.5% reduction in value for examples sold without box and papers — about $420 on a $12,000 watch. Original packaging and warranty cards support authenticity and provenance, both of which secondary buyers pay for.
How much does the auction buyer’s premium add to the price?
As of 2025, Christie’s charged 26% / 21% / 15% across ascending hammer-price tiers and Sotheby’s 27% / 22% / 15%. A lot hammered at $20,000 costs roughly $25,200 at the top tier, before tax. Combined with the seller’s commission on the other side, the round-trip spread on the same watch can exceed 30%.
Did the Submariner beat the stock market?
No, over the comparable five-year window. The S&P 500 returned a 13.6% compound annual growth rate from December 2019 to December 2024, turning $8,100 into roughly $15,300 with dividends reinvested. The 124060’s midpoint secondary value of about $13,000 appreciated but underperformed the index — and carried insurance, servicing, and liquidation costs the index did not.
Sources & References
- WatchCharts — December and Full Year 2025 Watch Market Update
- WatchCharts — Mid-Year 2025 Watch Market Update
- WatchCharts — Rolex Submariner 124060 price history and analysis
- WatchCharts — Overall Market Index methodology
- WatchGuys — Submariner 124060 retail and secondary pricing
- Chrono24 — Rolex Submariner secondary market listings
- WatchGecko — Secondary watch market summer 2025 update (ChronoPulse)
- Monochrome — 2020 Submariner 124060 launch pricing
- SoFi — S&P 500 historical performance and five-year CAGR
- Prazzle Arts — auction house buyer’s premium structures, 2025