The watch auction market has hit serious momentum over the last four or five years, with record-breaking results being produced every season. While a portion of the soaring prices can be attributed to macro factors — such as democratised information on vintage watches through the explosion of sites that cover the topic — this isn’t the whole picture. As we have previously discussed, watches owned by celebrities appreciate in value particularly well, but this doesn’t explain the boom in auction prices for references without significant provenance. As vintage dealer Sean Song discusses, the auction room itself plays a large part in the psychology of pricing, as well as the auctioneer in their ability to build hype around certain pieces. A part of this psychology is the tendency for people to connect high prices with high quality, justifying the value of a certain watch through condition or rarity. It is an interesting read that gives insights into the often opaque world of high-end watch auctions, delving into the motivations of buyers to attempt to explain why some watches have seen triple-digit growth in a very short space of time. You can read The Peculiar Economics of the Vintage Watch Market, Part I here,…
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