Bob’s Watches, the largest e-commerce retailer of pre-owned Rolex and luxury watches compiled an in-depth report from sales data over the last decade and analyzed how Rolex values have performed in the secondary market over the period. What they found was staggering!  

While the company analyzed the performance of all Rolexes, there were two models in particular that stood out. The stainless-steel Submariner Ref. 16610 was easily the highest selling Rolex over the time period, while the Daytona is the model that has appreciated most, with an average pre-owned price of over $30,000.

It’s not a surprise to find out that Rolexes are in demand. After all, it’s the world’s best-known brand.  What is surprising, though, is how well the timepieces have performed when compared to other investments over the last decade. They evaluated the data with percentage increases for gold and real estate, based on inflation-adjusted values for gold from macrotrends.net and median sales price data for houses sold in the U.S. from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database. It turns out Rolex watches significantly outperformed both.

“We were surprised by how much the values have appreciated,” said Bob’s Watches founder and CEO Paul Altieri in an interview with Barron’s. “We were hoping to come up in the top three, so we were happy that it was number one.” They then evaluated the data with percentage increases for gold and real estate, based on inflation-adjusted values for gold from macrotrends.net and median sales price data for houses sold in the U.S. from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database. It turns out Rolex watches significantly outperformed both.