On time

Turning a watch into an investment is, more often than not, just a refined way of being late

por ValkaB

Sobre el tiempo

This was never really about watches. It’s about ownership — or the growing need for it in a world where everything has quietly shifted to subscription. Where access replaces possession. Where what you have is increasingly intangible.

It is about the illusion of control we project onto objects when everything else—money, time, even identity—seems to become more abstract. It is also about how style, historically linked to discernment, has transformed into an asset, and how ease we confuse cultural value with market price.

In that context, the watch returns. A particularly effective symbol. An intimate object, worn on the body and absorbed into everyday gesture; a technical one, whose complexity helps justify its cost; and a historical icon, carrying decades — sometimes centuries — of narrative. It is also visible, though never explicitly so — always in the background, yet instantly becoming the focus when noticed by a trained eye. Perhaps that is why it has survived what so much else has not.

Some buy watches to control time, even knowing it cannot be controlled. Others acquire them with the almost superstitious sense that, somehow, they might hold onto it. Between these two positions, a third figure has emerged over time — increasingly visible — one that seeks neither precision nor symbolism, but a clear expectation: that the object will increase in value.

Within that shifting set of intentions lies much of what has shaped the watch market in recent years — and, in truth, for decades.

The Rise of the Object as a finnacial Asset

Watches didn’t suddenly become investments. They were absorbed into a broader shift — one where tangible objects regained relevance as stores of value. Reports such as the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, along with studies by Deloitte and analyses by Morgan Stanley in collaboration with LuxeConsult, have long pointed to this shift, placing watches alongside art, wine, and classic cars in a hybrid category where enjoyment and economic expectation coexist.

The difference is that, in the case of watches, the market has gained a transparency that other objects do not possess. Platforms like WatchCharts, Chrono24, or Subdial have turned watches into something measurable. Trackable. Comparable. Closer to markets than to collections.

Data replaced instinct. And speculation followed. That’s the line. Collecting is about the object. Speculation starts when the object becomes a number.

Let us not confuse it with collecting, please. Speculation begins the moment the object is no longer understood for what it is, but for what it might become.

When a Watch Becomes an estate

During the most recent expansion cycle — particularly between 2020 and 2022 — certain references from Rolex, Patek Philippe, or Audemars Piguet moved beyond their role as functional objects to become recognisable assets within a shared narrative. Scarcity, combined with constant visibility and increasing liquidity in the secondary market, created a dynamic in which value seemed to validate itself continuously.

This cycle, however, needs to be placed in context. The rise was not an isolated phenomenon within watches, but part of the final phase of a broader luxury asset cycle — art, wine, sneakers, and classic cars all moved in parallel — driven by forced savings during lockdowns, historically low interest rates, and a renewed search for visible objects capable of sustaining identity and status in a context of social isolation.

Within that environment, purchasing behaviour shifted. Watches were no longer chosen based on affinity or judgement, but selected according to their position within a flow of demand.

The correction that became visible from 2023 onwards was therefore predictable. As interest rates rise, travel returns, and spending reopens, luxury assets tend to adjust collectively. Aggregated data from platforms such as WatchCharts shows price corrections, particularly among references whose growth had been driven more by expectation than by sustainable fundamentals. This movement has not dismantled the market, but it has altered its tone — reducing momentum and forcing a more attentive reading.

The Current Barometer: Watches and Wonders

In this context, Watches and Wonders Geneva functions as more than a trade fair. It has become a space where the industry observes itself and, indirectly, reveals where it may be heading.

The latest edition suggests a clear intention to regain control after a period in which the narrative was shaped by amplified scarcity and overexposure. Major houses have adjusted both their communication and their distribution strategies, seeking a level of stability that the recent market had strained.

At the same time, technical discourse has gained weight. The renewed emphasis on calibres, complications, and savoir-faire is not only aesthetic or historical — it reflects a need to anchor value in verifiable elements at a moment when expectation alone is no longer sufficient to sustain price.

There is also a noticeable restraint in design. Proposals tend to evolve rather than disrupt, as if the industry were recalibrating its relationship with time not only in mechanical terms, but cultural ones as well. Recent excess has left behind a market more sensitive to coherence than to immediate novelty.

What Sustains Value When the Market Cools

To speak of watches as an investment is to accept a level of complexity that rarely lends itself to simplification. Sustained value over time does not depend on a single factor, but on a combination in which scarcity, historical relevance, long-term demand, and technical integrity all play a role.

Models such as the Daytona, the Nautilus, or the Royal Oak are not sustained by price alone, but by an accumulation of meaning that places them beyond specific cycles. In these cases, the market does not create value — it recognises it.

The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is a mechanical chronograph wristwatch, designed to meet the needs of racing drivers. It allows for measuring the elapsed time between two waypoints to determine a vehicle's average speed. Its name refers to Daytona Beach, a place where racing flourished in the early 20th century. It has been manufactured by Rolex since 1963 in four distinct generations (or series). Although aesthetically similar, the second series introduced automatic winding (the first series was manual winding), and the third series introduced an in-house Rolex movement. / By Sealobo from English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Liftarn using CommonsHelper., Public Domain.

The Royal Oak is considered the most well-known watch currently produced by Audemars Piguet. It was first introduced at Baselworld in 1972, during the quartz crisis. Designed by Gérald Genta, who is also responsible for the design of other notable watches, including the Patek Philippe Nautilus. The Royal Oak model is considered the world's first luxury sports watch. It is named after warships, which in turn refers to Charles II's Royal Oak. This model was inspired by traditional diving helmets and thus featured exposed screw heads, as well as a unique case design. The watch also featured an integrated steel bracelet. / Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In 1976, Patek Philippe introduced the Nautilus model as a sports watch; the first watch was the stainless steel model 3700-1A. The Nautilus designer, Gérald Charles Genta, was a trained jeweler. This waterproof sports watch was a contrast to the firm's strategy until then, focused on manufacturing small, flat watches, and ended up becoming a very successful product. The most demanded model was the 5711-1A in steel with a blue dial, discontinued in 2021, whose price in the secondary market has multiplied by more than ten compared to its original purchase price. / Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The more complex terrain is vintage, where market logic becomes less evident and more dependent on knowledge. It is a space that demands humility. It only becomes legible after years of trial and error. What is clear, even at a glance, is that narrative, rarity, and condition carry decisive weight, and that value is rarely immediate, uniform, or constant.

To this must be added a decisive variable that is rarely addressed with enough clarity: timing. In a landscape where information circulates quickly, buying once an object has already been amplified by trend significantly reduces its potential as an investment. Not because it loses value immediately, but because much of its trajectory has already been absorbed by the market.

There are also signals that tend to anticipate less favourable outcomes: purchasing at retail without scarcity, excessive reliance on trends, or the absence of a strong secondary market tend to limit an object’s ability to sustain value over time. None of this guarantees success, but it does define the boundary between impulse and awareness.

The Object as an Anchor

Beyond the logic of investment, the appeal of the watch reveals something deeper. In a context where much of value has become dematerialised — from entertainment to financial capital — the physical object recovers a function that once seemed diluted: the ability to carry a story.

A watch condenses time, technique, and history into a single form. That symbolic density, combined with its portability and visibility, makes it a singular case within the universe of luxury.

The growing interest in these objects cannot be explained solely through profitability. It also reflects a desire to establish a more stable relationship with what we own, even if that stability remains, in part, an illusion.

What Comes Next: A More Demanding Selection

The watch market has not stopped, but it has changed pace. The most recent phase has introduced a sharper distinction between what sustains interest and what depends on specific conditions to do so.

Everything points towards a more demanding landscape — both for the artisans and brands producing these objects, and for those engaging with them as collectors or custodians. The range of references capable of behaving as true assets is likely to narrow, while individual judgement will regain importance. Investment interest will not disappear, but it will become less superficial and more aware of its limits. In that context, the distance between buying based on numbers and buying based on conviction becomes increasingly necessary.

Let's undo everything

In a market driven by expectation, the most interesting watches are often the ones that don’t need it. Not because they sit outside the market but because they don’t rely on it. They’re not bought thinking about the next buyer. They’re chosen.

Objects that don’t promise performance — but coherence. And in that shift, the watch stops being a bet and becomes, again, what it always was: A way of relating to time.

And maybe that’s where its value actually begins.

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To know more

Knight Frank – The Wealth Report (Luxury Investment Index): Key reference for understanding watches as an asset within diversified portfolios.
Deloitte Swiss Watch Industry Study. Very useful for industry context, consumer behavior, and market evolution.
Morgan Stanley + LuxeConsult Reports (on the secondary watch market) Especially interesting for understanding Rolex, Patek, AP, and distribution dynamics.

If you are interested in watches as an asset

WatchCharts (Market Index & Reports): Database of real prices in the secondary market.
Subdial – The Watch Market Report: Very interesting because it cross-references data with user/investor behavior.
Chrono24 – Market Insights: Platform with aggregated data on liquidity, demand, and trends.

If you are interested in its cultural value

“The Value of Everything” – Mariana Mazzucato. Key for building the discourse on what value is.
“Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster” – Dana Thomas. Critical context on luxury as a system.
Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market Report. (PDF) To draw parallels with art as an asset.