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Can anyone explain Rolex to me?

2

Comments

  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    +1 While their opinions might be interesting, you can never trust a dealer in such things.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Posts: 1,010 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    May get me permabanned quicker than current affairs, but enjoy all




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,526 ✭✭✭Fitz II


    Its obvious that a fake Rolex on even the most cursory of glances, but still good click bait if your into that sort of thing.



  • Posts: 1,010 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    I fondly remember a fake rolex that a relative gave me. Looked great to begin with but obviously ersatz. Its still keeping time 20 years later, no service or anything



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,254 ✭✭✭Chiparus


    It's the only piece of jewellery I wear , I worked hard for it.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,686 ✭✭✭893bet




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,254 ✭✭✭Chiparus


    Gmt II, 16710 Coke and a 116713 ( I think )



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,547 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    As Wibbs so carefully documents, Rolex were always a safe, unimaginative, middle class brand. The "retirement watch". The thing that's driving their value now is, I think, down to two factors : resale hype and income insecurity.

    In the 50s someone who was working a middle class job could reasonably expect to be able to get a mortgage, buy a house, set up a family and have a few nice things on a single salary without having to be in a very demanding career,then retire on a defined benefit pension scheme. Expensive things like watches weren't unobtanium, and fewer people felt the need to buy more than one anyway. "dad's watch" was... Dad's watch, the watch he owned. Not "the one he invested in". If you were buying one watch, you wanted something reliable and rolex were always mechanically solid.

    Now, people need two salaries to buy a house and raise a family, or work in an extremely demanding field. Adjusted for inflation, lots of things are vastly more expensive than they used to be. Pensions aren't guaranteed and won't go very far. People need a store of value that will appreciate, and rolex has done plenty of that in the media ("this man put a rolex worth two months salary in a safe 40 years ago and now it's worth half a million!"). Once that "store of value" antique-ness is established, it doesn't go away easily, something becomes worth that because it was historically always worth that, and so on so long as the market doesn't saturate and it's kept in the public eye.

    It's tough to call someone a "schmuck" for spending money they have on something they want, but ultimately something is only expensive if it's not worth what you're paying for it. Given the state of what people are paying or doing to get their hands on something as boring as a sub, it's not unfair to say that a lot of the people driving the hype market are, indeed, schmucks, but that's true of any market which is overheated.



    The datejust is a great example of 40's and 50's jewellery styles, which tended towards bulky, inelegant, coarse pieces with bad proportions. The fluted bezel looks like someone's taken a hatchet to it and doesn't maintain its looks well over time, the cyclops creates an ugly bulge in the dial which is also anti - functional because it restricts your view to a single angle and distorts what you're seeing at the single angle you can read it, and the dial looks like it has this ugly gritty texture to it. Nonetheless, it sold well and kept its resale value. Can I explain why? Nope. The best explanation is that there are loads of people who were told by someone "that's the safe watch to get" and a self fulfilling prophesy was born.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,800 ✭✭✭fat bloke


    Question. Tis a quare business that doesn't have anything to sell, so putting the under the counter / out the back door unobtainables aside. What Rolexes CAN you walk into a shop and buy? What's there for the spontaneous lotto winner looking for wrist - bling immediacy?

    Or are they all "if I can have it then I no longer want it" unfashionable duds?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭scwazrh


    Apart from the pieces that are manufactured in extremely small annual quantities Most Rolex are all available fairly quickly if your willing to spend enough money in the store . So your example of a lotto winner can spend say €50k and is pretty much guaranteed a steel sub within weeks .

    As mentioned loads of times here , there’s no Rolex shortage there’s just plenty of people willing to pay more than list price for them . And now everyone expects to pay more than list so it’s become a vicious circle.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,547 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    Wrist - bling is available from loads of watches that aren't rolex, the only difference is Johnny on the street has heard of rolex. If you win the lottery then you could buy a Jacob & Co that would be guaranteed to out bling any rolex.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,800 ✭✭✭fat bloke


    Absolutely true but, to be fair, this is a Rolex thread :).

    All the talk is about what you can't buy. I was interested to hear what you could.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    yep. Rolex make around a million watches a year. Since 2000 there's likely twenty million of the things out there. There is no shortage. Chrono24 has ninety pages of subs. There has been a trend where grey dealers and flippers were and are throttling supply for fun and profit and consumers have bought into this.

    When I think of Rolex, I'd like to claim it's the no date Submariner, but in reality it's the Datejust. In two tone.

    It's the Rolex in many ways. Unlike the Sub, it's entirely their design(with the fluted bezel referencing their first Oyster cases) that didn't look like any other watch before it, though many copied it afterward. At first the watch of the initially British solidly middle class suburban accountant who hangs around with other golfists at the weekend, and then to the world. Pretty much all of their other mens and womens watches(other than Cellini which nobody wants) come from this as genesis. Get rid of the fluted bezel and you have the Explorer, add funky hands you get the Milgauss, add a rotating bezel and you have the Sub, add Mercedes hands in the 60's to all but the Datejust and Milgauss and with the exception of the Daytona you pretty much have the range covered*. Rolex used to have a much wider design language, but by the 60's that was pretty much done and dusted and they've stuck to that since. Because quite simply that conservatism sells. It helped them weather the quartz/digital crisis because there were enough mostly older guys who wanted the bay windowed semi d in a nice area on the wrist. No other watch or brand comes close to Rolex position on that score and they've expanded it across the globe and have even got into the actual luxury tier. Up until the last decade or so they were never in that bracket, beyond vajazzled gemstone horrors previously only loved by potentates of countries you'd find hard to place on a map and widely derided in the hobby and by normal people, and for good reason. Now you have influential collectors like John Mayer proudly holding up Liberace's codpiece as a good thing. 😁 T'is a mad world Ted.





    *The Daytona didn't seem to know what it was other than as a response to the 60's fashion for chronos and only really got self confident in the 90's and then as bling rather than 'tool watch'. The 60's ones are far more legible and much nicer to look at IMHO, though aren't a patch on Heuers at the time. To be fair Heuer were the design house for chronographs.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,526 ✭✭✭Fitz II


    Its just a highly desired brand, especially certain models, and lets be honest those are the models you want. While its nice...bordering on convenient, to elevate yourself above Rolex or maintain your lack of interest in Rolex as a brand, the desirability is there. Perception has become the reality and there would have to be a sudden, and historically unprecedented change in the view of the average buyer for things to change . Sure there are some cases many many years ago when certain models were less desirable than they are today, but in the hear and now I can offer you up 5:1 examples the other way.

    People take a view based on their own bias and level, cherry pick their examples and analogies, and predict the future with equal certainity but equal futility.

    Insert car analogy that is then dismissed and taken as the strawman refute for the argument is was analogising....

    Rolex thread drinking game. (clever puns allowed)

    1 shot : "Tulips", "hype" "flexing" "instagram" "AD" "waiting list" "grey market" "Daytona" "any watch youtubers name" "Patek" "store of wealth" "investment grade"

    2 shots : "relationship piece" "speculator" "douchebag" "Richard Mille" "Vintage market" "Connor McGreggor" "John Mayer" "Hodinkee"

    3 shots : "quartz crisis" "bussdown" "China market" "Mercedes hands" "



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭scwazrh


    It tends to get nearly overlooked now due to the silliness and games but the fact remains that they are an incredible high quality watch.

    for me if I ignore the marketing, financial value , brand perception and just pay attention to the watch as an object to wear , a Rolex on the wrist simply feels nicer and better than any other brand I’ve worn with Tudor a close second.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Their dress watch Cellini range isn't on the radar, even though grey dealers have been trying to pimp them for years, so I'd imagine you could just go and buy one? On the business front Rolex are happy out. They could double their output and sell all their watches. I could see the authorised dealer network being a bit unhappy, but I'd imagine they might be getting more through the door buying stuff on the back of the Rolex draw? When they do get supply of Rolex models they fly out the doors. Guaranteed sales. As Scwazrh said if you have the cash you can get what you want today and wait for the courier. Just not at RRP.

    Rolex quality has most definitely gone way up. Where once their bracelets were decidedly meh, they now produce the best bracelets out there. Where once their movements and finishing were a very good reason to have solid casebacks, they've come on in leaps and bounds. Same goes for Tudor. This isn't fifty years ago either. Compare a 90's or early 00's Rolex Sub to a brand new one and the difference is obvious. Over the last few years I've seen Rolex current fare guys considering going vintage to expand in that direction and after viewing them in the flesh were struck by this difference and usually a nope followed.

    Now advances in manufacturing have raised all boats, but a standard 'basic' Omega Speedy from today isn't nearly as obviously different from a Speedy from 1970. A 1970 Sub and a new one is chalk and cheese in the hand. Actually I'd add TAG into the Rolex camp on the improvements front. A new TAG reissue is streets ahead of the original Heuer offerings, which after having several over the years, while very pretty were about as resilient as an egg in a cement mixer. Top tier brands like AP and PP have improvements too of course, but a lot fewer, as they were always top tier quality. If you had a 1972 NOS Royal Oak and stuck it in an AD's window with brand new ones, few would spot the odd one out.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,547 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    Two tone... I'm mildly appalled. 😂

    Whenever I see one the image that pops in my head is "flavio briatore with no socks, hustling a new batch of underage trafficked girls onto a boat". Which is not what the rest of the watch buying public sees, I'll freely admit!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,686 ✭✭✭893bet


    Cellini is due a refresh pretty soon.


    Daytona, OP, Sub, explorer and gmt all got refreshed recently.


    If ye think the Rolex market is mad have a look at the steel Patek and Ap market.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭scwazrh


    @Wibbs Compare a 90's or early 00's Rolex Sub to a brand new one and the difference is obvious.

    I was surprised by this recently.I had myself convinced I wanted an explorer2 , the polar 16570 .Drooled over it online for months , watched Bark & jack videos on it a silly number of times and stared at as many Instagram photos as I could find .Was passing Dawson’s just after Xmas and they had one in the window, tried it on and it was completely underwhelming.It wears very small ,the bracelet felt cheap , even the dial just looked uninteresting .I’ve the same want for a 14060 but keep putting of trying one in case I have the same reaction to it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,526 ✭✭✭Fitz II


    Rootbeer is a beautiful watch, in person its absolutely fantastic. Just needs to shake the image of TT. My wife has the ultimate TT datejust...must put up a pic later. While I would not wear it, its mesmerising. Remember ladies Rolex outsells mens buy a good margin (ladies being 36mm and under althouh some would suggest 36 is unisex, that up to the person). Root beer has also increased in resale value a lot in the last few months, about ten grand.



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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    That's a very British and by proximity Irish view of Rolex(two tone FTW) as a brand. The used car salesman/1980's day trader with red braces/drug dealer association. It doesn't have that association in the US to nearly the same degree, if at all. It's very much the aspirational brand. And among the younger generation, or for that matter middle aged buyers today regardless of origin it's not in play either. About the only snobbery involved these days would be third party jewelled examples and rappers and that's not just Rolex, it's all tarted up AP, PP, Hublot. And reverse snobbery of course.

    Yeah, that for me has been by far the biggest change in new watch trends in the last decade. Going way back to the egg, most Swiss brands were on the radar of new(and vintage) collectors and buyers. However AP, PP and VC were pretty much absent and if they came up on BB's or forums it would be a gold Patek Calatrava being discussed. The steel stuff almost never did*. My own take is that they were simply another level of cash involved. I can't remember AP/PP/VC being ever 'cheap' used, or vintage. Cheaper than today but still way ahead of Rolex, Omega, IWC et al. And there weren't many about, so they were off the radar.

    These days where nearly all the main brands have lifted their RRP's and Rolex in particular have gone nuts on the grey market, expectations have shifted and I think there are enough collectors now living in the dropping 20k on a watch headspace so that the AP/PP/VC came into view organically. So ten years ago when you could buy a Sub in a shop on the spot for 6k, a 20k AP was much more of a giant leap(not sponsored by Omega).

    Interestingly, for me anyway, is while vintage stuff also went a bit nuts in prices and values, it didn't grow the market to that much of a degree and if anything stagnated it. I suspect it's because vintage and new collectors are very different breeds. The former being far more 'nerdy' and more into collecting itself as a thing. IE the average vintage bod would rather have a dozen watches that cost 2k each, or two dozen at 1k each, than two that cost 12k each, or one that cost 24k. Unlike new watch buying guys who 'flip' an existing watch if a new watch comes along that interests them, the vintage bods hold onto the old watch for dear life and buy another old watch to add to the collection/mental illness. 😁 Unless they've two of the same old watch of course, which is common with the vintage nutters. If I see a known collector on a forum selling an Omega WWW, I'd happily drop a twenty as a bet he has another three of the feckin' things in his hoard.





    *except when vintage pre 1970's steel Pateks came up in high end auctions and went for eleventy bazillion kopeks, simply because they were scarily rare. If you were spending a kings ransom on a top tier watch in the 1950's vanishingly few buyers would go for anything but precious metals. Especially as there was little difference in RRP on them at the time as they were a special order. 'Luxury steel" watches were a contradiction in terms until the 1970's and especially, but not only the Royal Oak. In my humble what was also a driver for that was the new fangled and crazy expensive at first quartz stuff, where many were cased in steel and still cost five and ten times the price of a solid gold mechanical in the same brand's range. Suddenly steel wasn't cheap anymore.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,526 ✭✭✭Fitz II


    Looks like a hang over for me tomorrow.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,773 ✭✭✭mailforkev


    IMHO, the 14060 is one of the best "affordable" Rolexes out there, really nice middle ground between the actual classic stuff and the modern.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    I'd be biased in that for me Rolex are the Sub and Datejust. The Explorers are cool, nice watches, more interesting dials. The Milgauss ditto. But the Sub especially is way ahead IMHO. OK some say it's a bit dull in basic form, but I wouldn't agree, plus if you want more interest there are hulks and deepseas. Try one S, I'd be surprised if you're going to be let down.

    When normal people have asked me what's a 'good watch' to buy, I have always said Omega Speedie for extra buttons, or Rolex Submariner, or Seiko Diver. I've never really deviated from that, even when TAG were the brand, or when IWC were, or Panerai. Today I'd probably add a Tudor BB for budget reasons and people wanting more than the Seiko, but not wanting to sell a kidney.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,547 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    The way I would look at it is, don't buy something you can't afford and don't buy something you don't know you like.

    That includes "I can afford this if I sell x y and z" : just like a classic car, if that's the case, the risk is you can't afford to get it fixed if something goes wrong,unless you're experienced enough, dexterous enough, confident enough and have the tools to do it yourself with potentially non - original parts.


    If you look at something and don't *know* that you'd never sell it, then you probably don't really like it.


    If you are buying on the chance that in 30 years time you can retire on the profits, then go ahead but accept that you personally don't control the market, and buy whatever's got the best history and track record and hope for the best.


    Is you are buying it because you think someone you meet might approve of your buying choices, then... I dunno. I'm not the man to help you there!



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    +1 And IMHO way better quality than the former and less modish than the modern. An actual classic. Put it another way; what Rolex do the homages and outright fakers copy the most?

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 598 ✭✭✭fulladapipes


    I was pleasantly surprised by the Sea Dweller - Dawson had one as well - which seemed to be a decent sized and hefted watch. Date, but no cyclops which a lot of people(/freaks) don't like. I ended up with a Submariner 16610, but would have been happy enough with the Sea Dweller which looks more like a 14060.

    Post edited by fulladapipes on


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators, Regional Midwest Moderators Posts: 23,901 Mod ✭✭✭✭Clareman


    I have a Rolex, I got it for a special occasion off a great boardsie, I wore it daily and rarely would anyone pass any comment on it, just the way I like it, in my opinion if someone is into watches they'll spot it you don't need to go all bling. Since lockdown however I've gone back to the smartwatch, mainly to stop me being a fat bastard and not moving.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,686 ✭✭✭893bet


    The boardie missed it and tried to buy it back even!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,578 ✭✭✭scwazrh


    I think the Tudor black bay range is by far the best value for money at the moment.I’ve the gmt and it’s more comfortable to wear than any of my omega or breitling.It feels a higher quality , hard to explain but very noticeable difference if you’ve both in your hand at the same time.

    ive ordered the bb58 and looking forward to getting it .Weirs said a years waiting list which is crazy but I think the AD’s are trying to send tudor in the same direction as Rolex



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