Watch Market Trends: Ladies' Patek Philippe & Cartier

With ladies’ watches, the valuation largely resides in the value of the precious metal and stones such as diamonds, rather than the complexity of the movement. But, with gold prices continually on the rise, with a fourfold increase since 2002, it’s certainly worth considering the valuation of your watch collection regularly. In this post, we’ve used figures from distinguished valuation experts, Doerr Valuations.

Patek Philippe

Patek Philippe is an incredibly exclusive brand, with just over 60,000 watches produced per year. Even more exclusive are the steel watches, as Patek company policy only allows 10% to be made in this metal. The reason for this is that they consider themselves to be a luxury watch maker rather than a sports watch maker such as Rolex. The majority of the steel range produced by Patek are from the ladies’ Twenty4 range. Introduced in 2002, the range has proved very popular. Traditionally, this range included a standard quartz movement, but last year a circular cased automatic model was introduced. Values of these watches have increased considerably since the range was launched. For example, the Ladies’ Twenty4 steel bracelet watch with diamonds (ref 4910/10A) has increased from £3,950 in 2002 to £9,550 in 2019. The higher end of the market has also seen a similar increase in value with the Ladies’ Twenty4 18 carat gold bracelet watch with diamonds (ref 4910/11R) increasing from £9,450 to £32,560.

Cartier

In 1983 Cartier introduced a range of watches to complement the Panthere jewellery range. It was a very popular model before being discontinued in the early 2000’s, however it was then revived and reintroduced in 2017. Since its launch, the design has, for the most part, stayed the same – some of the larger models have automatic movements but the smaller models still retain the standard quartz movement. A top of the range model such as the Ladies’ Panthere 18 carat yellow gold bracelet watch, mini size (W25034B9) has seen a considerable increase in recent years from £5,900 in 2002 to £17,800 in 2019. At the entry level range, the Cartier Tank Francaise steel bracelet watch, mini size (W51008Q3) was valued at £1,550 in 2002, rising to £2,890 in 2019.

Insurance

As with classic cars, many high-quality watches will increase in value with age. As such, it's important that you ensure your watches are insured for the correct value so that, should the worst happen, your claim adequately compensates the loss. At Footman James our Private Client insurance can take of your most prized possessions, from high-value art and watches to your homes and car collection. We can tailor our policies to suit your needs, such as by providing reinstatement cover for your watches rather than new for old.