I will speak of my own experience here because I’ve also spoken to many others with similar experiences. Over the years my tastes and desires for watches have changed a lot. In the past, I also tended to let my gut reaction dictate the way more than I do now. I didn’t have an unlimited watch budget (still don’t), so when my tastes would change, or I’d stop wearing a watch, I’d look to sell/trade it for something that would make my heart sing again. I’m doing that, at least with many dealers, a person stands to lose a good bit of the initial purchase price. This is something That is hard to swallow. So what I’ve found is this focus on what people like to refer to as the “over-hyped” pieces are viewed, in my opinion, a safer purchase in at least they are more liquid and don’t take as much of a hit if/when you sell them. Maybe you even make a little bit of money.
I know a lot of people that think that way because they’ve been burned too badly and too often by the discrepancy between what a lot of brands charge for their pieces and what they sell for on the secondary market. This, to me at least, indicates the market has a price-to-value problem. In some cases that is real, and in others it may be perception only, but I do think it is a real and significant driver of what we are seeing today. I think it’s as significant a driver of what we see happening than the speculators.
However, if one buys what makes him/her truly happy then yes, in my opinion it is still a lot of fun. However, if the piece that makes us truly happy is one of the unobtainable ones due to outrageous market demand, then there is a problem as that can be very frustrating, indeed.