I sold a watch, and I feel dirty

Tom Austin

I should preface this by saying that I rarely sell watches. I’m not a churn-and-burn collector who treats their watch box like a rolling stock. When something comes in, it’s usually the result of long deliberation, and more often than not, it stays. Alas, situations evolve, interests shift, and sometimes, a particular watch in your collection takes the spotlight a little too much, resulting in some pieces losing their significance.

So, when I decided to finally part ways with my Rolex Submariner Date, and soon after, my Rolex GMT-Master II, it wasn’t because I’d fallen out of love with them; it was simply the fact that they deserved more wear than I was giving them. On paper, the outcomes are hard to criticise. The Submariner sold for exactly what I paid for it in 2023, effectively costing me nothing for two-and-a-bit years of enjoyment. The GMT-Master II moved on for roughly 2k more than I’d spent, so by modern Rolex standards, that’s pretty textbook.

And yet, the process of getting there has left me feeling uneasy. Not because of the decision to let something go, or the financial aspect, but because the moment that you decide to sell, something fundamental shifts. The object that once felt personal and expressive is reduced to something much more transactional and measurable.

In today’s secondary market, if you’re not the cheapest credible example available, you’re not “well-positioned”; you’re completely invisible. Contrary to the scarcity narrative projected at the retail level, these watches are not rare in this context. Right now, the market is saturated with them, and that means that romance doesn’t stand much of a chance against price.

The market doesn’t care about your narrative

When you first buy a watch, narrative is everything. The story it tells you, the reference matters, the year matters, and the subtle dial variations matter. You remember where you were when you first saw it and the day you picked it up, that conversation you had with the first person who noticed, how it felt when you looked down at it on your wrist. If you’re reading this, you know exactly what I mean. The market strips that away instantly.

Once listed, your watch isn’t your watch anymore. It’s now become “2023 example, full set, excellent condition”, sitting alongside twenty-seven others that look identical in low-res thumbnail form. Buyers sort by price, not sentiment, and the market is ruthlessly efficient with it.

A few years ago, selling to a dealer was straightforward. Following assessing the watch, you would agree on an offer, often in person, and they would transfer the funds to you, deal done. From that point onwards, they would carry the risk as a business, and the spread was understood; you paid the price for certainty in the deal. These days, several dealers no longer buy outright as they once did. Instead, the default position is consignment. With this model, the watch remains yours; they list it and field enquiries, and take a percentage once it sells.

On paper, it’s sensible because it protects cash flow and limits exposure in a challenging business environment. But for someone like me, the lack of control over the situation is problematic, and once I decide to sell, I don’t want the process to drag on for weeks or months.

The efficiency of indifference

Thankfully, for control freaks like me, there are platforms out there that let you take full control of the sale, and, for the most part, using them is relatively smooth and pain-free. However, in this instance, you are no longer sitting across from a dealer in a softly lit showroom, discussing condition and provenance over good coffee. You’re now in an open arena, exposed to the full spectrum of participants whose vocabulary can’t seem to extend past the words “Best price?”

The battleground of eBay doesn’t usually end in bloodshed, but it’s fraught with the emotional whiplash of polite messages dissolving into ghosting, alongside offers so low you’ll think you’ve accidentally uploaded photographs of your toothbrush. The platform itself isn’t toxic; it’s just transparent, and you have to quickly realise that your listing on there is now purely inventory, and if it’s not priced correctly, you will find out very quickly.

The secondary market, particularly for modern Rolex sports models, is mature and heavily supplied; there is certainly no shortage of references for sale. This forces you to confront a simple truth: “worth” is not what you believe your watch represents. It’s what someone is willing to wire to you today, in a market where the same thing is available at nothing but a click. The uncomfortable part of this is the indifference you face, because in reality, you’re not selling the watch to someone who knows nothing about it and wants to know the subtle nuances that make a left-handed GMT-Master II special.

From collector to seller

This reality check brings you, as a collector, crashing down to earth because you’re no longer looking at the watch on your wrist for what it is; you’re looking at it for what it represents on a screen. In the beginning, there’s a defensiveness to it; your collector mindset leads you down a path of believing it will sell easily for whatever price you believe it’s worth.

But when things go quiet, and you find yourself checking competing listings daily, that confidence starts to erode. You notice who has undercut you by £100. You see similar examples disappear and wonder at what price they actually traded. Eventually, you decide to adjust your price slightly to remain competitive, and that first reduction is the moment everything crystallises.

Up until then, you’re a collector who happens to be selling a watch. After that, you become a seller competing for attention. For me, the turning point was realising that protecting the sentiment around the watches themselves is fruitless. Instead, I had to transition into protecting the number, and that’s what makes it feel dirty. Not because the market is ugly or inherently unfair, but the fact that I had to become part of it makes you question whether the whimsical thoughts and feelings you had at the very beginning were ever real at all. It’s a sobering realisation.

The hangover

The truth is, in 2026, the market looks very different from what it did a few years ago. Dealers are no longer scrambling for stock, and it is firmly more of a buyer’s market than a seller’s one. Prices have corrected significantly since the post-pandemic surge, and as retail availability has improved, secondary market demand has softened in some areas.

That is not to say that demand for Rolex specifically has evaporated, because it hasn’t; you still can’t just walk into an Authorised Dealer and leave with a Pepsi on your wrist. But the urgency has faded, and that shift has materially changed how the secondary market behaves.

The speculative tone that once surrounded modern steel sports models has softened, too. It was once common to hear watches described, sometimes casually and often confidently, as “investments”. That feels a lot less prevalent now, and that’s probably healthy. Yes, one can argue that certain references remain relatively resilient stores of value over time, but resilience isn’t the same as guaranteed profit, and liquidity doesn’t equal upside.

Similar to the property market, appreciation tends to be gradual rather than explosive, barring extreme anomalies. The era of routinely buying a modern GMT Master II and exiting at multiples of retail feels distant, and I sincerely doubt we’ll see six-digit reference ceramic Submariners on Antiques Roadshow reaching six-digit valuations in decades to come.

Closing thoughts

What I’ve realised since is that the discomfort didn’t come from the market itself; it came from the realisation that you have to adapt to it. The moment the listing went live, my attention shifted, and the different behaviour began. Refreshing pages, questioning the lack of responses in brief exchanges, and so on. I had to detach from the watch I was still genuinely fond of, and that coloured the entire experience. It exposed how thin the line is between appreciation and valuation, and in that moment, valuation reigns and appreciation recedes to an afterthought.

They’ve moved on now, and it feels fine. I got my enjoyment out of those pieces, and nothing about that changes because of how the exit felt. Also, it won’t cloud any feelings I have for anything else in my collection, either, because sometimes, streamlining things is good. But the next time I find myself justifying a purchase with thoughts of liquidity or resilience, I’ll recognise it for what it is: a way of making the numbers feel romantic. But I will remember that sooner or later, the numbers and romance may collide, and when they do, only one of them is negotiable.