Are Watches a Good Investment in 2026? An Honest Answer From the Buy Side

We are Ultimate Watch, part of Ultimate Diamond at 19 West 47th Street in New York. Our family has stood behind a counter in the diamond district since 1959. We buy watches every single week, from walk-ins, from estates, from collectors trading up, from people who just need cash. That means we do not get to be romantic about resale value. When we make an offer, we are writing a real check against what we can actually sell the watch for next month. So when someone asks us whether a watch is a good investment, we give the answer a check-writer gives, not the answer a brochure gives.

Here is that answer, plainly: most watches are not an investment. A short list holds its value. A much shorter list appreciates. The trick is knowing which pile your watch is in before you buy it, and being honest with yourself about the difference between a great watch and a great asset. Those are two separate questions.

First, the number that frames everything

The overall watch market corrected hard after the 2022 peak. On the WatchCharts and Morgan Stanley overall marketplace measure, secondary prices fell 10.7% in 2023, then another 6.1% in 2024. Anyone who bought at the top in early 2022 and sold into 2024 took a real loss, in some references a brutal one.

Then it turned. The market rose 4.9% across 2025, and by the first quarter of 2026 more than 70% of tracked brands were posting positive year over year performance, against just 3% a year earlier. Patek Philippe led the majors, up roughly 12% to 16% depending on the window; Rolex added mid single digits; Audemars Piguet gained around 1% to 3%.

Read that carefully, because it is the whole thesis. The recovery is real, but it is not a rocket back to 2022. It rewards horological merit over hype. If your entire reason for buying is "watches always go up," the last four years already proved that wrong. They go up, they go down, and the ones that recover fastest are the ones that were genuinely scarce and genuinely wanted the whole time.

The pile most watches fall into: depreciation

Let us start with the uncomfortable part, because it covers the overwhelming majority of watches sold new, including some very good ones.

Take the Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch, reference 310.30.42.50.01.002, the 42mm Master Chronometer with the hesalite crystal and the manual wind caliber 3861. It is a genuinely great watch, worn on the moon, still one of the best mechanical chronographs you can buy for the money. Retail is $9,000. On the secondary market it trades around $6,400, roughly 28% below retail. Great watch, bad asset. You lose about $2,600 the moment you walk out of the boutique, and the market price has drifted down about 7% over five years.

That is normal. That is what almost every mechanical watch does, including most of the Swiss catalog you would recognize by name. Tudor, most Omega, most Breitling, most TAG Heuer, most Cartier outside the specific holds we will name below, most Panerai, most IWC, the entire mall of "affordable luxury." You buy at retail, you sell at a 25% to 45% haircut. When one of these comes across our counter, we quote off the pre-owned market, not off the sticker, because the sticker is fiction the day the box is opened.

None of that makes them bad purchases. A Speedmaster you love and wear for 30 years is money well spent. Just do not call it an investment, because when you bring it to us to sell, we will be pricing it like the depreciating consumer good it is, and you deserve to know that going in.

The pile that holds: steel Rolex sport models

Now the watches that actually retain value, starting with the most liquid asset in the entire market: stainless steel Rolex professional models.

The Submariner Date, reference 126610LN, 41mm Oystersteel, caliber 3235 with a 70 hour power reserve, is the clearest example. Rolex retail sits around $11,350. Pre-owned with a full set trades roughly $13,000 to $14,500, and unworn 2025 and 2026 production runs $15,500 to $16,500, roughly 38% to 43% above the official MSRP. It trades above retail, not below it. That is the opposite of the Speedmaster, and it is not an accident. Authorized dealer waitlists for steel sport Rolex run 12 to 24 months, so buyers who will not wait pay a premium on the open market, and that premium is what protects the resale value.

The GMT-Master II "Batman," reference 126710BLNR, 40mm Oystersteel with the black and blue Cerachrom bezel and caliber 3285, tells the same story. Retail after the January 2026 adjustment is around $11,800 to $12,000. Secondary market trades $16,000 to $20,000 depending on bracelet and condition. Again, above retail.

This is the category where "investment" starts to hold up, with one honest caveat: holding value is not the same as gaining value. A steel Sub that you buy at market and sell at market three years later probably nets you close to flat after our buy-sell spread. That is a fantastic outcome for a watch you got to wear the whole time. Treat it as a store of value that happens to look great on your wrist, not a stock; in a market where almost everything else depreciates, flat is a win.

When a steel Rolex sport model crosses our counter, we can quote it fast and confidently, because we know exactly what it sells for and it sells quickly. That liquidity is the whole point.

The shortest pile: the ones that actually appreciate

Real appreciation, the kind where the watch is worth meaningfully more than you paid even accounting for our spread, lives in a very small neighborhood: the steel integrated bracelet sport watches from Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, plus a handful of specific Rolex references like the ceramic Daytona.

The Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A, 40mm steel, is the poster child. It carried a retail near $35,000 when it was discontinued, spiked above $140,000 at the 2022 mania peak, then fell hard with the rest of the market. As of mid 2026 it trades around $112,000 to $116,000, and it gained roughly 30% year over year into early 2026 as the market recovered. Anyone who bought at $35,000 retail and still holds is up several multiples. Anyone who bought at the $140,000 peak is still underwater. Both things are true, and both matter.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15500ST, 41mm steel, caliber 4302 with a 70 hour power reserve, superseded by the 15510ST, trades roughly $49,000 to $68,000 depending on dial and condition against an original retail well under $30,000. The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 116500LN, 40mm steel, caliber 4130, ceramic bezel, produced 2016 to 2023 with a retail around $15,000 when it was current, trades $25,000 to $32,000 today, with the white "Panda" dial carrying a $3,000 to $5,000 premium over the black.

Notice the pattern. Every genuine appreciator is steel, scarce by design, and was impossible to buy at retail for years. The value was manufactured by supply discipline, not by the watch simply being expensive. This is why we push back when someone tells us their $40,000 gold dress watch is "an investment." Gold cased dress watches from even the best houses, Cartier Tank aside as a style icon, are among the softest resale categories in the entire market. Precious metal is the enemy of resale, not the friend, because the melt value is a fraction of the retail and the buyer pool is thin.

Where Cartier actually lands, since everyone asks

The Cartier Tank deserves its own note because it is the most misunderstood watch in this conversation. The steel Tank Must, reference WSTA0040 and the larger WSTA0041, starts around $3,600 retail. Pre-owned steel Tank models generally hold 65% to 75% of retail over a five year window, and typically sell 15% to 25% below retail lightly worn. That is far better than most watches at that price, and worse than a steel Rolex sport model. It is a hold, not an appreciator. Buy a Tank because it is one of the most elegant designs of the last century, which it is, and treat the strong value retention as a bonus, not a thesis.

So, are watches a good investment in 2026?

Here is the buy side answer, no hedging.

If you want an asset that goes up, the honest list is short: steel Nautilus and Aquanaut, steel Royal Oak, the ceramic Daytona, and a handful of vintage references with real provenance. Everything else is either a store of value at best or a depreciating pleasure at worst, and there is nothing wrong with a depreciating pleasure as long as you name it correctly.

If you want a watch that holds its value while you actually wear it, steel Rolex sport models are the most liquid, most predictable choice on earth, and that is exactly why we can quote them across our counter in minutes.

If you are buying purely as an investment and you would not care whether you ever wore it, be honest that you are competing against equities, and after our buy-sell spread and the years you hold it, the math has to clear a high bar. Sometimes it does. Usually it does not. We would rather tell you that now than have you find out when you come to sell.

Bring it in, or send us the reference

The reason we can talk about spreads and market prices this bluntly is that we are on both sides of every trade. We buy these watches every week, and we sell them every week, from our counter at 19 West 47th Street in the heart of the New York diamond district.

If you own a watch and want to know what it is genuinely worth today, not the sticker, not the forum guess, the real number we would write a check for, bring it in or send us the reference number and condition. We will give you a straight offer and explain exactly how we got there. If you are thinking about buying and want to know whether a specific reference is a hold, a depreciator, or one of the rare appreciators, ask us before you buy, not after.

Call Ultimate Watch, request an offer, or walk into the store on 47th Street. We would rather give you an honest number than an easy one.