Are Tudor Watches a Good Investment?

As a major watch geek and the CEO of Everest, I get asked this question a lot: “Which watch should I invest my money in?” My answer has always been jokingly: “A Rolex Daytona or a Patek Philippe Nautilus purchased at retail!”  I say this jokingly because it is nearly impossible to get either one of these watches at retail. This leads me to answer a more refined question: “Are Tudor watches a good investment?”

I think to better understand this question we have to look at the “why” and the “who” is asking this question. But to blatantly let the cat out of the bag….all watches solely for the purpose of investment are not good investments. They normally do not increase in value and for the most part, if you enjoy them they loose value quickly. It is a lot like looking at buying a sports car, if you are in the business of selling sports cars - you may be very successful at investing in that item as a product. However, if you are just a guy who wants a Porsche, buy the Porsche and love it. Don’t worry about the resale value because if you get pleasure out of driving it then you will have gotten a fantastic return on your money.

The same goes for the current lineup of Tudor watches. Maybe on the harder to find ones, such as the Black Bay 58 or the Black Bay GMT you could make a few hundred bucks flipping it. However, if you wear it you will definitely be losing value on that watch.  Also, the time invested in finding a Tudor Black Bay 58, at retail, sold to you by a dealer is maybe worth minimum wage at best. If you were to look into vintage Tudor watches, you would more than likely be able to make a few dollars trading them. But the vintage watch market is filled with Frankenstein watches and fakes. This is best left to the professionals who you are paying the premium to, and better to stick with your day job. From an arbitrage scenario, watches are not really the best investment, and the same goes for Tudor watches.

One thing that you should know about Tudor watches is that they are incredibly awesome (but you already know this). They are built by Rolex, so the quality of the timepiece is amazing! From a daily use side you are going to enjoy the heck out of the watch. The time spent admiring your Tudor and telling the story of how you were able to acquire it will be well worth what you paid. Tudor watches need very little service and are incredibly unlikely to break. Overall, this watch will rock. From a second hand market perspective, you wont lose your shirt on a trade or sale.

To follow up on the question that we originally asked: “Are Tudor watches a good investment?” The answer is: if you are looking to enjoy the watch - YES. If you are looking for a financial return on the watch purely from a financial standpoint - most likely NO. Then again no one thought 60 years ago to buy a Rolex GMT Master ref: 1675 as an investment, but now that watch has returned a 10,000% price increase. Maybe, just maybe your Tudor Heritage Chrono will be worth much more in the future, but in the meantime enjoy it now with a little wrist time.