Inside Rolex certified pre-owned watches’ hefty premiums: less popular timepieces like the Date, Datejust and Air-King have steeper mark-ups – but the highly coveted Daytona remains roughly the same

Used watches that have the official stamp from Rolex currently command a 25 per cent higher price on average across the portfolio, according to data from WatchCharts, a price-tracking platform for luxury watches.

In other words, the inspection, certification and two-year warranty – not to mention the confidence that it conveys for buyers – is worth a 25 per cent premium over the price they would pay a traditional reseller for a similar watch.

The CPO programme arrived in the US a little over a month ago at select Tourneau Bucherer boutiques, following an initial phase in Europe and WatchCharts estimates several hundred certified watches have been sold.

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There are more than 1,100 CPO Rolex listings currently available online, which WatchCharts compared against the average prices for the same models from non-certified sellers to calculate the CPO premium.

However, the CPO mark-up does not apply uniformly across all models. The more popular watches appear to have a lower relative increase than less popular ones.

Less popular models, like the Date, Datejust and Air-King, have much steeper CPO premiums of around 40 per cent, in part because those models tend to sell at or below their retail prices on the secondary market.

The classic Submariner comes in with a comparatively moderate CPO mark-up of 17 per cent, and there are quite a few available to purchase directly.

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Better prices can certainly be found from other sellers and several of those have developed their own processes and strategies to earn buyers’ trust – but for now there’s only one option for buyers who want the full backing of Rolex itself.