How to Resell Watches: A Beginner's Guide to the Market

Not all watch flips are created equal. The market splits into distinct categories, and each one requires a different level of knowledge, capital, and industry access.

You may or may not have heard of something called the “authorized dealer game.” This refers to a process where prospective watch buyers build up a relationship with a dealer by purchasing items over a long period. We cover the concept in more detail later in this article, but you need to understand that the rarest, most valuable watches are gated behind several layers of trust between you and a dealer. That trust is built with time and a whole lot of money.

This is where most resellers live, and honestly, it’s where most resellers should stay — at least to start. Limited collab watches are typically produced in small quantities, priced in the $300 to $1,000 range at retail, and sell out fast enough to create immediate aftermarket demand. The barrier to entry is low: no deep watch knowledge required, no dealer relationship to build, no five-figure commitment. You just need to know a drop is coming.

The Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch is probably the most famous recent example. Swatch priced the collaboration accessibly, limited it to physical retail locations, and created immediate lines around the block. Resellers who copped at retail were flipping them for two to three times retail within days. The Swatch x Dragon Ball Z watches followed a near-identical pattern, and so did the Hamilton x Call of Duty Khaki Field and the Anicorn x PlayStation Anniversary watch. The formula repeats: beloved brand meets beloved IP, limited run, sell-out, secondary market premium.

Once you get past the collab drops, you enter a different part of the market: watches bought not to flip in 48 hours, but to hold as an investment. These are high-quality timepieces from established manufacturers — think Rolex, Omega, Tudor, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet — that tend to hold or appreciate in value over time.

The Rolex Pepsi “Ref. 16710” GMT-Master II is a textbook investment piece. Years after its retail availability, it still sells for roughly double what it originally retailed for. The Tudor x Inter Miami Pink watch is a more recent example of a branded investment piece with clear resale trajectory.

The top of the market is where things get genuinely complicated. We’re talking about ultra-limited pieces, often produced as collaborations between prestige brands and celebrities or other luxury houses, priced at retail in the six-to-seven-figure range. The Stallone Patek Philippe and the John Mayer Audemars Piguet are examples of this category — watches where provenance matters, where brands track ownership closely, and where a careless resale can get you blacklisted with a dealer permanently.

Here’s something that sets watch reselling apart from almost every other category RC covers: access to the most desirable products is often relationship-dependent. Luxury watch brands sell through authorized dealers (ADs), and those dealers — especially for brands like Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet — tend to allocate their most sought-after pieces to customers with a history of purchases.

The logic makes sense from a brand perspective. They want their watches going to genuine collectors, not speculators who will flip them the next morning. So your purchase history at a given AD matters. The short version is: visit the boutique regularly, make purchases across the brand’s range (not just the hot waitlisted models), attend brand events, and build familiarity with the staff over time.

Getting on the radar for a waitlisted piece at a major brand can take months or even years of demonstrated loyalty. If you want to play this game, you need to actually enjoy watches, because you’re going to be spending meaningful time and real money building that history. Buying $10,000 or more in watches you don’t want just to eventually access one you do is not a strategy most resellers should pursue unless they’re genuinely into collecting.

Chrono24 is the primary marketplace for watch reselling. Think of it as the StockX of watches — it’s where serious buyers go first, it has built-in authentication for buyer confidence, and it has global reach that eBay can’t match for higher-end pieces. Listing is free, and the platform charges a 6% commission on completed sales. For anything in the investment-piece range and above, this is where you want to be.

eBay works well for the collab drop tier and lower-end investment pieces where authentication isn’t a major barrier. The audience is large, sold listings are easy to research, and you’ll find buyers who aren’t using Chrono24. The 13% fee structure eats more margin than Chrono24 at higher price points, so for anything over a few thousand dollars, Chrono24 is usually the smarter choice.

Private sales are an option, especially for Tier 2 and Tier 3 resellers who want to avoid their activity showing up publicly on a marketplace. The appeal is obvious: discretion. A private sale is much less likely to be noticed by the dealer who sold you the watch. The tradeoff is that you’re exposing yourself to the full range of internet lowballers, time-wasters, and scammers that come with peer-to-peer transactions. For most resellers, especially beginners, established platforms are the right call.

Understanding basic value drivers helps whether you’re evaluating a collab drop or researching an investment piece.

Brand and reference: Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Omega carry the most consistent secondary market premiums. Within any brand, specific reference numbers (model variants) carry wildly different values. A Rolex GMT-Master II in one configuration can be worth double another from the same year.

Condition: Watches are graded on condition much like sneakers or cards. Unworn or “new old stock” pieces with original box and papers command the highest prices. Polished cases, missing original bracelets, and service scratches all hurt value. The presence of the original box and papers (known as “B&P”) can add thousands to a high-end piece.

If you’re drawn to watches and already follow the market, this is a natural extension of your interests with real profit potential. The collab drop tier is accessible, doesn’t require deep capital or industry relationships, and follows a familiar RC playbook.

If you want to play in the investment-piece tier, budget for building a genuine dealer relationship and expect the process to take time. Resellers who go into it purely transactionally, without any real interest in the watches themselves, usually find it a poor use of their time and money compared to other categories.

The ultra-limited, dealer-gated market is best understood as background knowledge rather than an active strategy for most resellers. It exists, the profits can be absurd, and it takes years and significant capital to access it.

Start with the drops. Learn the market. Go from there.