A friend of mine bought a Rolex Air King about 25 years while he was in college. Paid $1200 (and financed it for $100 a month for a year).
He wears it every day it, to every occasion, and it looks phenomenal. Recently, had it appraised in the $5000 range. He's beat the S&P many times over, not to mention the value he's received of having a nice watch every day.
Yea I get, it's not for everyone. But they're not the worst investments and they're truly beautiful machines. In the words of Ferris Bueller, 'if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.'
I wanted to take a quick second to dispel this myth. Although I collect watches and I have several high end pieces, including grand complications - none of them are good "investments". You will likely loose money on 99% of watches you can buy and it certainly applies 100% to all new Rolex watches. There is just a small amount of watches that actually appreciate like Patek application pieces or the Vintage Rolex Daytona ('Paul Newman) or 1980's Milgause. The chance you buy one of this is 0% unless you know what you are doing.
So your friend has a 25 year old Air King? This is not a vintage piece, it's just an old piece. Worth? $1500 - $2000 depending on condition. Secondly, in 25 years he had to service it at least 3 times. Each service cost? $400 - $800 depending on the issues. If he polished it, $500 more.
So all in he's put in $1,200 + ~$1,500 = $2,700.
Now had he place $1,200 in the S&P 500 on 1991 (exactly 25 years ago), he would have at the end of December 31 exactly $13,588 dollars (~9.78% on average per year).
I don't understand how you can say he beat the S&P many times over.
He wears it every day it, to every occasion, and it looks phenomenal. Recently, had it appraised in the $5000 range. He's beat the S&P many times over, not to mention the value he's received of having a nice watch every day.
Yea I get, it's not for everyone. But they're not the worst investments and they're truly beautiful machines. In the words of Ferris Bueller, 'if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.'
And for the super skeptical, here's a video of a man who bought a Rolex GMT Master in the 60s for $120 and had it appraised in the $80k range (despite decades of heavy use). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0mRLcGbU8&feature=youtu.be