Baron - Mr Red
14613
This is a tough question to answer
Aug 08, 2018,01:49 AM
There are a lot of moving parts to what makes a watch desirable for a collector. Rarity is definitely one factor, but I think there are many. A part of the reason I have confined my parameters to mainly GMTs and Subs is because of that historical tendency for collectors to focus on those two types of Rolex (obviously Daytona would be in that group as well). So, I am basing some of my thinking on that "momentum" idea on Subs and GMTs.
Absolute versus relative? Uhmm. Tricky. If i use the same sampling technique on, say, Submariner 5513s, I can get a comparison....there are 250 for sale globally. That at least gives a comparison of totals based on that sampling idea. Can I get better at sampling? Possibly, but not easily! If i look at Sub 5512, I see only 70 for sale globally, so I guess one can infer from those type of numbers on absolutes.
On relatives, then it gets much harder. Going through all of the 5513s to see which ones do have some dial quirks and which ones do not would be one way of forming a baseline.
Having said that, I always think that to become desirable from a "hunt" perspective, watches need to be rare but not SO rare that it becomes impossible for collectors to find them. That was the basis on which I saw teh "Swiss" only as interesting. Based on the table I drew up, the relative rarity of these "Swiss" appears to be around 2-4% of the total production....roughly, 15% for the 16700. Paul Newmans were supposed to represent around 5% of the total production of Daytona (more like 50% today...LoL). So my thinking is that this type of relative rarity is around the right level.
I think I just spent 10 minutes not really answering your question!!!