Why now is the best time to buy a Rolex Submariner under retail
There's never been a better time for fans of the iconic crown
By 
EVER SINCE the Great Covid Watch Boom of the early 2020s, buying a Rolex Submariner generally meant paying more on the secondary market than you would at an authorised dealer. In some cases, way more.
That was the premium you paid for getting your hands on one of the world’s most desirable watches without joining a waiting list.
But according to new WatchCharts data, that’s no longer necessarily true.
The current Submariner Date ref. 126610LN is now trading at around $16,00 against a retail price of $18,950 – almost $3000 “discount” for a watch you can pick up immediately, no wait list involved. The no-date Submariner ref. 124060, meanwhile, changes hands for roughly $14,671 against a retail price of $16,850
Those numbers are put into sharp contrast when you look elsewhere in the Rolex catalogue.
A steel Daytona currently trades for around $43,634 against a retail price of $28,200 while the recently discontinued GMT-Master II “Pepsi” is going for silly money.
To be fair, certain Submariners do too. The Kermit ref. 16610LV, for example, currently changes hands for a frankly eye-watering $18,673, double the $9000 it was offered for new.
Introduced in 1953, the trusty Sub has become the default luxury sports watch. The Daytona may have the motor-racing lineage and the GMT-Master the groovy Pan-Am associations, but the Submariner is the one that escaped the watch world and entered popular culture, as seen on the wrists of Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Tom Hardy, David Beckham and plenty more besides.
That popularity is precisely why these prices are something to take notice of.
For much of the past decade the cheapest way to buy a Submariner was through an authorised dealer, assuming you could get one. The secondary market existed for people who wanted to jump the queue and were prepared to get taxed for the privilege.
And, for sure, collectors will continue to chase Kermits, Hulks, and the many other rarities in The Crown’s catalogue.
But if what you’ve always wanted is a straightforward black-dial Submariner, the market is currently offering something you don’t see every day: a discount.
Turns out all Submariners are not the same.
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