Every AP x Swatch ‘Royal Pop’ ranked by resale value

The collaboration watches have been selling very quickly, at high prices, on the second hand market

By Scarlett Baker

Published: May 19, 2026

THE LAUNCH OF A watch rarely causes crowd control issues. But Royal Pop – Swatch’s colourful collaboration with Audemars Piguet – turned shopping streets over the weekend into scenes usually reserved for sneaker drops and Black Friday sales. Queues snaked around city blocks. Fold-out chairs lined pavements overnight, all operating under the same understanding established during the MoonSwatch mania a few years ago: love it or hate it, if you want one at retail, you have to earn your place in line.

The collaboration has been ambushed with attention far beyond watch lovers. Such fixation led to store closures across the globe on 16th May (the official launch) drawing criticism from watch enthusiasts, dismayed by the chaos unfolding outside boutiques. But the message is obvious, whether you’re flipping or fervently longing to tie this lanyard timekeeper around your neck, everyone wants a Royal Oak (of sorts) to call their own right now.

With purchases capped at one watch per person, per store, per day, hopeful buyers have already turned to eBay, Chrono24 and StockX (whether they’re legit or not is the price you pay to queue jump) in search of their future octagonal companion. And with eight colourways in circulation – scarcity making fans far less picky than usual – the question quickly becomes less about getting one, and more about which Royal Pop has emerged as the launch’s standout favourite.

Earning the top spot, the ‘Lan Ba’ Royal Pop sits as the favourable ticker to get your hands on at present according to StockX findings (Lan Ba – Mandarin for “Blue Eight” – follows the collection’s naming convention, which pairs each colourway with the number eight in a different language).

Just one of two models in the line-up that feature a small seconds subdial, designed as a Savonette-style pocket watch, where the crown sits at 3 o’clock, its two-tone blue colourway positions it as one of the more understated offerings (I can personally attest that this colourway goes perfectly attached to your jean belt loop for the full three-tone blues.) It’s subtlety might just be the reason as to why it’s flying off StockX for $2,377 right now, flogging for over four times the retail amount of $657 for savonette, and $630 for Lepine (crown at 12 o’clock) variants.

The second in command is the Huit Blanc Royal Pop, a monochrome study in white across case, dial and crown, punctuated by multicoloured indices and screws. Trading online at around $2,220, it’s become a quiet favourite for its clean execution – although it arguably deserves even more attention given how unusual it is within the line-up. The colour-pop screws, a nod to the Royal Oak’s signature detailing, are generated from a pool of roughly three million possible combinations, each assigned at random. In other words, it’s the only ticker in the collection that *technically* exists as a piece unique. Bragging rights included in the fee.

The Ocho Negro, a bold black and white iteration is lining up to be the next contender, surging for 3.8x retail at $2,116 followed by the Otg Roz at $1,938 that leans into the wider Pop Art theme of the collaboration. Real ones will know that it’s a homage in hue to Warhol’s infamous ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ (1964), one of his most iconic silkscreens in history with an accented Monroe with yellow hair and sage-blue eyeshadow.

The pastoral shades of the Green Eight rank this as the fifth most-wanted model from the Royal Pop wave, followed by the high-contrast dark blue and orange Orenji Hachi and the pastel mint of the Blaue Acht. Least favourable so far – but lets face it, that hardly means anything right now when people are clawing at shop windows and scalping like crazy on the grey market to get their hands on just one – is the strawberry cheesecake shades of the Otto Rosso, still, may we add, trading at 2.6x over retail for $1,464.

Whichever your flavour, it’s a game of being patient right now if you want to keep your coins set to retail prices (Swatch have confirmed this is presently not limited in production or timing). But if you want the clout right now and you’re leaning hot into the hype, then slapping down a few stacks might just be your answer. Given the fanfare and frenzy, which is only in its beginning considering that some stores haven’t even been able to open up to the public yet, it’s less about choosing your Royal Pop, and more about accepting whichever one chooses you.

This article originally appeared in Esquire UK.

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