Luxury Watches: How They Became the Auction Houses’ Gateway to Younger Buyers

Watches have become the auction houses’ recruitment channel. In a first half where Christie’s and Sotheby’s both posted their strongest results in years, the fine art headline concealed a structural development underneath it: luxury collectibles now sit second by revenue at both houses and function as their primary route to buyers who have never bid on anything before. Christie’s chief executive Bonnie Brennan has described luxury explicitly as a gateway for new and younger buyers. That is a statement about client acquisition rather than about categories. Here is what the numbers show and why a watch is a better entry product than a picture.

What the Numbers Show

Luxury at the auction houses covers watches, jewellery, handbags, cars and memorabilia. It behaved very differently from fine art in the first half.

• Christie’s luxury sales: USD 539 million, up 15% year on year.
• Luxury collectibles across Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips: up 25% according to ArtTactic.
• Memorabilia: up 308% to USD 96.1 million, lifting its share of the overall market from 0.6% to 1.4%.
• Heritage Auctions, which specialises in collectibles, posted record half-year sales of USD 1.4 billion, up nearly 47%.

The single largest example was the collection of businessman Jim Irsay, whose Americana holdings totalled USD 105.2 million across five auctions concluding on 6 July, the highest result ever recorded for a memorabilia collection.

Sotheby’s global head of luxury Josh Pullan characterised the period as a record for the category, attributing it to a buyer base that is both younger and more internationally spread than the traditional fine art clientele.

Why Is a Watch a Better Entry Product Than a Painting?

Four reasons, and they compound.

1. Price of entry. A collectible watch can be bought for a fraction of what any auctionable painting costs. The first bid is the hardest one a house ever has to obtain from a client, and lowering its cost matters more than the margin on that lot.
2. Reference pricing exists. Watch values are tracked publicly by model and reference. A buyer can calibrate before bidding, which removes the information asymmetry that makes first-time art buyers hesitate.
3. Frequency. A serious art collector may transact once or twice a year. A watch collector trades far more often, which generates the repeated contact that builds a relationship.
4. The object is legible. Nobody needs an art history education to evaluate a chronograph. Fine art requires a confidence that takes years to acquire, and the houses have been losing prospective clients during those years.

Taken together this is a customer acquisition funnel rather than a category strategy. The lifetime value sits in the fine art consignment fifteen years later, and the watch is what makes the relationship start at all.

What This Changes for the Watch Market

Three consequences follow, and they are not all favourable for collectors.

Price discovery improves. More lots crossing major auction blocks means more public data on what specific references actually achieve, which narrows the gap between dealer asking prices and realised values.

Provenance becomes the differentiator. As volume rises, ordinary examples of common references compete on condition and paperwork alone. The premium migrates toward original boxes, service records, unpolished cases and first-owner history, which is the same dynamic that separates a matching-numbers car from an equivalent one.

Entry-level competition intensifies. A younger, larger bidder pool pushes hardest at accessible price points, because that is where most new buyers begin. The mid-market is where the auction premium is being competed away fastest.

The wider auction context, including the caveat that the fine art rebound was narrower than it appeared, sits in our read on the market’s first-half recovery.

The Same Pattern Across Collectibles

Watches are the clearest case but not the only one. The 308% jump in memorabilia and the record Irsay result describe a category that barely registered five years ago and now moves nine-figure sums.

Collector cars show a related dynamic at a different scale, where irreplaceable provenance is pricing far ahead of limited production, a split we examined ahead of Monterey Car Week 2026. Jewellery has been the strongest-performing category across luxury generally, for reasons set out in jewellery as the engine of the industry.

The common thread is that objects with verifiable scarcity and public price references are attracting buyers who want the reassurance of a market, which fine art has historically been reluctant to provide.

Key takeaway

The auction houses have stopped treating watches as a minor department and started treating them as the top of a funnel. For collectors that means better data, deeper liquidity and more competition at the entry level. It also means the easy arbitrage between dealer and auction pricing is closing, because far more people are now watching the same numbers.

Bottom Line

Luxury collectibles now rank second by revenue at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, with Christie’s luxury sales at USD 539 million in the first half and the category up 25% across the three major houses. Watches lead it because they solve the recruitment problem fine art cannot: a low first bid, public reference pricing, frequent transactions and an object anyone can evaluate. The houses are buying relationships rather than margin, and millennials and Generation Z are the intended beneficiaries of that calculation. For collectors, the practical effect is better price discovery and a premium migrating decisively toward provenance and originality. The category’s underlying economics are examined in jewellery branding, where the same transparency dynamic applies.

FAQ

Why are auction houses expanding into watches and handbags?

Because luxury collectibles are their most effective route to younger buyers. Entry prices are far below fine art, the objects require no specialist education to evaluate, and transactions happen more frequently. A client who buys a watch in their twenties becomes a plausible consignor of significant property decades later, which is where the lifetime value sits.

Is buying watches at auction cheaper than from a dealer?

Not reliably, and the gap has narrowed as volumes rose. Auction prices include a buyer’s premium that can add substantially to the hammer price, while dealers typically offer warranties, servicing and the ability to inspect at leisure. The auction advantage lies in access to rare references and in transparent comparable results rather than in a systematic discount.

What makes a watch valuable at auction?

Rarity of the reference, condition, and completeness of documentation. Original box and papers, service history, an unpolished case and known ownership history can account for a large share of the difference between two otherwise identical examples. Provenance matters more as volume increases, because ordinary examples of common references compete on paperwork alone.

Are younger buyers really entering the auction market?

The houses report so, with Sotheby’s describing a record luxury period driven by a younger and more internationally diverse buyer base and millennials and Generation Z taking a growing share. The caveat is that these are the houses’ own characterisations rather than independently audited demographics, and the trend is most visible in collectibles rather than in fine art.

Signed

Charley Baouamina

Editor, The One Percent

Charley covers the business behind the world’s leading maisons for The One Percent: results, strategy, and the quiet signals that tell you where ultra-high-net-worth money is actually moving. No press-release recycling, no hype.

Charley Baouamina

You May Also Like

Abstract Art: The Market’s $6.77 Billion Rebound Is a Masterworks Recovery, Not a Market One Phillips Sets Historic Auction Record as Luxury Watches Reach New Heights The Art of Watchmaking: Behind the Scenes with Luxury Watch Brands