It's Too Hot Out There
When the market runs hot, 'collecting' can make speculation feel like curation.
Good morning. The Unpolished Canvas Strap is perfect for summer:
Two of a Kind. There are only three vintage Patek Philippe references with enamel dials: (1) the well-known ref. 2526, (2) its successor ref. 3428, and (3) ref. 2577. Most people know about the 2526, especially since a cardigan-clad blogger once proclaimed it a “watch to pay attention to.” But the 2577 is more obscure/rare. Estimates put total production at just 60 examples beginning in 1956 (compared to a couple thousand 2526s). Unlike the 2526, the 2577 has a manual movement and an angular case that feels very un-Calatrava. It’s funny whenever multiple examples of a rare thing pop up at once, and there are two 2577s for sale:
Yellow: Italian auction house Aste Bolaffi has a yellow-gold ref. 2577 in its June sale (est. €25-30k).
Rose: Hairspring recently listed a rose 2577 for $345k. There are only four known rose 2577s; one sold for $115k a couple years ago.
I haven’t gotten more photos of the yellow-gold 2577 yet, but it’s important to look for cracks in these lovely, fragile enamel dials. Largely because of tariffs, I haven’t been focusing much on international auctions lately, but Aste’s catalog is worth a look, with all the standard caveats about watch hunting in Italy. The 2577 is among my favorites, and if it stays within that estimate, it’s a compelling value, especially considering the ask on the rose one.
Boomer Watches. For more auction action, check out Bonham’s Hong Kong this weekend. One highlight is this Heuer Skipperera (est. $25-38k). The last public result I can remember is from Sotheby’s in December 2024, when one sold for $54k. That one was in obviously better condition, as there’s some degradation especially around the lume plots on the example at Bonham’s. But the Skipperera is super rare—only 30ish known—so exciting whenever one pops up. Vintage Heuers mostly feel like boomer watches, but the Skipperera is bright and fun.
London Watch Week is happening from June 2–6. Justin Hast and his co-conspirators look to have upped their game for the second edition with a solid roster of brands and programming. Here’s more info.
I just picked up the new Google Fitbit Air. I’ve been using an Apple Watch Series 2 during workouts for 10 years, so it’s an obvious upgrade and much smaller than a Whoop. Probably the most discreet fitness tracker yet for those of us who would never trade our precious timepieces for a tracking device/AI companion/doomsday machine, but it was hard to resist for 100 bucks. That said, I haven’t worn anything Velcro since I learned to tie my shoes, and it just feels undignified, whether it’s a fitness tracker or a Richard Mille. Let me know if it’s interesting, and I’ll do a < 500-word review in a future newsletter.
Subscribers also get (1) 10% off in the Unpolished Store, (2) $50 off a service at Watchcheck, and (3) access to all comments and Q&As. Paid subscribers are reading:
The Market’s Hot; Time to Stop Collecting
There’s a word we use in this hobby that does a lot of work it probably shouldn’t: Collecting. I’m a watch collector; this is my collection; Unpolished is a newsletter for collectors. It makes acquisition sound intentional and curated, implying some level of taste, knowledge, or restraint. A pretty good trick for what is, at its core, buying objects we don't need.
It was invoked frequently during all the Discourse about Royal Pop. The Flippers were waiting in line, which was all very sad because Real Collectors, whoever those are, couldn’t get their hands on the plastic tchotchke.
In my days at the Mothership, we had a rule against writing that someone “collects for the right reasons.” The right reasons, according to who?
I’ve never been totally comfortable with the word “collecting,” and I feel like it can do the most damage in times like this.
A few summers ago, I was in Italy after Geneva Watch Days when I was caught in a torrential downpour. I had a 1970s Cartier Tortue on my wrist. An elegant watch that exuded a certain sprezzatura for an Italian holiday, I must’ve thought at the time. The rain came heavy and fast, and I started to see some fog on the crystal. It made me nervous. These 1970s Cartiers aren’t particularly well-made—mass luxury, as much as that phrase isn’t a contradiction in terms. We left Italy unscathed, but I sold my Tortue a few months later.
The spritzing Italian rain didn’t care if the Tortue was rare, had a Paris dial, or if it came on its original deployant. All it knew was that it was wet, and a delicate Cartier from the 1970s doesn’t really like that, thank you very much.
Two more quick anecdotes:
Earlier this week, I met up with a subscriber who was visiting Chicago from Romania.1 He was visiting the U.S. for two weeks and brought only his 36mm Rolex Explorer from the 2000s (ref. 114270).
I played golf last weekend with another friend who slipped off his modern Explorer (ref. 124270) and stuffed it in his bag before teeing off:
Your travel watch, your golf-bag watch, these might be the most honest watches in your entire so-called collection. Banging around with some golf tees, the exact opposite of my dainty Tortue. Personally, I’ve been wearing my Black Bay 58 on an Unpolished Canvas Strap (Shop This Story!) as the temps have climbed above 80 degrees.
It’s not that you should buy a “summer watch”—watches don’t know or care what season it is. And a Rolex Explorer or Tudor Black Bay 58 are hardly only summer watches.
But summer strips away the pretense.
Watches are hot right now, maybe too hot:
Indie collector NYCWatchGuy recently wrote a “bull case for watches.” His basic claim is that we’re still in the early innings of watches moving from a “niche collector market into a global culture market.”
Meanwhile, WatchPro asked if watches are having another 2022 moment. That was peak hype, when a panda Daytona was supposedly worth $50k, and the world was introduced to MoonSwatch. According to WatchCharts, the pre-owned market peaked in April 2022.
NYCWatchGuy’s argument has coalesced over the past couple of months as Watches and Wonders gave way to million-dollar auction results, which gave way to Royal Pop. He’s not wrong: Watches are becoming about culture, the rich getting richer, social media, scarcity, community.
But this is also when “collecting” can do the most damage.
In last weekend’s article comparing Cartier prices from 1996 to today, I noted that the recently discontinued watches nobody wanted in 1996 are the only ones that outperformed the market.
The obvious question followed in texts and DMs: So what are the recently discontinued but not-yet-recognized watches?
Besides the Tudor P01, your guess is as good as mine.
And that’s exactly the point.
It’s inherently speculative. I don’t worry much about a $3.8m Rexhepi—he’s become the Chosen One. I worry more about a $500k Auffret, or a 1991 Paris Crash doubling in price faster than you can roll your eyes at the word maison (December → May). When prices climb, and auction records get smashed every other week, the language of “collecting” is used to make chasing or speculation feel like curation.
In the long run, NYCWatchGuy’s bull case is probably right. Watches are cultural objects now, sucking up all the hype, money, and speculation that comes with it. But these markets move in cycles.2
All this talk about watches as an asset class insists they’re “stories, social signals, membership cards, portable culture, and in some cases, financial assets wearing a costume,” as NYCWatchGuy puts it.
Maybe. But that stuff comes and goes.
They’re also just watches. And if it’s not something you can wear on a flight from Romania to Chicago or throw in your golf bag for an afternoon, then there might be a better way to spend your money to get whatever it is you’re looking for. A watch can be all those things, but that doesn’t help much when you’re stuck in a rainstorm.
In the summer, everything slows down. Dealers move inventory, auction houses go quiet, the guys driving up the price of a Pepsi GMT-Master II are busy “summering” in the Hamptons.
I hope it quiets down this summer. Because if it’s starting to look a bit too much like 2022, we know what came after that:
One of 26 subscribers from Romania, I was happy to learn.
Midlife Crisis Watches also made an interesting analogy to the world of cards.
Let’s hope people never rediscover vintage Speedmasters. I just picked up a beautiful 105.012 with original crown, pushers, DON bezel and brown/grey dial for a song.
I have to keep reminding myself that, while I could get an allocation from some indie that is trading at 2-4x market, I wouldn't be buying that watch because I like it. It's a continual effort to separate "will this go up?" from "will I adore this piece?"