Pre-Owned Rolex Prices Soared 550% in 15 Years—Here’s What’s Behind the Surge

This story is from an installment of In the Loupe, our weekly insider newsletter about the best of the watch world. Sign up here. Anyone who’s ever bought or contemplated buying a secondhand Rolex watch, here’s some food for thought: If you had purchased a pre-owned Submariner or a GMT-Master II for $2,000 in 2010, it would be worth about $12,000 today. That’s one of the findings of a data-driven analysis of pre-owned Rolex sales published by the online dealer Bob’s Watches earlier this month on its 15th anniversary. The study found that, based on actual sales transactions, Rolex prices increased by over 550 percent, rising on average from approximately $2,000 in 2010 to $13,426 in 2025. “It’s pretty much a validation of all the talk that’s been circulating around the industry in the last two to five years,” Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of Bob’s Watches, tells Robb Report. “Rolex beat real estate, beat the stock market, all of it.” Among the study’s more eye-opening findings: The GMT-Master II led with 506 percent appreciation since 2010, reflecting demand for vintage “Pepsi” and modern “Batman” models. The Daytona appreciated 358 percent with a peak price of $53,911, the highest in the database. The Datejust was the most traded Rolex model; it showed steady growth and lower volatility with 639 percent total appreciation. The figures were so dramatic that even Altieri was caught off guard. “I would have guessed the Daytona, maybe the Submariner,” he says of which model he expected to lead the pack. “But the GMT and Datejust had the biggest gains overall. Just to see how much average retail prices climbed: 550 percent. Those are the key takeaways.” The analysis found that four distinct phases characterized the pre-owned market over the past 15 years. From 2010 to 2015, prices surged by 250 percent, establishing the foundation of the modern pre-owned market. Over the next five years, the market matured, and prices saw more moderate gains of 24 percent. Then came an unprecedented spike during the early pandemic years—between 2020 and 2022, prices rose another 93 percent, peaking at an average of $17,206. Since 2022, the market has declined by 31 percent, marking a correction followed by stabilization. “During the pandemic, watches across the board really accelerated,” Altieri says. “Prices almost doubled in a 1-2-year period. They’ve now stabilized from those peaks.” Interestingly, the Submariner proved the most resilient of Rolex’s models—prices fell just 8 percent below its 2022 peak of $18,889. Overall, the best-performing references, in terms of price appreciation, were the Submariner 116610 (+329 percent), the GMT-Master II 16710 (+302 percent), the Datejust 16013 (+205 percent), the Submariner 16613 (+203 percent), and the Submariner 16610 (+201 percent). The market has come a long way since Altieri bought Bob’s domain name from its original owner, Bob Thompson, an early internet entrepreneur who’d established the site as a seller of inexpensive American and Swiss watches from brands such as Elgin, Bulova, and Tissot. Before acquiring the site in spring 2010, Altieri had considered other categories. “Fashion, perfume, chocolate, jewelry, even bikinis,” he says. “But I kept coming back to watches. I felt like they offered a better opportunity.” At the time, the pre-owned watch market was “the wild, wild West,” Altieri says. “There was no trust, no honesty, no transparency, nobody knew about pricing. It took a long time to gain traction. We had to build that trust from day one.” On July 10, 2010, Altieri relaunched Bob’s Watches with a focus on Rolex, but kept the historic domain name for continuity. Transparency in pricing was a hallmark from day one. “When we first launched, a typical secondhand watch we sold was about 30 percent less than a new watch,” he says. “If a new Rolex was priced at $3,500, we’d be at $2,500. Today, Rolex resale values are more than what they would be if you could find the watches new. But it didn’t happen overnight. “There was all this talk over the last five to 10 years about what great investments watches have been—mostly Rolex—but now we can see the numbers behind them, we’ve got proof,” Altieri adds. “We don’t like to say, ‘Buy a watch as an investment.’ But I think people will look at this report and say, ‘Wow, these things did better than the stock market and I get to wear it and enjoy it.’” ## Implicazioni per i Collezionisti di Asset di Lusso Questo sviluppo del mercato evidenzia l'importanza crescente della **gestione digitale degli asset di lusso**. 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