ARE PANERAI WATCHES A GOOD INVESTMENT?

Choosing watches as a source of financial gains has its own risks despite many seeing huge returns on their watches during the pandemic of Covid-19. Typically, unless you have a relatively rare watch from Rolex, Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet you won’t be seeing returns that beat those seen in stock market funds or real estate. Now of course, the biggest difference between all those markets and watches is being able to enjoy the watch you’ve always wanted. Being able to enjoy a watch and knowing you will either get some money back or not lose any is a fantastic way to enjoy a watch without needing to worry that you have just lost all that money, because if you haven’t, you can get back out. Panerai watches are those that many dream of owning and wearing proudly on their wrists so today we’re looking into the investment potential of Panerai watches to help you take this into consideration. Please always remember though, first and foremost always buy what you like!

Panerai

You must first understand what factors drive the second-hand price of a Panerai up on the grey market and that usually has everything to do with the classic economics model, the supply and demand relationship. This is what will largely determine how much you can make profit wise on certain Panerai watches, however Panerai is very good at matching their demand with the supply. Take the classic Panerai Luminor Marina, thousands of people want them and Panerai can supply everyone with one. Unlike brands where millions of people want one but only a few thousand of them are made each year leading to a waiting list forming, Panerai does not really have this. Therefore, if you look at the Chrono24 data, you can see clearly that, like purchasing a brand new car, there is almost an instant depreciation of around 10 to 15 percent before it stabilises. You can see, much like all other watches, post the pandemic we can see the watch market stabilise at a lower band and your Classic Panerai would be worth around 4000 USD today.

Of course, this will also depend on condition, the chart above was created from data on Chrono24 and with the parameters indicating heavy wear and tear, that would be the lowest you could expect to be returned for your Panerai Luminor Marina. 


However, had you looked after the watch more, worn it less or even wore it on a ZEALANDE rubber strap for Panerai, you could have preserved the original condition. 


This would see your same Panerai valued at around 2000 USD more to 6000 USD which is quite a significant difference. This means from a retail price of around 9000 USD 5 years ago you would have just lost a third of the value yet you got to enjoy the watch for 5 years. 


Another way to look at it is if you bought a Panerai and intended on selling it in 5 years time, the actual cost of ownership would be 3000 USD all things considered. Given you got to wear a watch that now costs around 12,000 USD you really cannot complain about the cost of ownership over half a decade. 

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Now, the other way to see a potential positive investment on your Panerai would be to buy it second-hand on the grey market at a cheaper discounted price. 


Assuming you could negotiate an extra bit of a discount, you could then potentially own it for a few years and sell it for almost exactly what you paid for it. 


Not to crush your happiness with being able to wear the watch for “free”, Inflation would be the only factor that has devalued your money since over a few years what you paid for it would no longer be the same in the future. 


However, this is a relatively negligible cost to pay attention to as the cost of ownership would work out to be a few hundred dollars. 

This should also be a highlight to show you that whilst you can minimise the financial hit you can incur when buying and selling watches, it is very difficult to actually turn a profit on a Panerai watch. But this is quite normal, take most cars or watches for example, the only time you can make a profit is when you buy it with a fantastic discount and then go straight to resell it for more. Otherwise, once you have used the watch/car, scratches, wear and turn and a service looming around the corner all factor into the item being deprecated. 

Source : Hodinkee

Whilst Panerai watches tend not to go up in value over time, that doesn’t mean that once you buy one it is now worth 0 USD, because this is not the case. You can always sell it at a loss, but how much of a loss becomes the question and when you see that over half a decade you lose a few thousand USD on a watch that retail for over 10 thousand USD, you really cannot complain.

And there you have it, perhaps not the outcome you would like to have read but it is important we inform you of the truth using the most accurate data available to us in August 2024. At ZEALANDE we specialise in creating beautiful and durable rubber straps for watches like Panerai to help you preserve the original strap whilst enjoying your watch on a comfy and colourful unique strap to help keep your watches value as close to what you paid for it. Always buy what you love and will enjoy wearing for the longest time because this will be the watch you make all your memories with which will make the watch worth more to sentimental wise to always buy what you love first and foremost! So, head over to ZEALANDE and choose yourself the perfect high-quality rubber strap design to fit and complement your beautiful Panerai watch so you can wear it without worrying about damage.

— James Talbot