hey everyone welcome to my channel and welcome back to my subscribers this is bald guy money i am baldguy and today we are talking rolex watches is a rolex a good investment is a watch in general a good investment now this video might surprise you so be sure to watch to the very end because not only am i going to dispel a lot of myths about the rolex watch and watches in general but i am also going to explain how an apple watch can actually be more expensive than a rolex watch so i am here at my table today and i have a


few of my watches with me and let me start by saying that watches are actually becoming very popular alternative investments for people right now and if you've heard stories of people buying watches like this for five thousand six hundred dollars from rolex dealers and then selling them for in excess of thirty thousand dollars well then the idea of buying a watch as an investment might have crossed your mind at some point in time now as most of you know this channel was founded with the idea of educating


people on turning their hard-earned money into wealth building assets and i used to say it at the beginning of a lot of my early videos and as attractive as making money on watches may seem there is a lot you need to know about alternative assets before diving in so let's get into this and start with first explaining the term alternative asset because this is something very real that has gained a lot of traction with investors over the last decade and they include so number one you can see on the list is


watches the topic of today's video number two art so paintings sculptures and in the digital realm now we're talking about nfts wine wine has actually become a big alternative asset that people are investing in number four numismatic coins and stamps number five rare cars and number six sports cards memorabilia and comic books and as you can tell by this list alternative assets covers consumer goods that are basically rare and hard to replicate now within this space watches have yield some of the most amazing returns over


the last few years but to be successful in it and with any alternative asset investment you really have to be an expert in minor details but we're going to zoom out and start from the big picture first and then drill down into the details and the first point is that not all watches are an investment or maybe i should say a good investment this watch here is a davis i'll put it up to the camera so you can take a look at it i really can't tell you anything about the brand i bought this watch 15 years ago


when i was in amsterdam when i was just kind of getting started in my adult life i had a limited budget and i thought at the time i thought that all mechanical watches go up in price as they get older sadly of course this is not the case and it's something that you all should understand and what i learned from this watch this davis watch is that just like fine art it is extremely important who makes the watch for these two reasons number one is reputation and desirability the fact of the matter is


that a brand comes along with a certain reputation as either for example being reliable or unreliable of high quality or of low quality and along with that reputation especially when it comes to high quality watches you're talking about a certain level of desirability that also comes along with that as well as a level of prestige which is very important for many people who are buying a luxury watch number two is of course stability and longevity and why this is so important is because when somebody is buying a


watch from a brand that they know a brand that has been around for a long time they know that this watch should something go wrong with it down the line can always be taken back to them and be serviced by that company which is almost a kind of insurance for the watch that they've purchased so now that we've established that brand is important just because a brand is huge and well known that doesn't exactly mean that their watches will appreciate in value and the second thing that impacts the


value of a watch over a long period of time is the scarcity of the watch and how scarcity is determined is like this it's a function of supply over demand where the lower this number is the more in demand a watch is therefore the harder it is to get thus making the watch more exclusive and more valuable case in point let's take two of the hottest dive watches from two of the largest brands the omega c master 300 and the rolex submariner with the date to of course compare apples to apples


now anyone who collects watches can agree that these are two amazing luxury pieces that are fantastically durable they're accurate and they can be worn in most situations and in addition to that they actually give the person who's wearing the watch a certain aura of accomplishment but that doesn't mean that they are both good investments so let's rewind and go back to the 2010s let's say the early 2010s when the omega seamaster and rolex submariner look like this and cost a little less than they do


right now at four thousand four hundred dollars for the omega and we're going to use the price of six thousand dollars for the submariner as list prices for this model in that period ranged from about five thousand to seven thousand dollars now at those prices the omega was at an index of about 73 percent to the rolex meaning the price of the omega was 73 that of the price of the rolex during this time so for either of these to really be considered an investment i would have to see price appreciation at least in line


with inflation for this video we are going to use my trusty inflation figures from my very first video and assume about 52 inflation since 2010 to today even though the official number which is manipulated is about 30 percent and just before i reveal what these watches sell for now i do realize the omega c master with the non-wave dial is from 2011. so watch nerds please don't crucify me it's only a difference of one year between these two models and here it is this is what these two watches go for


now these examples are shown without sales tax both come with the original box and papers which makes them more valuable so if you buy a new watch please people save the box and save the papers that you get from the dealer because that actually makes it more valuable down the road additionally they both come from the watch box which is in my opinion the best dealer of second-hand watches in the entire business and it is where i buy a lot of my watches and no this is not sponsored by them but please


remember you have to buy the seller before you actually buy the watch and the watch box is a reliable seller otherwise if you're buying from people you don't know you can really get burned in this in this business so the first thing i want to bring your attention to is what these watches cost now and you can see the current price of the omega as offered by watch box is 3654. and the rolex submariner is 12 452 dollars that means where the omega was originally 73 the price of the rolex it


is now only 29 additionally the omega has gone down in value by 17 or 45 inflation adjusted since that 4 400 the watch cost back in 2010 or 2011 had the purchasing power of 6 688 dollars in today's dollars on the flip side the rolex has appreciated more than one hundred percent one hundred eight percent to be exact and the original six thousand dollar cost of the watch would only be worth nine thousand one hundred twenty dollars in today's dollars meaning that even inflation adjusted the rolex has gone up


in price by 37 now coming back to the main point even though both of these watches come from major and arguably prestigious brands the fact that any joe can walk into an omega boutique and walk out with a seamaster makes it fundamentally less scarce than a rolex submariner so if you're thinking about a watch as an investment please keep in mind that any watch you can easily get will likely not go up in price or value and also remember this in order to walk into a rolex boutique and walk out with


a submariner on your wrist you either have to have an established relationship with the boutique and its employees which is fancy talk for you better have bought other watches from them in the past and hope that they remember you or of course be extremely lucky which i have heard of but in my opinion it's simply not necessarily the best strategy and it's really not very realistic if that's your strategy to get a rolex submariner especially not in 2022. so that brings me now to my third and final


point what that you absolutely have to take into consideration when thinking about a watch as an investment and i absolutely want to stress this to people because a lot of people get fooled by this and it's fake scarcity so what do i mean by fake scarcity what i mean is that almost every week you will hear about a new limited edition watch in the world okay uh limited edition celebrating amazing accomplishments like the 50th anniversary of the moon landing which are actually amazing limited


editions or limited editions like this let me just hold this up to the camera for you this is a seiko 5 sports made for street fighter fans like me this is actually the blanca edition and although these watches can be fun and are called limited edition watches they come with two main problems so number one on the list is that companies often make too many of these limited edition watches in the example of the blanca street fighter watch i've just shown you 10 000 of these watches were made and when you consider that they made one


of these watches for each character and street fighter you're talking about what is it 12 times 10 000 you're talking about 120 000 watches that's not rare by my definition of the word even when you look at that omega 50th anniversary edition of the moon landing they made 6969 of those watches i would be skeptical personally with respect to the long term value of that watch going up significantly simply because they made so many of them and number two on the list is what they celebrate is sometimes or even usually


two niche and that means that when you're taking a look at how much demand for a particular watch there's going to be if what they're celebrating is so niche that there are so few fans of that in the world well that might be a difficult selling it for more money at a later point in time and those two issues mean that it's very rare for a watch like this blanca street fighter limited edition which was both mass produced and is actually targeted towards a real niche audience to hit price levels like this


omega speedmaster celebrating snoopy and nasa's silver snoopy awards which sells today for about fifty thousand dollars despite the fact that i think they were first sold for around five six thousand dollars again it's all about knowing the market what's hot and what's not and if you don't know those things then you're not going to do well investing in watches and the same rule applies to vintage watches a watch like this which is a really great example of a vintage omega deville from 1969


may seem like a great deal when you find one online because the price of it will be relatively low to what you might expect it to be i mean how many great examples of this watch could exist more than 50 years later but the truth is that actually very few of these watches in good condition can exist 50 years later and what you'll often find online especially when you're shopping around on ebay is that a lot of the watches offered there will contain replacement parts or they will have replacement dials which from the


collector's point of view means that the watch actually has little value and long term the watch really won't go up in price and to the greater point i'm trying to make here is that although a watch can absolutely be a great investment again you can't do it with just any watch and often the watches that are really good investments are extremely difficult to get or only available at high premiums they are definitely not available at good prices on ebay you can't walk into any boutique and just walk out with one


on your wrist and when it comes to watches especially watches buyer beware be sure to buy the seller before you buy their watch so now if you're still considering a watch as an investment like i said do your homework learn the market not all rolex's go up in value most do but not all and let me say that not all omegas like in the seamaster example go down in value i mean i've shown you the example of the silver snoopy which also uh has gone up in value on the flip side of that so like with any


alternative asset you're only going to do well if you know what it is you're buying which brings me to my point on buying rolex versus an apple watch and let me start by saying that whatever it is you choose to buy if it makes you happy that's a really great thing okay as long as it's not a counterfeit of course because i abhor counterfeit watches please don't think of watches only in terms of being investment vehicles because they don't have to be a watch is something that you enjoy it should bring


you pleasure when you look down at your risk and it should give you a certain sense of accomplishment especially if you're looking at purchasing a luxury watch again i want to stress do what makes you happy and always remember to get what you can afford but on the topic of the apple watch and here you can see this uh this one has been chopped the the strap has been chopped here because my youngest son has been wearing it uh this is a series one apple watch that i got some time ago when they were


pretty new i paid about 400 for it and i can say with all honesty that this is one of the most expensive watches i have ever purchased for one key reason and that's because things like the apple watch are no different than a television or a telephone it's a consumer electronic it's not collectible it's a guaranteed loser much like holding cash in the bank except the only difference is that consumer electronics lose their value much quicker than cash does even in 2022 when they've printed a bazillion dollars


so what i want to say is it is in the case of this watch its value is probably today no more than fifty dollars and that's that's the hard truth meaning it's lost almost ninety percent of its value since i bought it and i'd be surprised if i could even find somebody to pay fifty dollars for this watch considering that on ebay somebody thinks it's worth thirty four dollars and that you can actually get these new and unworn for a little more than a hundred dollars on the flip side i can


take i can take this rolex datejust which was produced in the 1990s it's my favorite watch i bought it secondhand from the watch box and i know that even today i can get every penny out of this watch that i put into it in fact with full box and papers you can sell this watch for probably around five thousand five hundred six thousand dollars today and this watch was originally sold back in the 90s for around four thousand dollars so i mean it's just because it's a rolex datejust you have to know


that this kind of watch really holds its value so if somebody asks me is a watch a good investment at the end of the day well if you pay attention to brand and you buy the right model you might do very well for yourself but like with any alternative asset it's a very fickle game to play and i personally wouldn't enter a watch purchase with the hope of making big bucks down the line it's simply an unrealistic expectation that said if you're patient and find the right watch that suits you


from a reputable from a reputable brand and a model that has longevity a model like the rolex submariner a model like the datejust a model like the rolex day-date well you just might be buying yourself a luxury at little or no cost to yourself should you need to sell it somewhere down the road and just know this versus the apple watch versus this watch which is a guarantee it's guaranteed to be worth zero only after about a decade after 10 years this thing will be worth zero nobody will want to buy it from you


you know which one i think is a better investment at the end of the day between these two and it's it's definitely a mechanical watch for a prestigious brand now it's time for you to let me know what you think about watches as investments or just watches in general do you like them do you think they're a waste of money do you think it's a good investment is there any other alternative asset you'd like to see me cover in a video let me know in the comments section and don't forget to


drop a like if you've liked this video i'm very sorry that you've had to put up with a nasally voice i am coming off a little bit of an illness so i very much appreciate that you've made it with me this far with that i wish you all a great weekend i wish you all health definitely better health than i have see you in the next one ciao