Hong Kong Watch Fever 香港發燒友

Monday, February 14, 2022

Looking for investor and fund

Whatsapp me if you are interested in.

HK Snob

852-51229994

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Presidents' watch Rolex Day Date 1803

The flag ship series of Rolex is not Daytona, not Submariner, it is the Day Date.
Day Date was launched in 1956. during this 66 years of production, they have made a lot of beautiful watches that bring us pride, joy and long term value.

Rolex has been producing many fascinated watches using kinds of stone, Onyx, bloodstone ferrite, coral, Lapis Lazuli, tiger eye, malachite, wood, MOP, meteorite ...etc as the dial material.

Even the launch of 2012 Skydweller which carries a new in house complicated movement with Date, Month but no "Day" as Rolex does not want to touch of its own prestige line of "Day Date".

HK Snob

Buying luxury watches over property to hedge inflation

China’s enthusiastic property investors are turning their attention to luxury watches as a better store of value in the face of slowing economic growth and President Xi Jinping’s intensifying campaign against housing speculation.

In fact there is more evidence to tell that why Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin and Richard Mille are being used as a hedge against inflation. Many middle class Hong Kong people have stored up more buying power as they are not able to spend their money on travelling, outgoing for big dinner during these two years COVID lock down, moreover, they are having more time to search for alternative items for their money outlet.

Really there is a lot of attraction for buying Watch than property

1.Buying/selling luxury watches are simple, no need to go through law firm or signing any legal document

2.No commission between seller buyer, but may have commission 6.5% at Chrono24

3.The turn-around time is just a 3-6 months for Rolex whereas property takes 3 -5 years for good yield

4.You can store you watches at home or a vault in bank

5.No tax involved in buying or selling, no need to declare income tax

6.No maintenance fee for watches

7 Very low risk base on these two years trade records provided you are buying the right models

8.The trading amounts is starting from HK$150,000 which is having lower amount that most people can afford, as for a real estate entry fee is a few million HK dollars.

9.Here I don’t mention Vintage Rolex as they are requiring a lot of product knowhow. Some exceptional rare expensive items may go for Auction for higher return.

Watch is a new currency now as you can carry a watch of US$1m out to any country.

Selling to dealers

Direct to dealer with cash, they buy fresh watches preferable within two months but profit is lower as they trade in volume. There are about 600 dealers in Hong Kong.

Selling to end user

The profit is higher but you have to know the ways

Trade security is also important if you don’t know the buyer as we always prefer trade with cash, which is simple and easy.

Many commercial channel can help you on this fb, IG, Carousell, fb market place, Chrono24, Watch box… etc

HK Snob

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Rolex Tiffany Blue cyclone

With last auction on Patek Philippe 5711 Tiffany Blue hit a hammer price of US$6M,

Rolex's OP Tiffany blue Nautilus price had been increased immediately in the market high up to HK$350,000. as of now their price is still moving between HK$265,000 to HK$285,000.

I had an hunch to look for some substitutes with Tiffany Blue element from Rolex...

In December 2021, we bought the first Day Date 36mm Ref 128348RBR-0037 turquoise with HK$497,500 for my Philippine investor.

Four days later, I bought for another HK Investor with HK$540,000, already up HK$42,500!

After one month, another famous HK collector bought one with HK$650,000.

So what is the price now?

From Today's Chrono24 we can find 9 pieces

With price of 6 pieces from lowest HK$575K to highest HK$711K and three is "Ask price"

Take an average the price is HK$658,000!

Base on this the first bought one with $497,500, we entitle a price increase of HK$160,000.

That is a 32% appreciation on paper.

This is the Tiffany Blue Cyclone... and this is not just a simple printed dial, it is finely selected piece of Turquoise, lapped down to a thickness of 0.25mm, polishing it to the required flatness.

Check for any microcrack, if not then, Laser cut a trapezoidal window and a rectangular window for the Day and Date wheel display. Inspect again for any cracks. if not then.

Drill with 20 tiny holes for inserting the hour index,

Drill a larger hole at the centre for the hour and minuet hands.

If there is any flaws nor micro crack, the whole dial will be discarded and have to remake again.

These are tedious works and Rolex can only produce say 10-20 pieces a year.

So I speculate that by Autumn 2022, The market price will be reaching HK$1,000,000.

HK Snob

Remarks

Rolex SRP or Ref 128348RBR-0037 turquoise is HK$447,200

Price race of new and vintage Rolex watches

Obviously we can see there is a drop of demand on Vintage Rolex, so as their price is adjusting towards lower side whereas the new Rolex price is jumping up astonishingly fast! Their price are running in opposite directions.

Vintage Rolex collection

Too much knowledge on Vintage Rolex Collection to tell and there are too much tricks from the dishonesty sellers.

Is that the original bezel of your 1979 Rolex Submariner, or arguable MK III of Mark IV of your GMT Master. This is puzzle to some of the newbies or green Rolex collectors.. But it would affect the price significantly. Though this had not been the role of Rolex to tell you. Since Rolex announced that don’t want to authenticate vintage watch at RSC in 2020, that would give a negative impact to the vintage Rolex Market.

More people would prefer buying new Rolex or neo-vintage instead of vintage.

Such as Daytona 116500LN or 116520, their earlier generation 15620 Daytona would be the cut off line of new and vintage Daytona. Daytona 16520 price had stopped rising up as fast as 116520… not mentioning older Daytona such as 6253, 6265.

Similar case of Vintage GMT master 1675, more people preferred buying 16710 as they are known to be less “troublesome or arguable” on the watch market.

New Rolex

All new Rolex price has been shot up 30% in past 6 months.

New Daytona gold watch on silicon strap is $500,000 or more

New Daytona gold watch on gold bracelet is $700,000 or more

New Daytona green 116508 is now $800,000-950,000

New Daytona steel 116500 White is $400,000!

How about the colorful OP 124300 41mm

Well, Tiffany blue is still leading the race $275,000

Red is $140,000, green and yellow is $135,000.

So what is your choice in this Rolex Price Race?

I always buy those watches that is currently understated and keep them.

So what is your target in your mind now?

This was an interesting questions someone posted to me in the last few days

HK Snob

Remarks

Unit here is HKD, Hong Kong Dollars, 1 USD=7.76 HKD

Price shown here is just rough reference as they change everyday

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

What is new trend for watch size?

I think we had a common preference for larger watch in 1998-2015, at that time we are looking for bigger watches starting at 40mm, 41mm, 44mm, for Rolex. we had such a prejudice on some of the "Small watches" such as 34mm to 36mm. I can say the cut off line was 36mm, as anything smaller than 36mm is classified as "Small", 36mm-40mm is "medium", 41-47mm is "large", there is exception that size like Audemars Piguet T3 is giant of 54mm!

By that time 2008-2014, we could see ladies with smaller wrist would go for Rolex Yacht Master II or Deepsea sea dweller Cameron 44mm, and that was a hit.

Almost all the beautiful golden proportion dress watches in the range of 33-36mm were being boycotted as they say that is "too small" or even described as "dwarf ugly" so as their prices going low. If you were smart to buy off those good watches at that time, you are super rich now. As Breguet and Vacheron Constantin had made beautiful Tourbillon with 36mm in 2000. That was cheap to get by 2015 and now their price had been up at least 40%.

The time is changed and people is changing their taste and feel "bore"" wearing the bigger watches!

Starting from Panerai who used to make bigger watches started to slim down their watches in 2017.

By 2018 they launched a 45mm slimmer automatic 3 days watches limited 100 pieces, 1940 PAM00694, followed by 42, 40 mm for meeting the market demand.

Rolex launched a retro Explorer I with 36mm size 214270 in 2021 which is an iconic move of a traditional watch maker Rolex.

A price is reflecting the demand of the majority of watches collectors. the attached AP Perpetual Calendar is 36mm, I bought that in 2017 with $60,000 and I sold it to a gym manager with merely $57,000 in 2020. well, the people taste has changed rapidly and price of it rose significantly from $100,000 to currently $230,000. That is a great news for a small watch to come with, more people in favour of getting this beautiful watch.

In fact the most important thing is what you feel about the watch "appeared to be" on our hand.

Rolex Day Date 41mm is replaced with Day Date 40mm as their new Day Date line side by side with Day Date 36mm. Also we can see the vintage Day Date 36mm price is gong up, that means more people is looking for smaller diameter format of the Day Date

On the other hand, Vacheron Constantin launched a 2300V which is 37mm diameter line side by side with a larger line 4500V 41mm. to meet the demand for both larger and medium size of the watches.

Now I think this is the size changes to smaller diameter by 3mm.

Some of the watches with 37mm is not small at all.

Some of the watches with size 44mm is classified too large, really?

Again, size is one thing, matching your wrist is the another big thing.

More important is the dial design, some watches look as if it is very larger comparing with some watch with the same watch diameter of different dial design, also how the design of the lug width and bracelet would change the perception of how "large" or "small" the watch looks like.

Find a watch with the appropriate size is more important just the figure of diameter itself.

HK Snob

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Updated price of Rolex hot models

GMT Master Batman Jubilee Ref 126710BLNR $202,000

Starbucks Submariner 126610LV $200,000

DeepSea Sea Dweller 126660 Blue Black $147,000

Daytona 116500LN White $395,000

Date Just Palm 36mm 126234 $165,000

The price is insane and I always ask myself would this be a bubble?

My reply to the question is "Yes" But when the bubble will burst?

I told myself, I really don't know as imagine say a price of 2 Daytona White is the price of a second hand Ferrari F430.

Will you spend money on two Daytona or a Ferrari?

You make the choice.

HK Snob

Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Some of my Rolex watches

Rolex is a kind of watch that 60% of watch blogger are talking about.

They are successfully and mostly recognized brand in luxury watches. of course seriously, Rolex can't be categorized as the top 3 watches in Switzerland in terms of craftmanship and brand history. But Rolex is very successful in marketing.

So most of watch collectors might have a few Rolex in their collections.

Worth to note is that the recent Rolex price is increasing high exponentially especially within these last two years.

The one shown in front is 126348RBR Day Date Turquoise was HK$497,500 in December 2021, Now it is above HK$600,000.

The one I am spotting for appreciation is the Date Just Palm 126334 in olive, That is now above HK$130,000 and soon I speculate that it will reach HK$180,000.

HK Snob

Some of my Vacheron Constantin watches

These are some of my collection on Vacheron Constantin watches.

Yes, I love these watches and all my bad was sold off some of the best such as the 222 in solid gold, also the first gen Overseas chronograph in solid yellow gold...

Reason I like them, simply because of the long history of the company, their patents on design, and

the handcraftsmanship of swiss best watches... The Maltese cross is another reason. It is so much full of blessing. The Bracelet is the top amongst the Nautilus, Royal Oak bracelet in aesthetic cosmetics, and wearing comfort.

The 222 was auction with a hammer price of HK$1.1M, wow that the guy who bought from me must be lucky one as I sold at HK$170K only two years ago. So I told myself VC price s going to be up and I think I will not sell these unless I need extra money to support my next toy buy!

Never the less, we are just the keeper for some watches for my life, they will be passing to the next generations. Once I have possessed them is my destiny already. No regret!

HK Snob

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Will Rolex bubble burst?

There are numerous saying that Rolex Bubble will burst!

This is my understanding:-

1. Exponential rise in demand.

2. Increase interests in luxury watches in the general public.

3. Not just Hong Kongers, US, EU, but Chinese, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Vietnamese, Myanmar are coming to join this game.

4. A relatively small supply.

5. Money is nothing and bank interests is a joke comparing with the money invested on hot watches.

6. Record-breaking auction prices.

7. More collectors, celebrities, investors are treating watches as an investment.

8. Rolex and many other makers are shutting down factories and manufacturing facilities due to COVID-19.

9. Promotion from watch blogger, watch youtubers, watch sites.

10. Watch is a small, artistic, valuable items that can be used for show off as social status.

11. Watch itself can be a new currency for people to move their asset.

12. Watch trade is simple and easy, of course background check on buyer is needed.

13. Many people spend their time in watch trade during this COVID-19 as they can't travel, they have accumulated a lot of spending power.

14. Many middle class of Chinese are prioritizing watch to real estate as in investment.

Price of watches

The Rolex Hulk 116610LV is now $330,000, unbelievable high, Daytona 116500LN White is $400,000

Patek 5711R is $3m, 5712A-001 is $1.3M...

Will the bubble be bursted?

I don't think so as watches like Rolex with all the inflated value on the 200,000 (not all Rolex watches is under the hype) hot watches made a year is just about US$1.5B, that is nothing as that is only one week's printed output of the Federal Reserve' De La Rue money printing machines.

HK Snob

Former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos' Patek Philippe

This is a watch that was the properties of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos

Birthday watch

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.

To what I know Marcos time, while in power he implemented wide-ranging programs of infrastructure development and economic reform. At that period of time, Philippines was the second richest country in Asia. President Marcos has celebrated his 58th birthdays. Macros flew by helicopter to Barrio Pandi joined farmers harvesting rice, took breakfast in a hut with the peasant’s family and held a cabinet meeting under the shade of a mango tree. 1975 is a special year for the first family, as the First Lady was the guest speaker in the U.N. in New York for women's right before heading back to Manila for the president’s 58th birthday. It is key interests to know what essential watch he likes… Marcos was ahead of time wearing white gold as one of his preferred metal on watch. He loves Patek Philippe and Rolex watches.

Rolex 12

Rolex 12 is the collective name of twelve of the closest and most powerful advisers of President Ferdinand Marcos during the martial law years in the Philippines from 1972 to 1981.

During the latter years of his second elected term, Marcos conspired with various leaders of the military and Philippine Constabulary. The goal was for Marcos to gain full authoritarian control of the country during his declaration of martial law in 1972. Marcos gave the military leadership powers during martial law, taking over from democratically elected officials and court judges.

The origin of the name Rolex 12 came from a widespread story and some sources that each associate received a Rolex watch from Marcos himself, although this remains unverified. Some contend that the gifts were actually Omega watches, but despite this confusion, the name Rolex 12 stuck and is still used to refer to these twelve Marcos associates. Some of them fled with Marcos when he and his family left the Philippines in 1986, while others like Enrile and Ramos were instrumental in the coup against him.

History on this watch

We believe that this is a watch as a gift from his beloved Imelda. During his 58 years old birthday on 11 Sept 1975. And this watch was later given to one of the Rolex 12 members who fled to USA and sold into the pawn shop or jewelry buyers.

One of the US citizen brought that watch at Tourneau NYC with US$11,000 in 2009. He kept this watch and sent for Patek for a movement overhaul in 2013. And he contacted me as knowing that I am watch blogger and like to have this precious piece of watch, we had established discussion on selling the watch since 2013 till 2018 for 7 years. Due to tax and logistic concern, we did come up to a chance that I could get to a law firm amidst the hectic Makati city to buy this watch with certain amount of money directly from hands of his wife. I was so amazed.

The watch

It is a Patek Philippe Ref 3528/3

This Patek Philippe was entirely made in 18k white gold with a smooth and finely made mesh bracelet. A stunning Sunburst Anthracite dial. Length is uncut 7.75 inches. Manual winding movement. Ref 3528-3. With Patek Archive papers. This watch was produced by Patek Philippine in 1971.

This Patek Philippe watch has a 25.5 x 29.5 mm case with a rectangle caseback with stick dial. This is an exceptional piece of artworks from Patek Philippe. Condition is like super excellent, time taking is very accurate, the manual winding is ultra smooth.

A watch that was made 51 years old, but it is not outdated in shape and size at all as a dress watch. Of course the value is not just the watch itself but the memorial value of the most powerful man in the Philippines in the 80's. And, mots of all, this is a Patek Philippe.

We have been trying to contact Imelda but personally I don’t know her and naturally I had issue to contact her. Though I have two friends who know her in persons. but due to COVID- 19, Imelda did not show up at my friend's jewelry stores. My purpose is to ask to re-recognize his watch and sign a document to authenticate it.

We would like to sell it in public auction and would like to donate certain big portion not less than 50% to the charity of Philippines after deduction of all administration fee and auction commission. I believe this is one of the contributions from the former president to the people of Philippines.

HK Watch Fever