I have this one friend, let us call him John, who genuinely believed he had outsmarted the universe in 2022. And honestly, who could blame him? Those were the years when the market lost its collective mind. Stimulus cash was everywhere, crypto bros were discovering enlightenment via JPEGs, and half of Instagram had suddenly reinvented themselves as “serious collectors.”
If you lived through that era, you know exactly what I mean. Watches were not watches anymore! They were spreadsheets with bracelets.
Back then, Rolex was not viewed as a brand, it was treated like a low-volatility asset class with a crown. People did not talk about references, they talked about “positions.” Steel sports models were not purchases, they were “entries.”
Grey dealers were not resellers but they were “market makers.” And the biggest flex was not wearing a Submariner… it was saying you paid a premium for one.
So when John finally got his hands on a steel Rolex at peak 2022 pricing, he did not walk out of the boutique, he floated. He messaged me every two hours with victory laps. The man was glowing like anything!
“This is safer than stocks,” he kept saying.
“Worst case I wear it for two years and still make money.”
“These things only go up. Everybody knows that.”
He was not wearing a watch. He was wearing a thesis… a whole graduate dissertation on “Why I am a Financial Genius (Rolex Edition).”
Fast-forward to 2025, and that thesis has aged like milk in a heatwave. First came the U.S. decision to slap a 39% tariff on Swiss watches which is a move so dramatic it made collectors physically swallow their morning coffee.
Then gold decided to go full rocket mode, smashing record highs and turning every precious-metal watch into a weird hybrid of jewellery, bullion, and existential dread. And let us not forget about the quiet killer: the post-COVID watch bubble finally exhaled. Secondary prices drifted down. No hype rescue. No magical V-shaped comeback. Just the adult version of “it is what it is.”
One night, John sends me a message that simply said: “Bro, why is my Sub down?”
He pretended he was laughing, but I have known the man for years. I could practically hear the existential crisis through the text bubbles. Because I know what happened… he opened Chrono24. He checked WatchCharts. He compared listings. He subtracted fees, shipping, and marketplace cuts. And then, like every collector eventually must, he faced the cold truth that the watch world never advertises: the real math.
And the real math was not pretty. After all his victory laps, his “bulletproof investment” Rolex was… flat, if we are generous. Slightly down, if we are honest. Definitely not the savings account he swore it would be.
What happened to John is happening to every collector I know right now. For the first time in years, nobody is asking, “Which watch should I buy to make money?” They are asking a much more uncomfortable, grown-up question: “Is it still safe to park money in a watch?”
And that is exactly what this article is designed to answer… without hype, without wishful thinking, and without the Instagram finance logic that got everyone into this mess in the first place.
In this article, we are going to break down:
- What tariffs actually do to watch prices
- How record-breaking gold reshapes both retail and pre-owned markets
- Why the luxury watch bubble popped and never bounced back
- What you should buy in 2025
- What you should absolutely avoid
- And finally, whether watches still deserve any slice of your money in a world that suddenly feels very different from 2022
By the end of this, I want you to be able to look at any watch, be it Rolex, AP, Cartier, Omega, Grand Seiko, microbrand, or anything and say with full clarity: “I’m not buying the fantasy. I’m buying the watch.”
The Three Shocks of 2025
2025 was not the year the watch market “collapsed.” It was the year the universe basically looked at watch people and said, “Alright. Enough nonsense.”
Instead of one big crash, we got three separate shocks, one after the other. If you understand these three, you pretty much understand why the whole “watches only go up” story does not work anymore.
1. The 39% U.S. Tariff on Swiss Watches
This is the one that made everyone sit up. Back in August 2025, the U.S. dropped a 39% tariff on Swiss imports that includes watches. Rolex, Patek, AP, Omega… all of them. And since the U.S. is still the biggest buyer of Swiss luxury watches, this was not some niche policy thing. It was a direct hit to the main stage.
Brands freaked out. ADs started calling their reps to understand whether they are increasing prices or cutting allocations or what do they even tell customers now? Grey dealers opened Chrono24, opened Excel, and probably opened a drink.
There are already talks about bringing that 39% down to something closer to 15%, but nothing is confirmed. And honestly, just the possibility of 39% changed behaviour immediately.
What this looks like for normal buyers:
- New Swiss watches in the U.S. suddenly became awkward to price. Too low and brands eat the tariff. Too high and people just walk away.
- Grey market pricing turned into a mess. More people trying to buy overseas, more risk, more random premiums and discounts.
- Non-Swiss brands and microbrands quietly got way more attractive, because they just did not get hit.
This is not some abstract policy footnote. It is actually a direct punch to the biggest luxury watch market in the world and everyone in the ecosystem is still trying to figure out what “normal” looks like after that.
2. Gold Took Off
Gold did not just “go up.” It basically lost its mind. Between early 2024 and mid-2025, gold went from around $2,000 an ounce to over $3,000. That is a 50-60% jump in a pretty short time. That is the kind of move that makes macro people write long threads on LinkedIn and makes gold-watch owners slightly sick.
Why that matters if you like watches:
Gold watches were already expensive because of branding and flex value. The raw material was part of the story, but not most of it.
Now you have got two layers hitting at once:
- The gold inside the watch is way more expensive
- The brand premium on top of that is not going anywhere
Even if brands have not updated retail prices yet, their replacement cost has changed. So if your dream watch is a gold Day-Date or a full-gold Royal Oak, the cost structure behind that piece just moved in a way that does not magically undo itself when the hype calms down.
So gold watches did not just get “a bit more pricey.” They became expensive in a more permanent, structural way.
3. The Post-COVID Watch Bubble Finally Deflated
Now, this is the slow one. The peak was around March 2022. Everyone was paying stupid money for everything. Steel sports models were trading like meme stocks. People were convinced Rolex was a safer bet than an index fund.
Then over the next two years, prices dropped by about 16% from that peak, and by 2024 things had more or less stabilised. Still higher than 2020, but that line only goes up fantasy is gone!
By 2025, most of the indexes are either flat or gently trending down. No big bounce. No magical recovery where every flipper becomes a genius again.
What this feels like day-to-day:
- Waitlists are shorter. You can actually walk into some ADs and have a normal conversation.
- The loudest hype guys have gone quiet or moved on to the next asset class.
- Dealers are more realistic. They will negotiate on a lot of pieces now especially anything that is not a mega-grail.
- But the super-hyped stuff (Daytona, Nautilus, Royal Oak, a few hot Cartiers) still clings to weird premiums, because demand dies slower than logic.
The crazy, adrenaline-filled 2021 energy is gone. What we have now is a calmer, more grown-up market where you actually have to like the watch, not just the price chart.
2020-2025 Watch Market Timeline
If you have ever wondered why, even for a second, everyone suddenly acted like buying a Rolex was smarter than buying an ETF, here is the full story. The watch market did not just cool down. It went through five years of chaos, euphoria, delusion, correction, and eventually… reality. It is the perfect rise-and-fall arc of one of the funniest financial bubbles of our generation.
This timeline is basically the origin story of the “watches only go up” myth and why 2025 finally killed it.
1. 2020–2021: Lockdowns, Stimulus, and the Hype Era
Honestly, it all started pretty innocently. When the world shut down in 2020, people were stuck at home with: nothing to do, nowhere to go, no holidays, no restaurants, no daily expenses, and way too much time to scroll Instagram.
Add stimulus money pouring in like a broken faucet, and suddenly watches became the new fun investment for people who had never considered them serious investments before. It all happened insanely fast:
- Waitlists turned into memes. Everyone was putting their names down for Rolex, AP, Patek, knowing full well they will probably never get a call.
- Flippers were printing cash. Buy a Submariner at retail and sell it the next morning to pocket $3k. It looked like free money because… it basically was.
- Grey dealers became celebrities. Private WhatsApp groups. Secret inventory. Voice notes like “bro, I can get you something crazy.”
- Instagram turned watches into personality traits. The big three steel sports watches like the Submariner, Nautilus, Royal Oak became the holy trinity of online identity.
Somewhere along the way, the idea formed: “Rolex always goes up. AP always goes up. Patek always goes up.”
2. 2022–2023: Peak Mania and the First Fall
Spring 2022 was the top. And that was actually the precise moment this whole bubble peaked. Secondary prices, hype indexes, waitlist premiums… everything hit its ceiling.
Then the slide began. You could feel it before you could see it. Collectors whispered about “slower sales.” Dealers held more stock than usual. People buying hype pieces at insane premiums suddenly stopped posting wrist shots. Then the data came in:
- Secondary prices started sliding after March 2022.
- The craziest references including Daytona, Royal Oak, Nautilus, Aquanaut softened first.
- The “easy double-your-money” era quietly ended.
But it is worth noting that the brands kept raising retail prices anyway. Omega, Cartier, Rolex, Patek raised their prices. It was the first sign that brands and buyers were living in two totally different realities.
Meanwhile, stories started circulating of people who bought at peak and instantly lost thousands. There was a quiet panic and loud denial. Instagram still pretended everything was fine.
3. 2024: The Bottom Forms
2024 was the year the market accepted the truth without the crash and explosion. Just a slow, steady flattening. Most analysts agreed:
- The correction had mostly bottomed out.
- Prices across the board stabilised. They are not rising, but not falling dramatically either.
- The hype era was officially over.
But something healthier happened that year. The pre-owned market grew up.
- Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) programmes expanded.
- Brands introduced authentication centres.
- Marketplaces like Watchfinder and Chrono24 doubled down on buyer protection and transparency.
Buying pre-owned suddenly felt less like the Wild West and more like a proper shopping experience. It went from “DM me bro” to “We offer a 24-month warranty and verified servicing.”
The industry matured and honestly, it needed to.
4. 2025: Tariffs + Gold + The “New Normal”
Then 2025 showed up with a plot twist. The year kicked off with two massive hits landing almost at the same time, and both of them shook the watch world in a way nobody was prepared for. As mentioned earlier, the first one is, the U.S’. 39% tariff on Swiss watches. Basically, the move that instantly rattled every brand, dealer, collector, and grey-market hustler.
At almost the same time, gold decided to go on its own little joyride and skyrocketed to record highs. Suddenly every gold Day-Date, gold Royal Oak, and two-tone anything went from “expensive flex” to “you sure you want to do this?” territory.
Even if prices on the shelf did not update immediately, everyone could feel the pressure. When the raw material becomes that costly, you know the retail hikes are coming sooner or later.
On top of that, the global luxury mood shifted. China’s luxury spending cooled noticeably, Europe slowed down, and the U.S. consumer started thinking twice before dropping money on big-ticket items. None of this was dramatic or catastrophic. It was just the market quietly exhaling after years of running at full speed.
But the combined effect was enough to kill the biggest myth in modern watch collecting: the idea that a Rolex is somehow safer than an index fund. That story is gone. Buried with honours.
And the funny part is, watches did not crash. They did not tank. Brands did not collapse. Nothing extreme happened. The market simply recalibrated to something sane. For the first time in years, the watch world was not booming or crashing. It was just… normal. And it feels weirdly refreshing. A watch is finally a watch again, not a financial instrument with a crown logo.
Which brings us to the real question every collector from first-timers to seasoned nerds is quietly asking themselves right now: “Okay, so what now if I am buying in 2025?”
That is exactly what we are going to discuss next.
Tariffs for Watch People: What 39% Actually Means
Alright, let us first talk about the tariff. On paper, the 39% U.S. tariff on Swiss watches sounds like a political headline you would scroll past on X. But for watch buyers this is one of the biggest real-world shocks the hobby has seen in years.
You do not need an economics degree, a Bloomberg terminal, or a LinkedIn Premium subscription to understand it. What you do need to know is the moment that tariff landed, every Swiss brand, every AD, every grey dealer, and every collector with a safe full of Submariners suddenly had to rewrite their mental math.
1. Who Actually Pays This?
Technically, the tariff gets charged at the import level. It is long before a watch ever lands in the nice velvet tray you see at the boutique. But that cost does not magically evaporate into the Geneva air. It flows downstream like everything else in luxury retail.
Brands feel it first, then ADs, and then you… the poor soul trying to justify another stainless-steel sports watch while telling your partner, “It’s an investment, okay?”
And the reality is someone has to pay that 39%, and it is not going to be the brands. They are not eating their margins, at least not in this economy, not with gold prices flying, and definitely not with shareholders breathing down their necks.
So what happens? Prices rise. Discounts vanish. Some models quietly stop coming to the U.S. altogether. Imagine a $10,000 watch before it even touches a display counter. Now add $3,900 before retail markup, before sales tax, before all the fancy marketing gloss. Brands have only a few options left now. Either raise retail prices, send fewer models to the U.S. or pretend nothing is happening and pray the accountants do not revolt.
2. What Happens to New Swiss Watches in the U.S.?
This tariff has basically turned the U.S. into the most expensive playground for Swiss watches. Brands are already quietly shifting stock to friendlier markets like Europe, the Middle East, Singapore, anywhere they can sell without taking a margin punch.
And for the stock that does hit American shores? Expect some spicy pricing. Retail hikes will not always be loud or public, sometimes it will be a “regional adjustment,” a “special pricing structure,” or my personal favourite, the classic “inflationary realignment.”
Authorised dealers are getting squeezed too. They are losing discount flexibility, losing margin, and losing access to the most desirable pieces. Even the dealers who used to slide you a quiet five percent break “just for being a good customer” no longer have that wiggle room.
If U.S. Authorised Dealers are struggling to get enough Rolex or AP stock before, imagine what life looks like now. New Swiss watches in America are about to become a sport for the committed not the curious browser strolling in on a Saturday.
3. What about Grey Market and Travel Buys?
And of course, when you make watches stupidly expensive in one region, watch buyers get creative. Americans have always been some of the most dedicated loophole-hunters in the hobby and this tariff practically invites them to start looking for workarounds.
Some collectors will start flying to Europe, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and anywhere they can secure a better price. Sometimes the flight plus hotel plus watch is still cheaper than buying it locally. But there is a catch here too! If you declare the watch on the way back, U.S. duties still apply.
Others will simply pivot harder into pre-owned. A Rolex already sitting in a New York dealer’s safe does not get hit with a new 39% tariff. No new import, no new tax. That alone gives U.S.-based secondary dealers a massive edge.
And then there is the final twist of Americans discovering the joys of non-Swiss brands for the first time. Suddenly Grand Seiko looks like world-class value. Microbrands start looking far smarter than they did during the hype era. This tariff is basically a forced taste-expansion programme.
Gold’s $3,000 Moment: What It Does to Watch Prices
When gold shoots past $3,000 an ounce, you can almost hear the collective groan echoing through the entire Swiss watch industry with a mix of panic and resignation. This was not just another financial headline or something your economics professor would get excited about. This was a real, structural shock that instantly changed the way luxury watches are priced, perceived, and sold.
And unlike hype cycles that rise and fall depending on which influencer shouted the loudest that week, gold does not care about vibes, trends, or the latest must-buy reference. Gold dictates the maths, and the maths does not negotiate.
Most watch people already know that the raw material itself is not what gives a Day-Date its price tag. A Rolex does not hit £30k because of the gold alone… it hits £30k because it is a Rolex made of gold, with all the heritage, marketing, and brand ego baked in.
But even if the material portion is only a slice of the cost, a 40%–60% jump in gold prices hits manufacturers directly. Cases, bracelets, fluted bezels, clasps anything with serious metal weight suddenly costs more to produce. And when production costs rise sharply, brands do what brands always do. They pass it down to you with a smile and a small price card change.
That is why, even before official MSRP increases rolled out, you could feel the tension building. Collectors were whispering. ADs were hinting. Grey dealers were pricing things like they knew something was about to break.
Because everyone understood the same truth. If the metal becomes more expensive to acquire, the watch sitting on your wrist (or on the boutique shelf) is becoming more expensive to replace. And brands will always price watches for future cost, not past cost.
Smaller maisons making precious-metal dress watches also take a hit. Their pieces rely more on finishing and heritage than hype, which is normally a selling point… but in a softened luxury environment with rising material costs, they become harder to justify for buyers who are now analysing value more carefully than ever.
Rising gold + slower luxury demand = a rough equation for anything thin, elegant, and made of shiny metal.
But interestingly, this whole gold surge creates winners too. Steel icons like Daytona, Royal Oak, Nautilus, Santos suddenly feel like “value buys” simply by comparison. When the gold versions are priced into the clouds, the steel ones feel surprisingly grounded.
And then there is titanium and ceramic, which have become the quiet stars of 2025. They offer high-end finishing, modern aesthetics, and zero exposure to gold volatility. Brands like Omega, Tudor, IWC, Cartier, and AP have seen collectors rediscover their titanium models not as budget picks, but as smart, future-proof alternatives that sidestep the bullion rollercoaster entirely.
If you picture the whole thing visually, it is like a staircase shifting upward with full-gold gets yanked into the stratosphere, two-tone is stuck somewhere awkward in the middle, and steel holds steady like the sensible middle child.
Gold’s surge did not just raise prices it reshuffled the hierarchy. And in a surprising twist, it made steel the calmest, most rational place to be in a market that is otherwise flying all over the place.
Is This a Buyer’s Market or Still a Flex Market?
2025 did not give anyone a neat headline. Instead, it handed us a watch market with a full-blown identity crisis. Half of it looks like a buyers paradise… the other half still behaves like a nightclub queue where only hype models and people with deep pockets get in. Which side you feel depends entirely on what you are shopping for.
On the sensible side of the spectrum, the boring but brilliant watches are finally priced like the universe has remembered gravity. Cartier Tanks, JLC Reversos, Omega Speedmasters, and Grand Seiko pieces with dials that look like someone carved frost under a microscope, all of them quietly benefited from the post-2022 correction.
These watches were dragged up by the bubble, overheated, then floated right back down to stable, healthy levels. Walk into a dealer today and the energy is completely different. You can have a conversation, negotiate like an adult, and walk out with something genuinely beautiful without feeling like you have just participated in a speculative blood sport.
But running parallel to that is the market’s stubborn, shimmering, high-gloss alter ego… the flex segment. This is the universe where logic still goes on holiday. Daytona, Nautilus, Royal Oak, Cartier Crash, Santos Skeleton, Royal Oak Concept, all the indie darlings that make forty pieces a year… these have not crashed, corrected, or even blinked.
They continue living by their own rules, priced not by materials or movements but by desire, scarcity, and social gravity. Even in a slower luxury cycle, these watches cling to their premiums because the demand tap never fully closes, it just drips slower.
Dealers, at least, have evolved. The wild days of 2021 when people were bulk-buying steel Rolexes like wholesale onions, are long gone. The dealer landscape in 2025 is far more measured, paperwork-heavy, and focused on legitimacy.
CPO, authentication, warranties, transparent return policies… this is not “nice to have” anymore. It is the baseline survival kit. Negotiations have become reasonable again unless you are chasing a grail, in which case the old rules remain… you are paying for hype, narrative, and bragging rights, not value per gram.
Lurking underneath everything is the myth that finally died this year. The belief that luxury watches are “safe parking spots for your money.” They are not, and they never were. A watch is a luxury purchase with some resale characteristics, not a savings plan with a clasp.
The fantasy that you can wear something for five years and sell it for what you paid only works on a tiny handful of models, bought at sane prices, in sane times. The bubble tricked people into thinking this was universal. 2025 cleaned up the illusion.
The grown-up truth is refreshingly simple… buy the watch you would still want even if it never went up in value. If it holds steady, great. If it dips, you still own something that makes your wrist, and maybe even your day better. 2025 did not kill the watch market. It just killed the shortcuts.
New vs Pre-Owned in 2025: Who Actually Wins?
Before you drop a single pound, dollar, dirham or paisa on a watch this year, you need to understand one thing. 2025 is the first time in ages where buying new and buying pre-owned feel like two completely different hobbies.
Not because one has become right and the other wrong. But because tariffs, gold prices, post-bubble corrections, and a far more professional pre-owned ecosystem have completely reshaped the incentives.
If you are planning a purchase this year, this section will save you money, regret, and at least one uncomfortable stare at your bank app.
Let us break it down properly:
1. Buying New in 2025: Pros & Cons
Buying new still has its place and honestly, in the right conditions, it feels unbeatable. When you buy new, you are getting clean paperwork, a pristine service history, untouched cases, untouched movements, and the kind of peace of mind that Rolex, Omega, Cartier, and JLC intentionally build into the retail experience.
For a lot of people, that is worth every extra penny. And it is not just the watch, it is the AD relationship. Post-hype, most ADs are suddenly more human again. Waitlists are shorter, allocations are smoother, and dealers in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East are actually building relationships instead of treating customers like applicants for a secret society.
And then there is the boutique moment. With the champagne, the velvet tray, and the first unsizing. And let us not forget the box you refuse to throw away even though it is taking up half your wardrobe. Pre-owned simply cannot replicate that emotional high and for many first-time luxury buyers, that is half the joy.
But… the financials in 2025 is where things get rough.
If you are in the U.S, new Swiss watches are suddenly a minefield. A 39% tariff nukes the clean logic of retail price, forcing brands to either raise MSRPs or redirect stock elsewhere. Even outside America, MSRPs continue to creep upward… not because the watches are better, but because price hikes have become part of the business model.
Unless you are buying the usual trends like the Daytona, Nautilus, Royal Oak, or the random Cartier shapes Instagram has decided to worship… the majority of references drop 10–30% as soon as they become “pre-owned.” That is just reality now.
Buying Pre-Owned in 2025
Now here is the plot twist: Pre-owned is where the real value is in 2025.
The bubble popped, the hype died, the price charts stabilised, and the market corrected itself by roughly 16% from peak insanity. What’s left behind is a calmer, saner landscape where you can buy watches at actual market value instead of meme-stock premiums.
And because so many people bought watches during the hype and barely wore them, the pre-owned space is overflowing with full set, low-mileage, beautifully kept watches that look like they have touched fewer wrists than a boutique demo unit.
Choice is another massive win. ADs can show you eight watches. Pre-owned platforms can show you eight hundred. And if you are in the U.S, pre-owned becomes even sweeter because any watch already sitting in a local dealer’s safe completely avoids the tariff drama. That is a huge structural advantage.
But pre-owned is not perfect.
Anchoring bias is a silent killer. If you are still mentally living in 2022, you have absolutely overpay. The market has moved on. You need to move with it. And, of course, you need to know what you are buying. Over-polished cases, sketchy service histories, aftermarket parts, or damaged movements still show up in the wild. You cannot slack on due diligence just because the listing has nice photos.
Are Watches Still an Investment?
This is the part nobody on Instagram wants to talk about… but every buyer in 2025 needs to hear.
- A watch can hold value.
- A watch can appreciate.
- A watch can even make you money by accident.
But none of that makes it an investment. Not in the way people think. Not in the way YouTube thumbnails promised. Let us strip away the hype and talk about watches the way your accountant would… tired, honest, and holding a calculator he did not want to pick up in the first place.
In my opinion, there are only three financial ways people actually use watches. Once you remove the ego and the Instagram filters, every watch purchase sits in one of three buckets.
Not five. Not seven. Just three.
1. Store of Value (Capital Preservation)
This is the category for people who are not trying to make money… they are just trying not to lose too much of it. Buying a steel Rolex, a sensible Cartier, an Omega, or a well-chosen Grand Seiko is not investing, it is basically parking your cash in something that will not evaporate overnight.
You are not chasing profit here. You are just buying something that will hold steady enough that, if you ever sell it, the damage to your wallet is minimal.
2. Speculation (Flipping / Timing the Market)
This is the “buy now, sell in 6–18 months at a premium” game. It worked in 2020–2022 because the world had lost the plot. As mentioned earlier: Stimulus money. Lockdowns. No travel. TikTok hype. Everything went up including watches.
But in 2025? Trying to “flip” a watch is basically speedrunning disappointment. Unless you are buying rare grails with real global demand, you are not speculating… you are gambling.
3. Lifestyle Purchase With Optional Resale
This is the grown-up lane where 90% of serious collectors are now. You buy the watch because you love it. You wear it. You enjoy it.
And if you ever sell it, whatever you lose was basically the rental fee for years of pleasure. People who buy in this category sleep beautifully at night.
And if you need it summarised into one sentence, the one line every collector in 2025 should print out and tape to their mirror is: “The only safe watch investment in 2025 is buying something you are happy to wear while it proves you wrong.”
That is the mindset that separates collectors from speculators, joy from delusion, and long-term satisfaction from short-term heartbreak.
The End of Easy Money & the Start of Better Collecting
2025 taught the watch world that the era of easy money is well and truly finished. The tariffs rattled the U.S. scene and gold flipped the pricing logic on its head. But I don’t feel this is doom. This is detox.
With the hype washed out, the flippers gone quiet, and the Instagram echo losing its grip, the hobby feels a lot lighter and healthier. Steel sports models are no longer meme stocks. People are not panic-buying watches they secretly do not even like.
And the market has finally stepped out of that fever dream where everything with a crown, a trident, or an octagonal bezel was treated like a retirement plan.
What we are left with now is an era where taste actually wins again. Where people buy watches because they love them, not because a chart told them to. The conversations in 2025 feel calmer, more grounded, more interesting. You hear collectors talk about dials, finishing, movements, history… not resale deltas and “what’s the premium right now?”
And that is why, weirdly, this is one of the best years to be a collector. Not because prices have crashed… they have not. Not because bargains are falling from the sky, they are not. But because the noise is gone. The pressure is gone. The delusion is gone.
You can finally explore the brands and references that were overshadowed during the hype era like the discontinued gems, the quirky cases, the overlooked Cartiers, the forgotten Seikos, the independents that did not have marketing armies behind them.
2025 gives you space.
- Space to buy thoughtfully.
- Space to buy slowly.
- Space to build a collection you never need to justify to anyone.
So here is the truth I will leave you with, the one-line summary of the entire year. 2025 did not kill watches as an asset. It just killed the fantasy that you could outsource taste to a price chart. And honestly that might be the best thing that is happened to this hobby in years.