2015 Used Watch Market Analysis

cazalea · 2015-12-12T16:15:35Z

Explore 2015 used watch market trends with Cazalea's analysis of online listings. Discover brand dominance, movement preferences, and market biases.

cazalea

WPS member · Horological Meandering forum

9 replies2993 views1 photos

Cazalea's analysis of used watch listings offers a fascinating, albeit unscientific, snapshot of the secondary market in late 2015. By examining data from a major online platform, this post sparks a discussion about brand dominance, movement preferences, and the inherent biases in such market data. It provides a unique perspective on what watches collectors are buying, selling, and aspiring to own.

Hello everyone,

The end of the year is approaching -- the Christmas watch season upon us -- and I took the liberty of searching for a few watches for sale. In fact, today I took just the opposite of "Few" and went for "All". I searched for all used watches in the world, on a popular website that will go unnamed. (With this approach I felt it would be unlikely that I would be buying any more this year.)

Here's the fascinating data I extracted from my search and subsequent refinements:

Note that this is not a scientific poll!

- the data are about as stable as the price of an Amazon book at Christmas time - and will change for every search

- numbers are rounded for my convenience

- numbers don't add to the total of 78,000

- many watches aren't fully detailed or described

- obviously skewed by 35% being Rolex

- no cheap brands

- only watches expensive enough to justify paying for a listing

- Eurocentric.

Assuming all that, what do you make of the numbers? Care to throw out any observations?

WHAT ARE WE	WEARING?
Used/Pre-owned	78,000
MOVEMENTS
Automatic	50000
Manual wind	15000
Quartz	11800

MATERIAL
Stainless steel	39750
Yellow Gold	13650
Steel/Gold 2Tone	6800
Rose/Pink Gold	5000
White Gold	4000
Titanium	1800
Platinum	1100
Ceramic	700
Silver	650
Bronze	200
Carbon	200
Aluminum	100
Plastic	50
Tantalum	30

SHAPE
Round	35000
Pocket	780
Square	550
Mille Tonneau	380
Tonneau	280
Rectangular	230
Hexagon	25
Half Hunter	20
Octagon	8
Triangular	4

NUMERALS
None	10500
Arabic	10400
Roman	7400

FUNCTIONS
Date only	30000
Chronograph	13000
Center seconds	7500
Small seconds	7500
Chronometer	6500
Calendar (various)	3700
GMT	3000
Tourbillon	1900
Moonphase	1800
Power Reserve	1500
Tourbillon	350
Split Chronograph	300
Repeater	130
Striking	60

BRANDS
Rolex	21500
Omega	5500
Cartier	5000
Breitling	4100
Patek	3500
JLC	2600
Audemars Piguet	2000
TAG Heuer & Heuer	1800
Panerai	1800
Longines	1400
Chopard	1350
Zenith	1200
Hublot	1000
Bulgari	920
Vacheron Constantin	900
Baume & Mercier	800
Franck Muller	700
Maurice LeCroix	700
Ulysse Jardin	700
GP	650
Corum	560
A. Lange	520
Blancpain	400
Seiko	400
Movado	300
Universal Geneve	300
Glashutte Original	270
Bell & Ross	270
Chronoswiss	260
Montblanc	240

Cazalea

This message has been edited by cazalea on 2015-12-12 16:16:40

Key Points from the Discussion

The data from online listings is heavily skewed towards higher-value watches and popular brands like Rolex, as lower-priced watches offer minimal margin for sellers after accounting for listing and postage costs.
The high percentage of steel watches for sale aligns with global statistics, but the relatively low number of total used watches listed suggests many transactions occur privately or watches are held by collectors.
The number of Panerai watches listed was surprisingly lower than expected, prompting discussion about brand representation in the secondary market.

The Discussion

watch-guy.com

Dec 12, 2015

Interesting though julian

S F

Dec 12, 2015

Looking at some global stats briefly (): 1) watches sold annually at 1.2 bil 2) swiss watches sold annually at 29.2 mil 3) steel watches sold as a % at 53% -The number of steel watches for sale in your compilation looks in line. -A lot of us bought and held on to our watches? Or a lot of watches are traded on private basis? 78k is just a rounding number in relation to the total, lol. Enjoy the rest of the week end!

Dr No

Dec 14, 2015

. . . hmmm . . . must be from the list of Federal government seized assets ;-) . . .

MichaelC

Dec 14, 2015

I'm still reviewing the results. My initial thought was the Panerai number is lower than I expected. And we need a category for "watches with no date function", to which we at least know there is 1 ;-)

mkvc

Dec 14, 2015

I'm not sure what part of the market it represents. Impressive analysis, in any case.

KMII

Dec 14, 2015

I can guess the source and the comments are spot on - the types of watches represented are largely the ones we would discuss here, not an overall sample of all watches. The reasons largely boil down to cost. Not sure the listing costs anything but there is minimal margin to be made on used low price watches and if one adds postage costs, most are not that price competitive anymore. What it does show is the level of \'aspiration\' a certain brand engenders. The site occasionally lists search stat

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