By Sean Sherzady · Watchfinder Canada
Here is something the brands do not want you to think about too hard. In 2026, Rolex raised retail prices again — roughly 2 to 6% on steel, 6 to 9% on gold. Audemars Piguet pushed its U.S. retail up around 7.5%. Tudor moved too. And at the exact same time, the secondary market — the place where most of us actually buy and sell — has been quietly falling.
The grey-market premium on steel sports Rolex has, for many references, evaporated completely. Dealers have a name for this now: the retail price trap. Retail keeps climbing on paper while the resale value of the thing in your safe keeps sliding. After thirty years behind the counter, I want to tell you what this actually means — because for once, it means good news for buyers.
The numbers nobody is putting on a billboard
The Daytona is the clearest example. At the top of the 2022 mania, the average steel Daytona was trading around $53,900 on the secondary market. Today it sits closer to $38,000. That is a roughly 51% correction from peak. Submariners, GMTs, the whole steel sports lineup — down 30 to 50% from their 2022 highs.
Now read that next to the retail increases and you see the trap clearly. The list price went up. The real-world value came down. The gap between “what the brand says it costs” and “what the market will actually pay” has narrowed to almost nothing on a lot of steel references — and on some, the secondary price is now below retail.
Why this is the best news buyers have had in years
If you were priced out in 2021 and 2022 — if you stood at a counter and got laughed at, or watched a Submariner you wanted double in price on a flipping site overnight — this is your moment.
The froth is gone. The speculators who bought watches like meme stocks have largely left the room. What is left is genuine demand, and prices that reflect it. That is a healthier market to buy into than anything we saw three years ago. You are no longer competing with a hedge-fund mentality for a steel sports watch. You are competing with people who actually want to wear them.
What I'm telling clients to buy right now
Here is my actual advice, the same thing I tell people who call the showroom:
- Steel sports models are the buy of the moment. Daytona, Submariner, GMT-Master II — the references that corrected hardest are the ones with the most upside when the cycle turns, and you are buying them at a rational price for the first time in years. Buy the watch you actually want to wear, not the one you think you'll flip.
- Gold and platinum are holding value better than steel. If you are buying as much for preservation as for enjoyment, precious-metal references have been far more stable through this correction.
- Discontinued references with real collector cachet are still supported by scarcity. The market corrected the speculative stuff. It did not correct genuine rarity.
- If you are a near-term seller of steel sports — wait if you can. This is the wrong moment to dump a steel Daytona unless you have to. The correction has likely done most of its work.
A word for my fellow dealers
I will be honest about my own side of the table too. Smaller dealers sitting on aged steel sports inventory bought at 2022 prices are feeling real margin pressure right now. Expect some consolidation through 2026, and probably a few names quietly closing their doors. That is the market doing exactly what a healthy market does after a bubble — clearing out the people who confused a speculative spike for a permanent reality.
The brands themselves are fine. The “Big Four” — Rolex, AP, Patek, Richard Mille — plus Cartier are now capturing more than half the entire market. The strength has concentrated. The froth has drained. That is not a crash. That is a correction back to fundamentals.
The Watchfinder view
The headlines this year are all about retail price increases. The story underneath the headlines is that this is the most rational, buyer-friendly market we have had since before the pandemic. If you have been waiting for the noise to die down before you buy your first serious watch — it has died down. Now is the time to buy the real thing, at a real price, from someone who will tell you the truth about what it's worth.
Thinking about a steel sports Rolex or a first serious piece while the market is rational? Come by the Yorkville showroom or message me through the Watch Club Canada community. Every watch we sell is authenticated through and I'll give you a straight answer on what something is actually worth before you buy it.
Sean Sherzady is the founder of Watchfinder Canada and a thirty-year veteran of the watch industry. He authenticates at CheckMyWatch.com and curates Sean's List, the dealer-driven Canadian watch marketplace launching this year.