2023 Noticeable Rolex Price Increases

The first few days of 2022 have seen a considerable increase in Rolex prices, especially for steel luxury watch models. In this article, you’ll find retail price increases for the most popular Rolex watch lines. As a result, few brand replica watches take the risk of naming their products “waterproof” – however, one notable exception is Rolex. Thanks to the provenance and performance of the Rolex Oyster case, true water resistance has been guaranteed to 100 meters and deeper since 1926. The first replica watch to do so was the Rolex Deepsea Special Edition, which accompanied Captain Don Walsh and Jacques Picard on their mission to the seabed in 1960. Rather than completing the journey on a human wrist, the recognizable Deep Sea Special was strapped to the exterior of their ship, the Bathyscaphe Trieste.
There are a few ways to express the depth tested by your fake watch. The most common unit of measurement is the meter. This is usually indicated by the letter “M”. Perhaps the second most common way to express the depth rating is by atmospheric pressure. The third way to express water resistance is “bar”. A bar is a unit of pressure, not a unit of depth. While this is often talked about among collectors and watchmakers, it is not often stamped on watch dials.
First, given the above, it is really no surprise that retail prices of watches are increasing across the board in 2022. Second, we use Rolex as an example because in many ways it dictates the actions, sentiment and strategy of the larger watch industry – even as recognized by other major luxury watchmakers. According to Morgan Stanley research, Rolex accounts for a quarter of the annual turnover of the entire Swiss watch industry, based on an implied retail value of CHF 8 billion in 2020. Therefore, what you are about to read about Rolex is likely to happen soon to the luxury watchmaker of your choice.
One of the main reasons watchmakers need to be cautious about raising prices is that luxury watch pricing is largely a one-way street – going backwards is a very painful and unsustainable experience. Why? Because it’s easy to become a discounted luxury brand, and customers quickly become accustomed to calculating and expecting bigger discounts – once you become a discounted brand with a tarnished image and pricing power, re-establishing the practice of systematically selling at retail becomes an extremely expensive and often impossible task.
In short, there are many medium- to long-term reasons to exercise a high degree of caution when raising luxury prices. If there is one luxury brand that gives itself all the time in the world to plan for the long to very long term, free from any pressure from growth and dividend paying investors – well, it is Rolex.
We should stress that Rolex’s price increases are not always timed to coincide with the new year; the company does not execute price adjustments tied to the calendar. They can occur at any time of the year, possibly several times over the course of 12 months, and as we have seen in this article, different models and collections are affected to varying degrees. In the face of such strong demand, with customers around the world clearly having the money and the will to spend more for their next Rolex watch, it is understandable that “Crown believes it is safe to raise the retail price of many of its best-selling steel luxury watches in 2022.
The question is, almost rhetorically, whether a 10% increase will be enough to cool the market slightly. At this point, we’d say “the secondary and gray markets – where many Rolex-like brand-new watches trade at prices well above their suggested retail prices – will easily absorb the difference, at least for now. On the other hand, our team totally understand the desire to conquer ownership of a particular watch and urges you not to do so and not to spend more than the retail price on any watch.
You’ve probably heard the terms water resistance and waterproof in relation to watches, but have you ever stopped to consider exactly what these terms mean? Although the two terms have completely different meanings, they are often used interchangeably. Simply put, a waterproof luxury replica watch can withstand contact for a certain period of time or under certain conditions, while a water-resistant watch is supposed to be theoretically impermeable to water.
But the reality is that no watch can guarantee permanent water resistance. Even the best diving watches on the planet, such as the replica Tag Heuer, are susceptible to the aging process and extreme conditions. It would be unreasonable to assume that a product made of physical materials would not somehow be influenced by the physical environment over time.
One of the main causes of failure in waterproof watches is the degradation of the seals designed to ensure a seam-free construction. This seal is usually made of a type of rubber or plastic that can be weakened or eroded in extreme heat or cold. There is one reason why it makes sense to have your watch serviced every few years to ensure that the seal is functioning as it should. All decent watchmakers will dry-pressure test your replica rolex watches before returning it to you to make sure that you have peace of mind for at least a few more years.
Many of the tests performed at watchmakers are dry and static tests. What happens is that a large amount of external air pressure is applied to the watch and it is measured for leaks or deformation. If a watch passes a test of this nature, then it can be said to be water-resistant. However, in practical terms, this may not mean much.