“The market hasn't returned to 2021 highs. It's also not still falling. What it is doing is sorting — and the references that come out of the sort look different.”
— WindItUp Desk
We sell watches for a living. The first thing we'll tell you about the market is that it doesn't behave like the dashboards say it does. The aggregate WatchCharts index is a useful summary of the average watch, but the average watch is not the watch you actually want to own. The interesting movements happen at the reference level, and the reference-level data tells a more nuanced story than the headline number.
Here's what's happening reference by reference, as of the last month at our desk. We've supplemented our own data with auction results from Phillips, Christie's and Sotheby's spring 2026 sales, and trade-floor conversations from Inhorgenta in February.
Rolex — steady, with one breakout
The Daytona 126500LN white panda is the single most consistently demanded modern Rolex of the last 18 months. It's been trading between £19k and £24k since launch and has not had a soft month. Our rolex-daytona-126500ln-white moves within a fortnight, every time. The black-on-steel configuration sits about 10% lower; it remains the value play in the Daytona line.
The surprise is the Submariner 124060 no-date — see The Rolex Submariner 126610LN: Why the Date and the No-Date Are Two Different Watches. We sold three at retail in 2023; we now can't keep them under £10k. The connoisseur premium has become a market premium, and there are now more dealers chasing 124060s than the supply can satisfy. We expect the gap to the 126610LN to widen further over 2026.
The GMT-Master II Pepsi-Jubilee is the Rolex worth watching. After eighteen months of softening, it stabilised at £14k–£15k in Q4 2025 and has ticked up modestly since. Our rolex-gmt-master-ii-126710blro in mint condition is the best example we've stocked in six months.
Patek Philippe — bifurcated
Nautilus 5711 in steel: flat since mid-2025 at roughly 5× retail. We've stopped pretending there's volatility — there isn't. There's a price, and it's the price. Our patek-philippe-nautilus-5711-1a-014 in olive green moves on enquiry, never on listing.
Aquanaut 5167: trading at 2–2.5× retail, depending on configuration. The black dial is the volume reference; the white dial trades at a 15% premium because Patek made fewer of them. Our patek-philippe-aquanaut-5167a-001 in mint paper has been on our desk for six weeks — slightly long for an Aquanaut, which suggests the market has started discriminating on configuration.
Calatrava in precious metal: at or near retail. The market has finally accepted that a Calatrava is not a flip — and as a result, the references are starting to be bought by the people who actually want to wear them. The 6119R-001 in rose gold (our patek-philippe-calatrava-6119r-001) is now genuinely available at retail at most independent dealers, which has not been true for any in-production Patek for the better part of a decade.
Cartier — the only category up year-on-year
Steel Cartier — the Santos large in particular (cartier-santos-large-wssa0018) — is the only sub-category in our book that has appreciated month-on-month for the last twelve months. The Tank Must in steel, the Pasha 41, the Santos large: all up 8–14% YoY. The reason is simply that Cartier started making good steel watches again in 2018–2020 and the rest of the industry hadn't noticed until 2024.
The Tank Louis in gold (cartier-tank-louis-cartier-large) is a separate story. Demand has been steady but volume is the limit — Cartier makes very few of these, and ADs are now turning down trade-in offers because they can sell every piece they receive at retail. Trade pricing on the Tank Louis WGTA0011 is now actually higher than retail, which is the rare situation where it's cheaper to buy the watch from a Cartier boutique than from another dealer.
The Crash editions are the breakout. The 2023 London Edition (our cartier-crash-london-edition) has appreciated 30% since launch. The 2018 Crash Radieuse has appreciated 50% over 18 months. Original London Crash auction results have been strong but variable; the Cartier Crash story has become one of the cleaner appreciation thesis in the modern market. Our The Cartier Crash: Story Behind the Watch That Refuses To Make Sense piece covers the history.
Richard Mille — stratified
There is a tier of RM — RM 011 base configurations, RM 030, RM 35-03 — that is now trading below retail at auction. There is another tier — RM 88 (see our Richard Mille RM 88 "Smiley": The First Watch With a Bezel That Tells You How to Feel), RM UP-01, the RM 27 series — that has never been more in demand. Owning the wrong RM in 2026 is a worse position than owning no RM at all.
The stratification matters because it tells you where the brand's identity is going. RM is no longer a uniformly aspirational brand; it's split into a flagship-collectible tier and a volume-luxury tier. The first will appreciate; the second will move sideways at best. If you're approaching RM for the first time, the RM 67-02 and the RM 011 Felipe Massa are the references that have held value most consistently across the last five years.
Independents — the quiet bull market
The category nobody is talking about because it doesn't move on social media: the high independents. F.P. Journe, A. Lange & Söhne, H. Moser, MB&F. All up across the board since 2024. Lange Datograph in honeygold (the new release we covered in our Watches and Wonders 2026: The Releases That Will Matter piece) is the cleanest example — released at $130k retail, now trading $180k secondary, three months after launch.
The trade thesis here is straightforward. As the public-facing big-three (Rolex, Patek, AP) become harder to navigate at retail, the buyers with serious money have rotated into the next-tier brands. F.P. Journe has appreciated more than any major Patek reference over the last 24 months. We do not stock independents directly but we source from the trade frequently — tell us if the reference you're after is in this tier.
What we'd buy this week
Three pieces, in order:
1. Rolex Daytona 126500LN white panda — buy at any premium under £24k. 2. Patek Aquanaut 5167 in mint paper — the gap to the Nautilus is narrowing and the Aquanaut is structurally the more wearable watch. 3. Cartier Crash London Edition — the cartier-crash-london-edition we have is the only piece we've stocked all year, and the market has started to notice.
For what to skip: we'd let the next RM volume release pass. We'd avoid the Patek Cubitus in steel until secondary settles below 1.5× retail. And we'd hold off on any Rolex Land-Dweller in 40mm — the 36mm we covered in Watches and Wonders 2026: The Releases That Will Matter is the version with legs.
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