With all the challenges of 2020, high-end businesses such as luxury watch trading continue to make a profit.

“If at the beginning of 2020 you owned a sports model from Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet or Richard Mille; today, those watches have increased in price,” said Juandi, coowner of a secondhand luxury watch shop in Blok M Plaza who — like most in the business — prefers to stay out of the limelight and spoke with the condition of using only his first name.

Sports models are daily-wear watches as opposed to dress watches that are better suited for formal wear.

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“Although the first quarter of 2020 was ravaged by all the market panics of COVID-19, today their prices are higher than pre-COVID.”

Last year saw his store traffic decrease, but the business has been balanced by an increase in inquiries via his @secondhandwatch Instagram account, where he sells secondhand luxury watches. The account has more than 11,000 followers.

Although Rolex is the sure-fire winner, not all Rolex models increase in value proportionally. The bigger Rolex sizes such as the 43 mm Sea-Dweller and the 44 mm Deep-Sea didn’t enjoy much of a price increase. Also, the Rolex two-tone (a combination of gold and steel) bracelet models were the slowest to get flipped within the Rolex family.

“The best performing Rolexes in 2020 were all the steel sports models, such as the Submariner green dial [also known as the Hulk], GMT blue and red bezel [Pepsi] and the Daytona white dials measuring 40 mm to 42 mm,” said Laras, coowner of @Indowatchcollection, another Instagram account for the secondhand luxury watch market. It has close to 14,000 followers.

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