Rolex Datejust: Beginner's Guide A Complete Newbie Goes Vintage Shopping

Beginner’s Guide A Complete Newbie Goes Vintage Shopping

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Look, I know I am taking a long time to get around to the old point here, but watch stories can be like this – not just about the watch you end up getting but about the watches you didn’t get on the way. Isn’t that funny? I am, as I have done before, tempted to compare it to boyfriends. Each one can seem like a reaction to the last one: You wanted someone funny, and they were funny, maybe a bit too much the center of attention, so you picked someone serious, but he was a bore, so then you decided not to think about it too much and instead didn’t think about it at all and found yourself saddled with a complete buffoon.

$18 million fraud costs Florida man a Rolls, Rolex and more: see the list

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A Florida man at the center of a pair of health care fraud conspiracies must surrender his lakefront home, five luxury cars, two Rolex watches, an array of high-end jewelry and more than $11 million, but at least he’ll have a place to sleep when he starts serving the 15-year sentence imposed Wednesday by a federal judge in Tampa.

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U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington sentenced Patsy Truglia, 54, for his role in two consecutive conspiracies to commit health care fraud and for making a false statement in a matter involving a health care benefit program.

In addition to being ordered to pay $18.3 million to the affected government health programs and an insurance company, the court also ordered a $10.1 million money judgment against Truglia and ordered the forfeiture of dozens of assets, all of which “were traceable to the charged criminal conduct,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Truglia’s sentencing followed his Oct. 5, 2021, guilty plea, and his former employee and co-conspirator Ruth Fernandez is slated to be sentenced April 7 on one count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States and false statements related to health care matters, the Miami Herald reported.

“Every defendant in this case shared a common trait — greed,” IRS-Criminal Investigations Special Agent in Charge Brian Payne said in a prepared statement. “The desire for money fueled them to commit crimes against our healthcare system and prey upon those in our society who deserve our highest respect, the elderly and military veterans.”

Truglia’s fraud targeted Medicare and CHAMPVA, a health care program through which the Veterans Affairs shared the cost of health care services and supplies, the Herald reported.

According to the newspaper, Truglia must forfeit the following assets because their acquisition was linked to ill-gotten gains from his telemarketing-based schemes:

$11,146,514.30 from 12 bank accounts

Truglia’s 2018 Ferrari 488 Spider was involved in a crash before it was seized, so prosecutors seized the $304,578.85 insurance payout instead.

2017 Rolls-Royce Wraith

2019 Cadillac Escalade

2019 Lamborghini Urus

2015 Mercedes-Benz CLA

One stainless steel Rolex

One men’s stainless Datejust II Rolex, 41mm

Custom-designed diamond bezel added to a Rolex

Custom-designed diamond dial with diamond numeral markers

One 15-carat white gold diamond bracelet dipped in rose gold

One men’s two-tone custom design Rolex, 18-carat and stainless steel with diamonds

One 14-carat white gold, diamond tennis bracelet

A custom diamond bezel for 41mm stainless Rolex, approximately 7.40 carats

One two-inch rose gold diamond Cuban links necklace

A custom-designed diamond cross with an approximately 6.25-carat diamond

One Franko-designed chain

One women’s 18-carat white gold diamond necklace

Cuban necklace, 241.6 grams and matching bracelet

One 12 1/4 size ring

One 14-carat yellow gold diamond ring

One Rolex Sky Dweller custom-made with emerald cut and round diamonds rose gold, 18-carat

A custom-made 18-carat ladies diamond eternity band, baguettes and round 5 ¼

Diamonds added to the band and side casing of a stainless steel 40 mm Rolex

Two diamond custom made Italian horns with chain, 14 carats

One 14-carat white gold and diamond stud cluster earring

One men’s ring with diamond

Plain hoop earrings

A house and associated property at 10035 Bay Leaf Court, which county records indicate Truglia and his wife bought for $1.2 million on July 11, 2018.

“The sentence imposed today holds this defendant accountable for his prominent role in a reprehensible healthcare fraud scheme involving CHAMPVA and Medicare,” said Special Agent in Charge David Spilker, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, Southeast Field Office.

$16M of fake designer goods seized in Memphis

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP, officers in Memphis led Georgia investigators to a couple’s illegitimate counterfeit goods business and inventory that would’ve been worth $16 million if it was authentic.

In September, CBP in Memphis was alerted to examine two shipments en route from Chihuahua, Mexico to Lawrenceville, GA.

The first shipment seized included:

19 Rolex Submariner Watches

15 Rolex Yacht Master Watches

10 Rolex Sky Dweller Watches

10 Rolex Date Just Watches

3 Rolex Daytona Watches

2 Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watches

5 Chanel Sunglasses

2 Versace Sunglasses

1 Louis Vuitton Duffel Bag.

The second shipment contained 20 Louis Vuitton tote bags. The agency said both shipments combined totaled in $1 million had they been real, according to the agency.

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The items were then turned over to Homeland Security, who continued their investigations with Gwinnett County, which led authorities to locate another 9,000 counterfeit items on Nov. 18, which would’ve totaled at $15.9 million if the items were authentic.

Two people from Lawrenceville, GA were both charged with possession and sale of goods bearing a counterfeit trademark.

They both were released on bond.

2022 Brings Noticeable Rolex Price Increases, Especially On Steel Luxury Watch Models

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A new year in the Gregorian calendar brings many things. We won’t bore you with a cheesy list but cut right to the chase instead: The first days of 2022 introduced considerable and noticeable Rolex price increases, especially on steel luxury watch models. In this article, you will find the retail price increases on the most sought-after Rolex watch collections, along with our commentary.

Relentless inflation, increasing wages, and other costs of manufacturing, pandemic-related extra expenses, and a host of other catalysts have recently been driving prices of just about every consumer product sold in the developed world. Singling out watches, let alone a single watch brand, isn’t exactly fair, but it is necessary. So, let’s begin by saying two things.

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First, given the aforementioned, it really is no surprise that wristwatch retail prices across the board will increase in 2022. Second, we are going with Rolex as an example because, in many ways, it dictates the actions, mood, and strategy of the greater watch industry – even by the admission of other major luxury watch manufacturers. According to Morgan Stanley research, Rolex accounts for one-quarter of the entire Swiss watch industry’s annual turnover, based on an implied retail sales value of CHF 8 billion in 2020. So what you are about to read regarding Rolex is likely to soon happen to the luxury watchmaker of your choice.

Contrary to the practice of most other major luxury watchmakers, Rolex admirably publishes the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of just about every regular production model prominently on the product’s respective page. Excluded from this rule are some of the ultra-high-end precious metal, high-jewelry, and “if you have to ask, you definitely can’t afford it” types of pieces. In a world where a great variety of regular-production Rolex watches are selling for 30-50% over retail, and sometimes a whole lot more, one thing Rolex can’t be blamed for is not making this piece of information available to you. How wrong / desperate / stupid / vulgar (pick one or more) it is to severely overpay for any watch beyond its retail price, we at aBlogtoWatch have authored many articles about, as well as on the supply and distribution issues and global dynamics in demand – including this year’s April’s Fools article where the joke was on Patek Philippe.

A major reason watchmakers need to be careful with hiking prices is that luxury watch pricing is very much a one-way street – where going backward is a very painful and unsustainable experience. Why? Because it is very easy to become a discounted luxury brand where customers quickly grow accustomed to calculating with and expecting an ever greater discount – once you’ve become a discounted brand, with a damaged image and pricing power, reestablishing the practice of systematically selling at retail becomes an extremely costly and often borderline impossible undertaking to accomplish. This is why, in 2018, for example, Cartier has ended a two-year inventory buy-back spree where it has purchased back 500 million Euros worth of stuck Cartier luxury watch inventory, all in an effort to avoid becoming a heavily discounted brand.

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And so, the wiser luxury brands tend to exercise caution when increasing their suggested retail prices – which, mind you, already contain a hefty profit margin. For that to happen, at least one of two things has to be in effect, and to a sustained and heightened extent. For one, costs related to manufacturing, distribution, or marketing have to have climbed considerably, and without the promise of a decrease. Two, there has to be a demand that greatly exceeds supply. There have been luxury brands in every industry that have enjoyed momentary success, empowering them to jump the trigger and raise prices on existing products too fast – or abandon bread-and-butter collections and jump into a price bracket a category or two higher. Making a successful return after the often inevitable falling from the grace of the buying public is an even greater accomplishment than building a successful brand.

In short, there are many mid-to-long-term reasons why exercising great caution when hiking prices on luxury products is the prudent thing to do. And if there is one luxury brand that gives itself all the time in the world, planning for the long-to-very-long-term, free from the pressure of growth- and dividend-hungry investors of any kind — well, that would be Rolex. And so, for Rolex to increase prices, it is safe to say that both those aforementioned factors have to come into play — and come into play they have. It is fair to assume that pandemic-related safety measures, an admitted shortage in capable watchmakers (and all other professionals involved in the designing, manufacturing, finishing, and assembling of a luxury watch), and inter-industry cost increases (affecting suppliers of base materials, tools, etc.) have all taken effect. Furhtermore, Rolex management is, of course, well aware of the immense imbalance between its supply and demand, especially when it comes to its steel — Oystersteel — models such as the Daytona, Submariner, and lately, even the colorful Oyster Perpetual.

This context should help better understand the timing and the extent of Rolex’s 2022 retail price increases, as gathered by aBlogtoWatch in U.S. dollar amounts in the table above. As you can see, steel Rolex watches from the best-selling Daytona and Submariner to the more obscure pieces such as the Milgauss Z-Blue 116400GV — a watch that’s getting rather long in the tooth as we debuted it some 8 years ago, in 2014, here — have all increased by 10-11 percent, as far as their MSRP in USD is concerned.

The MSRP of the Rolex Submariner Date in steel, reference 126610LN, has just stepped over the $10,000 mark.

Increases from 2021 to 2022 prices are just about the same in both British pounds and Euros.

Interestingly, the all-steel Rolex Datejust surged only 6.4 and 3.2 percent in the 36mm and 41mm sizes, respectively. Equally low, relatively speaking, was the price increase on the Oyster Perpetual models, clearly the collection that serves as the point of entry into the Rolex brand. By contrast, gold watches don’t seem to have increased in price by much at all — that increase was formulated a year or so ago, as prices on all-gold watches like the Day-Date increased noticeably not too long ago. Gold prices have climbed from the $1,500-per-ounce range of mid-2019 all the way to above $2,000 in August 2020, and since then, gold prices have more or less settled at around $1,800, without another assault on the $2,000 barrier. As such, the price of the quintessential gold Rolex watch, the Day-Date 36 in 18k yellow gold, has remained unchanged at $33,950 for 2022.

We should stress that Rolex price increases aren’t always timed for the new year; the company has not tied itself to the calendar when executing price corrections. They may occur any time during the year, possibly multiple times within a 12-month period, and affect, as we have seen in this article, different models and collections to a varying extent. Facing such a powerful demand, with customers around the world clearly having both the funds and the willingness to spend more on their next Rolex watch, it is understandable that “the Crown” has deemed it safe to increase the retail price on many of its best-selling steel luxury watches for 2022.

The question, almost rhetorical, is whether a 10% increase will suffice to cool the market a bit. On that, we’ll say that chances are that the “used” and grey market – where a lot of like-new-in-box Rolex watches exchange hands well over their recommended retail price – will easily soak up that difference, at least for the time being. In closing, all we can say is that the aBlogtoWatch team both understands an all-conquering lust to own one specific reference and urges to you act against that and do not spend over retail on any watch.

Stay tuned to aBlogtoWatch for more luxury watch industry-related news and analysis — and in the meantime, let me and the team know in the comments below whether you think this increase will suffice to make a difference. You can browse more watches and pricing on the official Rolex website.

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Rolex continues to deliver the best investment results, new data shows

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Investing in Rolex is hot at the moment and looks set to be for years to come, new data shows.

Bob’s Watches is a leader in the pre-owned watch sector and having been at the forefront of pre-owned Rolex sales for over a decade, it has compiled data from over the past ten years showing just how successful making a Rolex purchase can be.

The traditional means of investment of capital across the world ranges from gold to the stock market to real estate as the traditional means but over the past decade, Rolex raises a few eyebrows.

The Bob’s Watches data shows that when it comes to a flat-out percentage increase, Rolex watches significantly outperformed both gold and real estate.

This is based on inflation-adjusted values for the price of gold provided by macrotrends.net and median sales price data for houses sold in the United States from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database.

Additionally, while the stock market (based on historical Dow Jones Industrial Average values from macrotrends.net) offered similar overall returns over the course of the last decade, Rolex watches offered a noticeably higher appreciation percentage when it comes to the last five years, and this trend only seems to be continuing into 2022.

The findings go on to show that when looking at the actual dollar-value amount (in USD) that prices for pre-owned Rolex watches have increased over the course of the last 10 years, this data becomes even more impressive.

The average price of a used Rolex watch has gone from less than $5,000 in 2011, to more than $13,000 by the end of 2021.

This increase is noteworthy by all standards, but the amount that Rolex prices have gone up since the beginning of the pandemic (2020) is nearly equal to the total price increase that can be observed during the entire previous five-year period, and this trend shows no signs of slowing as we enter the new year.

As per the above, all Rolex models have increased somewhat over the last decade, it is no surprise the likes of the Daytona, Day-Date and Sky-Dweller come out on top and have more than doubled in price during that period.

This opposes the likes of the Air-King and the Date which have shown modest yet steady appreciation.

With that in mind, the Daytona still claims the number one spot for the highest appreciating Rolex model, as it has more than tripled in value during the past 10 years, with an average pre-owned price of more than $30,000 for 2021.

As far as which Rolex watches are the most popular, it is the classic stainless steel Submariner 16610 that is the single best-selling Rolex reference of the last 10 years, with its two-tone steel and gold sibling, the reference 16613 claiming the number two overall spot.

The brand’s various purpose-built sport and tool watches account for 8 of the top 15 best-selling Rolex reference numbers of the past 10 years, including the top three positions.

However, the Lady-Datejust collection surprisingly represents a total of three reference numbers from this top 15 list, including the fourth best-selling Rolex watch of the last 10 years – the stainless steel and 18k yellow Lady-Datejust 69173.

Bob’s Watches concluded in affirming that while there are of course no future guarantees on value appreciation, the historical data provides some interesting considerations.

Investing in various asset classes is a personal choice and there are increasing options available.