Girard Perregaux

The difference is, the Laureatos I’ve owned have all been made at (relatively) high volume. To your point, when GP introduce many different variants and start to flood the market with 20 different versions of the 42 mm Laureato, the market tends to get saturated and hence prices a little softer. Perfect example is my blue 38 mm Laureato. Gen I. Remember when I bought it, one of the reasons being because it was (relatively) rare and discontinued? Then what does GP do? They go and introduce a very similar version of the exact same blue watch in 38 mm. Guess what this means for prices not only of the Gen I blue 38 mm, but then also the Gen II blue 38 mm on the secondary market… You guessed it… Prices tilt in favor of the buyer. Especially in this market. As you know well, price is not everything with watches, but I will certainly jump on a buying opportunity when I see one. Bottom line, you don’t tend to buy high volume GP pieces. Providence, collectibility and rarity, as with many pieces in your beautiful collection, will dictate higher prices, as you have stated prices of those Neo Vintage pieces are holding, or apparently in some cases increasing. Be well my friend, thanks for your post 🍻

I think the most important thing to wrap your mind around is this … the drastic drop in production pieces is because of bundling.

This is the root of all evil.

Any production GP is likely to get bundled.

If you get that first point.

The next point is the subsequent dumping by the buyer.

He wanted the PP. He got the PP and now he dumps the GP. At what price? He doesn’t really care. He wants to sell it fast and he looks at the cost as part of the price he has to pay to get the PP.

So, buyers of the GP that are savvy know this. And they wait for prices to drop for the GP.

So even when there relatively low volume of GPs made, the perception is that one is in no real rush.

This leads to an overall expectation that GPs do not hold their prices. This puts pressure on the grey market dealers who are selling GP.

So once a watch is discontinued, the ADs can no longer bundle it. It eventually find a cruising price range. They end up with real collectors. And the prices can stabilise.

I’m your case, though your GP 38 blue dial was discontinued, GP introduced another GP blue dial. Almost the same. Or some would even say “better”. So your 38 mm blue was affected by the fact that the ADs could bundle a very similar watch to yours.

My 38 mm Anthracite grey dial has held value. Why? Because there is no current production Grey dial 38 mm for ADs to bundle.

My brother sold his grey dial 38 mm not long ago for USD 12,000 or so. I kept mine.

So why is GP neo vintage stable or going up? Apart from the fact that relative to current MSRPs, they are cheap, it is also because ADs can not bundle them. Also, the neo vintage pieces are often made in extremely small numbers in the first place. Their prices are affected by the general perception of prices.

If GP would hers it’s act together for current production watches, the prices of the neo-vintage pieces could explode.

Look at the VC 222 as a good example. Check chrono 24 for prices if the original 222 from 1977. 2 or 3 listed only. And how much? USD 100 K or so?

Nuts yeah?

Why? Because tycoons that want to be extra special, what to get both the current production 222 as well as the original. Bragging rights costs. And they have the money to pay. Owners that bought the original 222 way back when or even 4 years ago got them cheap. They don’t want to let them go for cheap. They don’t want yo Tripple their money. They want to multiply by 5 x. Their holding cost is low.

So these are the dynamics and relationships between bundling, dumping, scarcity and the relative logic used by buyers when considering a watch and at what fair market price.

The market is not efficient. So for those that research and pick up rare birds today, they can one day be sitting on 5 x more value.

For those they say screw it, I like pretty production pieces, they should expect for value to not go up.

Both are fine to do.

For me, I care about secondary market prices. Not to make money, but to eventually get my money back when I’m 75.

That’s the plan at least. 😃

🤝

But find it quite chunky, i.e. too large for my wrist. But glad there’s a new sign of life from the brand 👍🏻

Cushion cases from GP last seen 20 years ago. Elegant.

This new diver … not so much.

🤝

Yummy Yves-Klein blue dial. One of 50 made.

… but, as with the Doxa Sub, I cannot handle that crippled hour hand… 😓