SDC Weekly 65; Watch Allocation; Journalling; Market Swings
SDC Weekly 65; Watch Allocation; Journalling; Market Swings
Rolex's Blockchain Dreams, Favre Leuba's Revival, Watch Auctions, The Strong Swiss Franc, Nuclear Clock Breakthrough, Public Discourse & Criticism and much more.
🚨 Welcome to another edition of SDC Weekly. Estimated reading time: ~40 mins
This week, we explore new Rolex patents, revisit the history of Favre Leuba, and ponder the complexities of watch allocation. We’ll also discuss the importance of keeping a handwritten watch journal, examine market cycles in the watch world, and link to all sorts of stuff from Apple’s latest event to Michael Jordan’s mansion. There’s also an important note to paid subscribers at the end, please read it.
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🎈 Small stuff
Rolex Patents
Rolex filed a few patents last week. The main ones for a new forearm support system on a watchmaker’s bench, and a new asset management system. (Links weren’t working, so I attached them below)
That final patent is particularly interesting, and could have far reaching applications in the watch world. The proposed system would essentially give each Rolex its own digital identity stored on a distributed ledger.
Why would Rolex want to do this? Well, imagine you’ve just inherited Great-Uncle Paddy’s prized Daytona. How do you know it’s genuine, and not some knockoff he picked up on a boozy trip to Bangkok? Under the current system, you’d have to traipse down to a Rolex service centre, hat in hand, and hope they will inadvertently authenticate it without mistaking you for a common watch counterfeiter. With this new system, you could simply look up the entire history of your watch on the blockchain. It would be there in black and white: every service, every change of ownership, perhaps even every time Great-Uncle Paddy wore it to the Royal Ascot.
It doesn’t stop there. They’ve envisioned a whole ecosystem built around this digital watch identity. Want to sell your Rolex? No need to faff about with eBay and risk some nefarious rat claiming you sent them an empty box. Instead, you list it on Rolex’s own marketplace which will certify its authenticity.
Rolex isn’t just thinking about buying and selling. They’re imagining a world where your watch could be your collateral. Need a quick loan to cover an unexpected bill from your polo pony’s veterinarian? Simply put up your Rolex as collateral! The system would allow lenders to verify the authenticity and value of a watch, and even place a lien on it.
Of course, this system would require an army of experts to authenticate watches initially if they want to enable this on older watches - but guess what, they have the CPO programme for that!
How might this affect the current state of affairs? For one, it could spell the end of the fake Rolex market. After all, if every genuine Rolex has a blockchain-verified identity, spotting a fake becomes as easy as checking your phone.
It could also dramatically change the secondary market for luxury watches. No longer would buyers have to rely on the reputation of sellers or the expertise of auction houses; all history would be there for anyone to see. Did it once belong to a famous celebrity? Was it worn during a space mission? Did it spend most of its life in a safe, only emerging for the occasional wedding or funeral? All of this could affect the value of a watch, and it would all be right there on the blockchain. Okay, maybe not all of that!
Oh yes, let’s not forget the potential for Rolex to gather data. They would know exactly how many of their watches are in circulation, how often they’re traded, by whom, to whom, and maybe even allow for the inclusion of price data too.
Is this a good thing? Mostly, but not entirely. For one, it rather takes the mystery out of things, doesn’t it? Part of the charm of a vintage watch is imagining its history. Knowing that your Submariner spent most of the 1980s in a drawer in Croydon might somewhat dampen its allure. Oh, and what about privacy? Does one really want the world to know that they pawned a Rolex to cover some bad bets at Ascot?
In our world, every watch has a story; now it might not be written in the scratches on its case or the patina of its dial, but in the cold, hard data of a blockchain. I wonder what Hans Wilsdorf would make of all this. He’d probably view it with a mixture of amazement and bemusement, like a Victorian gentleman being handed an iPhone. That said, Wilsdorf was an innovator in his time, so perhaps he’d see this as the natural evolution of his life’s work… watches that tell time, but also have stories of their own embedded within.
