Were Rolexes really more affordable in the good old days?

[mrarchiegoodwin]

Kinda long post here. Sorry about that.

I have tried to look this up and hope it exists, but don't know enough about the WIS world to figure out where to look. Can TRF participants point me in the direction of a history of prices for Rolex watches? I would like to plot a graph of Rolex prices compared to other indices such as the price of a dozen eggs or Ford sedan in the US.

I bring this up because I have been reading comments on TRF about how Rolexes are expensive now. I have been away from watches for 6 or 7 years so I did not know prices had climbed much more than usual. But they do seem a bit high even to someone who has not been following closely.

When I was a child my father told me his insurance policy paid him more for his burgled watches than he had paid for them new. He was incredulous that used watches would fetch so much. One was a gold Rolex President for which he was paid $1800, but he bought it new for only $800. One was a Patek World Traveler for which he was paid $2000, but he bought it new for only $1200.

When he bought the watches a public school teacher's salary where we lived in California was under $2500 per year. When the watches were stolen a public school teacher's salary was around $4000 per year. An aunt was a public school teacher so I knew about that salary in particular over that time period.

Now the public school teacher's salary is $72,000 per year. I am guessing that a gold Rolex Date Just (if that is the current equivalent of the President) costs almost as much as a full year's salary. That would make it almost 3 times as expensive (relative to a teacher's salary) as when my father bought his.

On the other hand I recall he bought a new Ferrari 250GT convertible for $12,000 then. I do not know the equivalent model now, but guess that it could cost around the same 4.5x a teacher's salary. Does that mean Rolex prices have increased a lot more than Ferrari prices?

Sure wish I could chart the history of prices to share with everybody.