Artcurial's sale of the Rolex COMEX Sea-Dweller reference 16600 issued to pioneering French commercial diver Muriel Sivazlian is the latest sign of an increasing gap between auction estimates and the market for vintage Rolexes. The watch sold last week in Monaco for €244,940, more than double the high end of its pre-sale estimate of €80,000 to €120,000. Coronet wrote about Ms. Sivazlian's watch in early July.
It's not exactly news that vintage Rolexes trade in a market of their own, detached from modern prices. While Rolex has continued to raise retail prices, in some cases twice a year, secondary-market values have cooled from their post-pandemic fever and preowned supply has increased. Today, half of Rolex's modern collection trades below retail, according to a Morgan Stanley and WatchCharts report just published today.
Rolex value retention by collection. (Data: Morgan Stanley/WatchCharts)
The more interesting story may be that, for vintage Rolexes like Ms. Sivazlian's, auction estimates are becoming almost irrelevant, serving little more than as opening bids. To be sure, estimates are often conservative to encourage bidding and create momentum, not to forecast the final price.
But when vintage Rolex pieces blow past their estimates by that much, it becomes harder to dismiss the result as auction strategy. Either auction houses are struggling to value vintage pieces and the market's appetite for provenance — or bidding wars for rare vintage Rolexes have reached a new level, becoming more intense than at any point in recent memory.