Pre-Owned Luxury Becomes First Choice as Vintage Watch Demand Jumps 432%

Price charts for Submariners and Nautiluses have dominated watch headlines since 2020. According to WatchPro’s reading of The RealReal’s 2026 Resale Report, that focus misses a larger shift: for a growing share of buyers, pre-owned is no longer a discount channel. It is the preferred way to shop luxury.

The platform listed 21,396 watches at the time of the report. The RealReal says the secondary luxury market is growing two to three times faster than the primary market. Ninety-three percent of Americans now shop online for secondhand goods, and 47% actively consider an item’s future resale value before buying it new. More than half of The RealReal’s customer base is Gen Z and Millennials, cohorts the company says treat “pre-loved luxury” as a first choice.

Vintage Is Not Just “Old”

According to WatchPro, demand for vintage across The RealReal’s platform rose 432% between 2020 and 2026. Saved searches that name a particular decade increased 135% in the past year. The company defines vintage as items at least 15 years old that also carry fashion-historical or cultural weight—not merely age.

That definition maps onto watches. Collectors have moved past the 1960s Daytona-and-Submariner canon into the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. On The RealReal, the 1990s still generate the highest vintage search volume, but 2000s searches rose 93% year-on-year versus 65% for the 1990s.

Search Behaviour Looks Like Watch Collecting

Shoppers are hunting by designer, collection, season and even runway look, then setting alerts. Watch collectors have done this for years with reference numbers, dial variants, metals and bracelet codes. The report argues that this forensic habit is spreading into mainstream luxury.

That raises the floor for dealers. Inventory size and the lowest ask are no longer enough. Cataloguing, provenance, condition notes, original accessories and reference-level knowledge become table stakes. The same discipline applies when a builder later sells a custom piece: documentation of parts, movement and water-resistance testing is what a buyer can verify. See how to sell a Seiko mod and the quality signals in the AliExpress parts quality guide.

Value still matters, but not as pure speculation. The report’s handbag examples show how uneven residual value can be: a Fendi Baguette’s average selling price rose from $294 to $3,012 since 2016, while a Gucci Jackie roughly tripled from $360 to $1,100. Other once-fashionable bags fell. Swap bag names for watch references and the pattern is familiar. Brands with weak retention feel it first in the primary market.

Rati Levesque, president and CEO of The RealReal, said customers are investing time as well as money to find pieces that match individual style, with growing appetite for objects that have history. A mechanical watch’s reference does not reset with next season’s collection. That is why the structural shift toward resale survived the 2021–2022 speculative peak and the correction that followed.

FAQ

Does the report say Rolex prices are rising again?
No. According to WatchPro, the point of the 2026 Resale Report is behavioural: buyers treat used luxury as a first option and price residual value before they buy new.

What counts as vintage here?
The RealReal: at least 15 years old, plus fashion-historical, cultural or stylistic relevance—not age alone.

Why does this matter for new-watch brands?
Poor value retention now shows up immediately in the secondary market, and that data is visible to nearly half of new buyers before they purchase.

According to WatchPro, resale is no longer where yesterday’s watches go to die. It is increasingly where collectors start.