How Many Rolexes Exist?

[mrfreaz]

Here's my best guess of how many Rolexes might be on the used market... I think it is reasonable to believe that there may be about as many as a year's new production, or around 1 million pieces at any given time. That would be about 4% of my estimated 25 Million total pieces in circulation, out of about 40 Million ever produced.

In order to get an idea of the age distribution, I used the Ebay listings with the production years listed for the USA as shown on the blue line. Then I multiplied by 40 to approximate the world wide total as shown on the Blue line. The median year is 1997-- about half were made before that and half after. The peak is 2000. The largest decade is 1993 to 2003 as highlighted, which represents about a third of the total.

[UltraVires]

Interesting analysis - however I would suggest that the rate of watches existing you have used is too low. Agree that a lower rate of watches pre 1970 would still be in functioning condition, but I wonder how many would actually have been effectively destroyed.

However, I would accept 15 million being effectively out of circulation permanently - as in, sitting in the back of a draw or a safe somewhere, unlikely to see the light of day in the next 10 years. Or, in the case of very old precious metal watches, already disassembled and melted down.

[GradyPhilpott]

We have to take into account Peter's Rolex that's at the bottom of the Red Sea, probably still running or maybe waiting on some nudge by something to get it going.

[padi56]

Originally Posted by GradyPhilpott

We have to take into account Peter's Rolex that's at the bottom of the Red Sea, probably still running or maybe waiting on some nudge by something to get it going.

Well one things for sure no man or even superman would find it by diveing in water,off the reef depth goes down to over 1000m.

[mrfreaz]

Originally Posted by UltraVires

Interesting analysis - however I would suggest that the rate of watches existing you have used is too low. Agree that a lower rate of watches pre 1970 would still be in functioning condition, but I wonder how many would actually have been effectively destroyed.

However, I would accept 15 million being effectively out of circulation permanently - as in, sitting in the back of a draw or a safe somewhere, unlikely to see the light of day in the next 10 years. Or, in the case of very old precious metal watches, already disassembled and melted down.

Yeah, how many are still in circulation is the biggest wild card. I did try to weight it from about 25% of pre-1970 watches still around, to about 50% overall for all pre-1990 watches. After that, production ramped up a lot and fully half of all Rolexes were made after 2000!. To your point, since probably most of the watches made in the past 20 years are still around, this is going to greatly offset all the older ones lost. So, I may have underestimated the total supply.

I’m more certain of the overall production volumes, since the serial number charts are pretty straightforward until around 1990 when they added the letter prefixes and started resetting them every year. Then in 2010 they went to random numbers. But, we know the analyst estimates are around 500K in the 1990s rising to 1 million yearly in recent years.

For my age distribution, I used a sample size of 27,000 USA seller watches on Ebay. But there are more like 37K total watches for sale with about 10% of those listed as “New.” Chrono 24 might be more representative with 88K watches for sale from dealers around the world, with fully 25K of those listed as new/unworn. So Ebay and Chrono 24 combined have around 100K pre-owned Rolexes for sale. So that much is known!

[russ86]

Wow thanks for bringing this up, I was wondering about this for a while

[Chewbacca]

Let me check my drawer.

[zengineer]

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link and that 40 multiplier was pulled out of thin air. And seriously?...Ebay?

But let's say we somehow knew the actual answer...now what?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[TunaTuna]

Originally Posted by mrfreaz

Here's my best guess of how many Rolexes might be on the used market... I think it is reasonable to believe that there may be about as many as a year's new production, or around 1 million pieces at any given time. That would be about 4% of my estimated 25 Million total pieces in circulation, out of about 40 Million ever produced.

In order to get an idea of the age distribution, I used the Ebay listings with the production years listed for the USA as shown on the blue line. Then I multiplied by 40 to approximate the world wide total as shown on the Blue line. The median year is 1997-- about half were made before that and half after. The peak is 2000. The largest decade is 1993 to 2003 as highlighted, which represents about a third of the total.

Pretty sure the plural of Rolex isn't Rolexes, it's Rolei

[77T]

Originally Posted by TunaTuna

Pretty sure the plural of Rolex isn't Rolexes, it's Rolei

I’ll go with the Britanica…




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[7enderbender]

Originally Posted by 77T

I’ll go with the Britanica…




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I’m dead set on Rolices as in Index - Indices. Prove me wrong.

[77T]

Like counting all the stars in the sky - what’s the purpose? Precise knowledge doesn’t change anything unless you’re a SpaceMiner.

Total Addressable Market is a monetary value that represents all of the selling opportunities whether by direct or indirect channels. The Installed Base is meaningless without unit value.

≈TenMillions of Rolex Units likely means ≈$100Billion in value.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[77T]

Originally Posted by 7enderbender

I’m dead set on Rolices as in Index - Indices. Prove me wrong.

I like your thought...
Prove me right


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[DBCooper07]

i'm color blind, charts hurt my heart. :(

[Tbird]

It is a nice original question, I like it. It looks like we're a small group in the (western) world population. These numbers go to say that having a Rolex is still something special and simply not possible for lots of people and something to think about when you check the time :-)

[RyanJ]

Having a Rolex is no more special than owning any other item in the same price category. I mean depending on how you got the watch or other possession could have special meaning (gift, inheritance, reward, etc.).

For many years you could buy most Rolex models at 20%-30% discounts. During those many years Rolex was one of the cheapest options for a truly nice watch with the brand cache of Rolex.

[brandrea]

Why do graphs make my head hurt?

[Ferrari308]

I absolutely love the types of analyses.

I think an interesting analysis would be the correlation between the value of a used Rolex against the stock market over the last 40 years or so - the last 20 would be incredibly interesting and perhaps useful.


PDG

[Mendota]

Originally Posted by Ferrari308

I absolutely love the types of analyses.

I think an interesting analysis would be the correlation between the value of a used Rolex against the stock market over the last 40 years or so - the last 20 would be incredibly interesting and perhaps useful.


PDG

This was done a few years ago before the madness ensued. The authors analyzed submariners from the 1960s all the way through the mid 2010s and during this time the value of a used sub, dollar for dollar, simply kept up with the rate of inflation. No more and no less. So the purchaser who bought one new was able to walk away and sell to essentially get their money back after inflation and the value of a dollar was considered. Not in nominal terms but in actual purchasing power of those dollars.

[Stud Screw]

As the great Carl Sagan used to say, "Billions and billions!"

[Marcjvr]

I know of at least 2 for sure