In the world of high-end watches, patience isn't just a virtue—it's a requirement. For guys who chase after those standout pieces from brands like Rolex, Audemars Piguet, or Patek Philippe, the thrill of the hunt often means dealing with long delays. It's not about walking into a store and walking out with a box anymore. These days, getting your hands on a hot model can feel like a marathon, testing your commitment and strategy along the way.
Take Gary Getz, a key figure in the NorCal Gang, a bunch of watch enthusiasts up in Northern California. He's seen the shift firsthand over the years. “It used to be that I’d go into a store and say, ‘I’ll take that one,’ and they’d put it in a box, and you’d take that home,” Getz shared in a chat. But now, things are different. He points out that Patek Philippe has long had these application lists where you need to prove you're a solid customer who won't just turn around and sell the watch for a quick buck. This whole idea of interest lists and waiting lists really kicked into high gear right before the pandemic hit.
The wait can drag on for months or even years, whether you're hoping for an allocation from a big-name brand or counting down until an independent maker finishes your custom piece. Either way, you're left hanging, with no quick satisfaction in sight. It's like being stuck in a holding pattern, wondering if your number will ever come up.
One collector, Priya Raj from London, tried to game the system a few years back. She put her name down for a Rolex Day-Date at a dealer in Glasgow, figuring a smaller spot might mean shorter lines. “Somehow I thought registering there rather than a bigger city meant less competition, but maybe it means less allocation?” she wondered. It took about three years before she got the call this past summer. By then, she'd moved on to London and lost interest in the watch altogether.
Amanda Rittenberg, a doctor out in California's Palm Desert, took a different approach to skip the line. Back in 2021, she was after her first Rolex and headed to Poland to visit family. While there, she signed up at a W. Kruk store for a simple Datejust. They were out of stock, so she waited. It finally showed up in 2023. Now she's on lists for more, like the Land-Dweller, but local spots in her area came up empty too. “I am now on the waiting list for multiple other watches, but it takes such a long time,” she said. “I tried local stores in the desert, but they didn’t have anything.”
Getz blames a lot of this on how the industry blew up during the pandemic. Secondary market prices for favorites like the Rolex Daytona, Patek Philippe Nautilus, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, and stuff from F.P. Journe shot up to five times retail. “Watches used to be a niche hobby and now they’re a mainstream luxury so it’s more like getting a Birkin bag,” he explained. Brands like Audemars Piguet and F.P. Journe started handling more sales through their own shops, giving them control over who gets what. For Rolex and Patek, it's still up to the retailers, but the whole process is shrouded in secrecy.
Eric Ku, a dealer in vintage watches, breaks it down further. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to how stores handle waitlists,” he noted. Some call it a waitlist, others a wishlist—lots of terms get thrown around. And then there's this thing called bundling, where shops push you to buy other stuff before they'll hand over the prize. It's controversial, but it happens. “A lot of jewelers do this forced bundling situation,” Ku said. “But some legitimately have a waitlist—your number’s up when your number’s up.”
Giovanni Prigigallo, who helps run EveryWatch—a site that keeps tabs on resale prices—calls bundling a numbers game for the stores. “You buy this watch, that watch. You’ve made the retailer $30,000, $50,000 and now they’ll sell you a Daytona that sells for $15,000 with a market value of $30,000,” he said. “They know they’re giving you a sweetener. But it’s a dangerous game.”
Prigigallo lived it himself about seven years ago at an Audemars Piguet boutique in Milan. He was set on a Jumbo Royal Oak 15202 in steel. “I really, really wanted a Jumbo Royal Oak 15202 in steel,” he recalled. “At that time, it was slightly above retail but not much. I went to the Milan boutique, I kindly asked and they told me, ‘We get five—but if you buy a Royal Oak 15400, we’d give it to you and bump you on the list for the 15202.’” He passed because he didn't want to flip the extra watch. He never got the Jumbo, but looking back, he wishes he'd grabbed the 15400—it retailed around 20,000 euros then, and now it goes for about 28,000 euros on the secondary market. “I’ve made peace with it,” he added.
One perk of these allocation waits from the big brands is no deposit required upfront. “Maybe they don’t want to be obliged, and a deposit means locking in the price,” Prigigallo figured. But the flip side is you're in this endless uncertainty. He's been waiting three years for an F.P. Journe Élégante Titalyt. “It’s been a good three years,” he said. “The problem is that the value has skyrocketed, and everyone who walks into a boutique asks for an Élégante because it retails around 20,000 euros, and the market price is like €90,000, €100,000. I don’t know if I’ll get it.”
Things have eased up a bit lately, at least for some models. “With Rolex, I don’t think you’ll have a hard time buying a Datejust in any configuration, and potentially getting a Submariner is much easier,” Prigigallo observed. “But getting a GMT or Daytona, any of the hot models, it’s pretty much the same thing: You need to be a good customer. These watches are given as a reward.”
Ku's got some straightforward tips for navigating this: Build relationships. “Don’t be an ahole. They have to like you,” he advised. Forget bouncing from store to store on vacation begging for a stainless Daytona. Instead, stick with one retailer, show loyalty by picking up other pieces. “You’ve got to be realistic,” he added. “An average-size Rolex store might get 12 steel Daytonas a year and thousands of inquiries. How do you prioritize? It comes down to: Is this person an ahole? And the spend.”
Patek does it a bit differently, according to Getz. You prove yourself as a customer or get an in through a big spender. “You become an established customer, or you know someone, like in my case, who’s a huge whale of a customer, and you say, ‘That’s the watch I’d like to have,’” he described. “And they say, ‘So noted.’ You keep visiting. And they say, ‘At the end of January, we’ll probably have that watch for you.’ And eventually such and such has come available.” It's flexible for them, spreading the goods around instead of hoarding for a few. “But eventually, if you wait long enough, it will come,” Getz assured.
Retailers and brands face tough choices too. “You want to balance new customer acquisition with rewarding your loyal customers with your dealers and their top customers,” Getz pointed out. “It’s highly complex. What you need is an ‘interest list.’ You’re free to allocate your watches however you’d like.” No one's forced to do first-come, first-served.
Then there are the independent watchmakers, where waits can hit even harder. These smaller operations often get stung by buyers who swear they'll keep the piece but flip it fast for profit. Once they take your deposit, though, delivery might blow past the timeline.
Tamar Koifman in Geneva is a newbie to this, waiting on her M.A.D. Edition 2 from MB&F x Éric Giroud after winning a lottery spot in April. “Delivery was announced to be between April and October,” she shared. “Now that’s delayed to mid-November. I have a LOT of respect for the MB&F guys, but it is a bit disappointing not to be acquainted with my watch sooner.” The holdup? A supplier glitch on the rotor part. At least the brand was upfront about it, which made it easier to swallow.
Even after you snag the watch, the waiting might not end. Alexandre Furmanovich, a jewelry guy from Brazil, got hooked on old Rolex ads from the '80s showing wood dial models. “I saw some wood dial watches, and I went crazy for them,” he recalled. “I then started searching and found out that they were the Oysterquartz and I decided to find one for myself. But then, I also wanted one produced in my year of birth, 1984. It was an almost impossible mission.”
Luck struck in London's Burlington Arcade—a 1984 model with the burl wood dial sat in a window. He grabbed it, even with a tight bracelet. Back home, he sent it to Rolex for service and an extra link. Nine months later, it was ready. “I realized that the time was literally the time of a pregnancy,” he said. “It was definitely worth the wait.”
Michael Hickcox, a seasoned collector, topped that with a seven-year wait for his Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Contemporain II, finally landing it in September. He's no stranger to long hauls. At a Christmas party, he spotted a Kikuchi Nakagawa on someone's wrist and had to have one. “They’re taking someone’s movement but the case, the dial, the hands are just out of this world,” he explained. “I knew I was late to the game, but I thought, ‘Let me shoot them a message.’” The price? $22,000. The wait? 124 to 130 months—over a decade. Plus a 45 percent deposit. “That’s 11 years,” he noted. “That’s not super unusual now, but when they said that a couple years ago, it was at least five years longer than anyone else.” He figured it was to weed out flippers and maybe deliver early. Three years in, he's got eight left. “It’s a 34 mm watch—who knows what my eyesight will be by then!”
These stories show how waiting weaves into the fabric of watch collecting. It's frustrating, sure, but it builds anticipation and weeds out the casuals. For those who stick it out, the payoff—a piece that feels truly earned—can make all the difference. In a hobby that's gone mainstream, mastering the wait might just be the real skill.
