Quote:
Originally Posted by m j b
Yesterday I stopped by my AD to thank him personally for something, and natch our discussion goes to the Rolex market. This is a small AD in my town, independently (locally) owned, one store. It is a fairly upscale town (at least for NC) so they have a good business in custom jewelry and IIRC the only watch brand they carry is Rolex, although they have now delved into the used market (all brands) because of the shortage of new stock.
The manager there, who I generally deal with, has been there 15 years. He said that in the current calendar year, almost 6 months, he has personally sold more new PM Rolex watches than he had previously sold in his entire 15 year career there. I believe, although he didn't confirm, that that ratio holds true for the store's entire sales.
My takeaway from this is that Rolex has no incentive to increase SS production or allocations, when they are making up a lot of sales with PM product, which naturally has a much higher margin.
He also expressed frustration with the number of phone calls that he gets every day, asking about watches that he can't sell, and mentioned that right now his DaytonaC waiting list is about 54 years. I don't know where I fall in that list, but I suspect that my children may be able to inherit my spot.
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In a hypothetical universe where 'the list' is run on a first come first served basis, 54 years is very believable.
If you consider that the average AD is lucky if they receive one steel Daytona per month, the waiting time would quickly exceed many customer's remaining years.