The 1916 Company, a grouping of Rolex Authorized Dealers and the giant pre-owned specialist WatchBox, is continuing to shake-up the nascent Rolex Certified Pre-Owned market with dramatically lower prices than its rivals.
Rolex CPO was introduced in 2022 as a programme that set a new standard for how its second-hand watches would be bought, serviced, authenticated and sold from within its authorized dealer and accredited service center network.
The first official retailers to join the programme were Rolex-owned Bucherer in Europe and the United States, followed by Watches of Switzerland Group in the UK and America.
Both groups started trading in the used watches and charged a premium over average unauthorized dealer prices for the same references of 35-40%.
That premium is justified, they argue, by the peerless standards of the authentication, servicing and repair process that each watch is subjected to before going back on sale — online or at a Rolex retailer — with a new two-year manufacturer-backed guarantee.
The 1916 Company, which joined the RCPO programme in November, 2023, agrees that Rolex has raised the bar with the quality and reassurance of its initiative, but believes the premiums being advertised by its competitors are not sustainable.
“We have continued to put our time and resources into becoming the leader in Rolex CPO, and have taken some criticism for the approach we have taken to pricing. We decided early on that we would try to minimize the difference in prices between certified and non-certified Rolex pre-owned and focus on the quality difference that the programme delivers,” says John Shmerler, CEO of The 1916 Company.
In contrast to new watch sales, Rolex’s retailers are free to set their own prices for pre-owned watches, and the differences between The 1916 Company, Bucherer and Watches of Switzerland Group are striking.
In a new report from Morgan Stanley, using data from WatchCharts, the advertised prices for Rolex CPO watches are compared against prevailing prices on the unregulated market.
In Europe, Bucherer charges a premium of 42% for Rolex CPO watches over dealers offering the same watches on the secondary market. This is roughly the same as Watches of Switzerland in the UK, which has a 41% premium.
In the United States, Tourneau was a strong player in pre-owned watches before it was acquired by Bucherer, and charges a much lower 23% premium than its European master.
Watches of Switzerland is also slightly cheaper in the US than the UK, with a 35.3% premium Stateside.
But The 1916 Company undercuts them all, with a premium of just 16% over the unregulated market.
The trick, according to Mr Shmerler, is in the scale, sophistication and speed of its service center.
“The lynchpin to all of this is being able to service watches efficiently,” he tells WatchPro. “Where we gambled, and got it right, was investing an enormous amount of resources into building a service center that allows us to shorten the timeframe from the moment we buy a watch from a consumer to getting it certified by Rolex. If that cycle is taking the average retailer 10-12 weeks and we are doing it closer to 6-7 weeks, that is a huge competitive advantage,” he reveals.
Morgan Stanley’s report calculates that Rolex-owned Bucherer currently has the largest inventory of Rolex CPO watches in the world, with 1,732 on sale in Europe and 615 in the US. Watches of Switzerland Group is second with 1,447 pieces advertised across the UK and USA.
The 1916 Company has 903 watches listed, according to Morgan Stanley, but Mr Shmerler says there are almost double that number being worked on.
“As of today, we have around 900 Rolex CPO watches for sale and close to another 1,000 in the pipeline,” he describes.
The 1916 Company’s aim is to get to around 2,500 watches on sale or being prepared for sale. “That gives us the broadest selection,” Mr Shmerler says.
All the bestsellers will be available at 1916, but it specializes in harder-to-find pieces that appeal to collectors.
“We are focusing on models where the certification really matters. That could be vintage watches or low-production pieces like gem-set Daytonas where customers can buy from us with total confidence that everything about the watches is right,” Mr Shmerler promises.
In revenue terms, he believes the company will be turning over between $110 million and $120 million in Certified Pre-Owned Rolex watches at an average price of $20,000.
“Selling in the region of 5,500 to 6,000 watches in 2026 is very doable for us. I do not know of any other retailer globally that is trying to do it on this scale,” Mr Shmerler concludes.