I mean, come on. A Tiffany blue dial Patek Nautilus 5711 with a Tiffany stamp with 170 watches for a 170 year partnership? And a tiny “LVMH” on the “1” in “2021?” Excuse me while I facepalm, let out a groan, and unroll my eyes from the back of my head.

Retail price is regarded as completely irrelevant these days but keep in mind that this change in dial color costs 50% more than the retail price of the 5711. Of course, $35,000 for a 5711 seems absurdly low unless one disregards the hype and views the watch as a 1970’s designed stainless steel watch with a date, center seconds, a modest power reserve, and hacking. By the way, hacking was added to the movement in 2019.

If putting an olive green dial on a $35,000 5711 makes it worth $470,000 or about 13.5X retail, then I will be truly horrified to find out how much a Tiffany 5711 sells for at auction. At least the first one will be for charity.

The hype machine behind watches has really reached a fever pitch. Even trying to find any Rolex at retail price has become pretty much impossible. A year ago I would occasionally see a Deepsea or a two tone Submariner for sale. Certainly Datejusts and Oyster Perpetuals were just waiting in the display case for a buyer. Nowadays the Rolex case at my local authorized dealer is completely empty except for a few “dummy watches” with no movements inside. Another authorized dealer in my area has no Rolex watches in the case at all yet the preowned case is full of Rolexes of all kinds marked up at a premium.

It seems that in other areas, social media has allowed people to develop niche interests and certainly this is true in watches to some degree as well. However, it also seems to have driven a convergence of tastes at the high end centering around Patek Philippe for the ultrawealthy and Rolex for the merely wealthy. Just as the vintage Rolex craze bled over to the Heuer boom, the unavailability of the desirable models has led to people to seek out other more available or more affordable models. Tudor’s entire brand, for example, seems to be built around the lack of availability of a Rolex Submariner.

It is hard to believe that the prices at the top end are sustained purely through customer demand alone. I’m not an economist, but I would hazard a guess that speculation and greed are involved. At some point this hype machine will have to run out of steam and perhaps the 5711 will become emblematic of our era of irrationality.