Rolex will not serve some of his vintage watches, such as my grandmother

When my grandmother died last year, my mother inherited her Rolex: a delicious watch of women with a distinct and spinning pattern on the gold strip and a circle of small diamonds bordering her round face.

The watch was magnificent – a timeless watch that would not be in its place on a fashion influencer today. It was also a lasting physical reminder of beauty and class as my grandmother, the matriarch of a large Lebanese family, has emerged effortlessly.

But the watch did not work, and when my mother brought it to a Rolex retailer certified for repair, they told him that there was nothing that they could do, and that they did not serve vintage Rolex watches like this.

When she brought him to another jeweler to see if they could repair it, they said they were not convinced that they could and recommend trying elsewhere. They also told him that when this happened, some people simply considered them a bracelet.

Rolex dominates the luxury watches market, industry experts believing that the company produces and sells more than a million watches per year. In 2023, Rolex collected a record of $ 10 billion in sales, according to a report by Morgan Stanley and the Swiss company LuxConsult, representing 30% of the total market share.

Rolex watches are often considered investment parts Or family inheritances, a heavy purchase justified by the idea that they could later sell for much more or be transmitted to future generations. When the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wore a rolex of $ 50,000 during the visit of a maximum security prison in Salvador, a spokesman said that Noem had bought the watch to wear and “one day go to his children”.

Given this reputation, we were surprised that the Rolex retailer said that he could not work on my grandmother’s old watch. Not only that, they also recommended that they did not bring it to an authorized non-Rolex store to repair it.

“If you bring a vintage part to a Rolex service center, it is not uncommon to be repressed,” said Greg Petronzi, a watchmaker and expert in the repair of Vintage Rolex. “It’s really a shame because they are still magnificent watches. They are collecting. They are important.”

Industry experts said Rolex has progressed in service to several of its vintage watches despite their role in its heritage and reputation as a symbol of wealth, innovation and quality.

When I contacted Rolex, a spokesperson directed me to the company policy confirming that all the vintage watches of the brand cannot be maintained.

“Rolex watches are designed and built to last,” said the company, adding, “as a result, there is no limit to the duration of a Rolex Watch watch can continue to work, to be transmitted from one generation to another and to live several lives.”

However, the company also claims that “the availability of parts and work is ensured for each surveillance for at least 35 years after its withdrawal from the catalog”.

This means that if a watch was interrupted over 35 years ago, you might be lucky.

Why is it difficult to serve vintage rolex watches

Eric Wind, a leading expert in vintage watches and owner of Wind Vintage, told me that he was well known in the world of watches that in the last decade, Rolex has removed the service of several of his watches from the 1970s and earlier.

One of the reasons is that they no longer make the necessary parts to repair them, according to Petronzi, which was called “Repailing Guy for Vintage Rolex collectors. “” Consequently, the supply or recreation of the necessary parts can be extremely expensive and long.

For independent stores that make Vintage Rolex services, this often means finding parts on the secondary market that are no longer manufactured, said Petronzi. Even the supply of the necessary tools can be difficult – it recently invested $ 15,000 in a difficult tool to find which it needed to restore the movement in an old watch.

According to Michael Woods, a watchmaid who worked for years as a chief watchmaker with Rolex before becoming independent in 2017, Rolex service centers also have strict standards that they must comply with.

Woods said that if Rolex cannot guarantee that it can meet this standard, which implies making the watch as functional, reliable and safe as possible, they may not accept it.

Rolex does not have his own windows. Instead, he has jewelers and official shops that sell and serve his watches. Woods noted that if Rolex likes to maintain a universal standard in its service centers, there could be a certain variation.

For example, he said that when he worked in a Rolex Service Center in Melbourne, Australia, he still served military submarines or Paul Newman Daytonas even if many service centers in the world had ceased to accept them, deeming him too risky.

Rolex will serve certain vintage models, and the company has a specialized catering workshop in Geneva which will take particularly rare, historic or important parts.

But in general, if you bring an old watch in a Rolex service center, in particular a before the 80s, you could be repressed.

Petronzi said Rolex contrasts with other luxury watch brands that “will serve a watch, regardless of his age, even if it means having to reshuffle a part that no longer exists”.

Patek Philippe, for example, says that he will serve any watch produced in his workshops to return to 1839. Watches aged 35 or over must be maintained in his catering workshop in Geneva.

There are still ways to repair an old rolex

The good news for fans of Vintage Rolex is that independent watchmakers, like Petronzi and Woods, will serve them.

West clocks have noted that, in addition to potentially requiring rare parts, catering also requires highly specialized skills, so that the fixation of vintage rolex can be expensive. In some cases, this could cost more than the value of the watch, they said.

They recommended doing your research to find a deemed watchmaker, preferably someone specializing in vintage Rolex, rather than taking them in a random jeweler. A useful resource is the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute, an American commercial association representing the chronometer industry.

Wind, which was previously vice-president and main specialist in watches for the Christie’s auction house, noted that it was important to consider what matters to you when repairing your watch and clearly communicate to the watchmaker.

Sometimes, when old watches are repaired, watchmakers make changes that can improve their functionality but reduce their value for collectors, who prefer to be preserved from the originality of the watch. For example, this could replace an original part with something new or polishing to remove the patina.

Wind said he had seen a watch that could have been worth $ 1 million, but that after the interview was worth less than $ 30,000, which the owner paid to repair it.

Woods said that when he worked at Rolex, he always encouraged customers to do a lot of research on their watch before having it maintained and making sure they agreed to replace the parts.

Industry experts said Rolex has always been a prospective innovation brand. When he serves his vintage watches, they declared that he favors the creation of the most functional watch possible, which could mean undergoing an old part because the watch itself will work better without it.

They also declared that there were signs that the company adopts its history more than in the past.

Rolex joined forces with the writer Nicholas Foulkes to publish his very first book in October, an authorized story of the Oyster Perpetual Submariner, the emblematic watch of the brand. The company also launched the Rolex certified second hand program in 2022, allowing its official retailers to sell authentic authentic Rolex watches at least three years.

Rolex watches could always be a good investment

Not everyone thinks of buying look at an investment is a good idea. “I don’t like it when people compare watches to stocks. He sends the bad message and is dangerous”, ” Jean-Frédéric DufourRolex CEO, said last year. “We manufacture products, not investments.”

Industry experts to whom I spoke declared that Rolex could still be considered a good investment and an inheritance to pass. These are excellent watches that should stay in good condition, they said.

Even if Rolex may not help you repair them, the collectors themselves do not seem to go nowhere, and there will probably always be independent watchmakers that make repairs, especially for really rare and precious watches.

Petronzi, who is also a approved psychologist and professor at New York University, said that if something, he thinks that it is possible to Rolex’s position on old watches could make some of them more precious. “People want things they can’t have,” he said. “When Rolex says:” Oh, forget this watch, we will not even serve it: “There is a part of our psyche who says:” What do you know? It just makes me want more. “”

Based on the photos that I shared with Wind, the vintage watch concessionaire, he said that my grandmother’s watch was probably made in New York in the 1970s. This aligns with the family memory, which puts the purchase of the watch around 1973, when my mother was 14 years old and remembers going with her father to the store to buy it.

Because he is probably not made in Switzerland, he said that the watch was not particularly precious, and it would not be particularly interesting for vintage collectors. This is probably worth a little more than the weight of gold, maybe $ 4,000.

But the fact is that it is much more than that for my family. Its value as a heriting is not based on the quality of gold, the brightness of the diamonds or the mechanisms inside which should have it check.

Its value comes from the fact that it was my grandmother-that my grandfather bought her for her and that she adorned her wrist for half a century, through every generation of our family. And after all, when you wear a fancy watch, how often you look at it to say the time anyway?

However, I asked my sources of recommendations on where my mother can repair it.