The market of PP and AP secondary watches continued to decline. The Golden Eagle 5711 and Royal Oak Jumbo fell by 15%.

PATEK PHILIPPE’s Nautilus Golden Eagle 5711/1A and AUDEMARS PIGUET’s Royal Oak Jumbo 15202, two high-end sports watches that have been discontinued in the past two years, are the two hottest hits in the watch market over the past year. Together, they have pushed the market for sports watches to an unprecedented level. A few years ago, it was hard to imagine that a three-hand sports watch with a steel case could sell for more than one million Hong Kong dollars and still be in short supply; but such a grand occasion seems to have encountered a bottleneck recently. After we reported in mid-April 2022 that the average price of these two watches in the secondary market fell by more than 7%, half a month later, we didn’t expect that the market prices of the Golden Eagle 5711/1A and the Royal Oak Jumbo 15202 continued to fall. At present, their decline has slipped to about 10 to 15%.

CHRONEXT, a well-known high-end watch e-commerce platform, recently confirmed that the 5711/1A and 15202 seem to have hit the price ceiling and are gradually adjusted downwards. However, according to the observation of CHRONEXT CEO Philipp Man, he believes that the current situation may only be a short-term change in two cases, which is not enough to represent that the overall market enthusiasm for sports watches of other high-end brands is cooling down.

Philipp Man pointed out that although the top stainless steel sports watches such as the Golden Eagle and Royal Oak have begun to see some small price drops, the high-end watch market is now in a very hot period, so it seems too early to say that they will not rise again after the price drop. The reason for this speculation is not purely due to confidence in the two major brands, because other popular steel case sports watches with relatively friendly entry barriers (such as those market darlings under Rolex) are still growing steadily in the secondary market. Therefore, it does not seem to be the beginning of the bubble of steel case sports watches.

Further reference to the data of Chrono24, a well-known online second-hand watch trading platform, can also reveal some clues… From the price trend chart of the Golden Eagle 5711/1A and the Royal Oak Jumbo 15202 in the past 8 years, it is not difficult to find that since the news of the discontinuation of the two watches in 2021, their market prices have exploded. Chrono24 refers to the previous price peaks of the two watches and the latest market quotations, and estimates that the current market value of the Golden Eagle 5711/1A is about 155,442 pounds, which is about 16% lower than the peak level of about 185,000 pounds in 2022. However, a small drop of 16% does not have much impact, because the amount of 155,442 pounds is still about 6 times higher than the watch’s price.

As for the Royal Oak Jumbo 15202, the situation is similar. Its current estimated market value is still 118,830 pounds, which is more than 9% lower than the peak of 130,000 pounds in March 2022. However, 118,830 pounds is more than 4 times higher than the price of the watch.

From the above price trend, we can see that although the market of the two super popular sports watches has dropped slightly, their popularity is still at a peak overall. Considering that the shortage of supply will only become more and more obvious after the two watches are discontinued, it seems a bit too much to say that the market’s enthusiasm for them has greatly faded. Mr. Philipp Man pointed out that the problem of insufficient brand supply will not be significantly improved in the short term, but the market demand is increasing. This will also cause some popular sports watches to maintain this high premium rate for a while. Even if there will be some ups and downs in the middle, overall we have to expect the market prices of these watches to drop back to the pricing or even below the pricing. There is no sign of such development at present. At most, it can only be said that the two peerless duo, Golden Eagle 5711/1A and Royal Oak Jumbo 15202, were extremely popular before, which led to some normal adjustments in the market.