Second-hand 2025-2026: prices are rising, depending on who is counting

No official body publishes a price for used watches. What we call the second-hand market is a sum of private gauges, nearly all with something to sell. It is worth knowing who is who before looking at a single figure.

Who measures what

2025: the floor and the rebound

According to a Hilco report on WatchCharts data, the average price of a used Rolex rose from about $7,185 before the pandemic to nearly $17,206 in March 2022, and the market bottomed out between late 2024 and early 2025. The Subdial index gained 8% in 2025 and closed December at highs since October 2023.

Part of that improvement comes not from enthusiasm but from new prices: WatchCharts calculated that Patek Philippe raised its US prices by 22.4% during 2025, amid the tariff battle. When new gets dearer, used has more room. This explanation is our reading, not a measured fact.

2026: far more money moving

EveryWatch estimates that $10.5 billion of watches sold in the first half, up 37.2%, with 795,000 units and a median price of $5,900, while median time to sell rose to 43 days. It is a third party's estimate and the largest figure in this article; also the one we could verify least. What does fit other signals is the rise in time to sell: Bezel boasts of its largest inventory, over a billion dollars in active listings, and the Morgan Stanley report speaks of record Rolex resale inventory, a subject Forbes put in its headline in October. More watches on sale and more days to sell them is not a euphoric market.

The same quarter, three verdicts

Between July and September 2026, WatchCharts saw Rolex rise 0.5%, Chrono24 saw it fall 0.2% and Bob's Watches, with its own sales, recorded an average price 1.4% higher than the previous quarter. None is lying. They measure different baskets, and Bob's is not even an index, because it changes with what sells each month.

Who is winning now: not the usual one

The general ChronoPulse is up 7.5% over twelve months, to 1,471 points, with four consecutive quarters of gains. The split matters more than the average: high-priced houses are pulling and Rolex lags behind, something WatchCharts also confirms with 28 of 35 brands up in the quarter. Hublot is the only one tracked by Chrono24 that fell over twelve months.

That chart sums up the period: 55% above 2019 and 23.5% below the peak, the latter our calculation from Chrono24's points. And Rolex is losing weight without losing value: its share of the money moving on Chrono24 fell from 44.1% in early 2022 to 30.5%. That does not mean it sells less, because the rest of the market is growing too.

Some cases go their own way. The steel GMT-Master II "Pepsi" rose 23% in a year, to about $25,893, after being dropped from the catalogue. An average never warns of that.

What to conclude

Three facts seem firm: prices have been rising for several quarters, remain far from 2022 and the rise is slowing. Editorial opinion: anyone who talks to you about "the market price" should first tell you which basket they use, who maintains it and what that person sells.