The New Oyster Perpetual 41 With Celebration Dial Has Landed on the Market
The new Oyster Perpetual presented at Watches & Wonders 2023 has entered the market. Will its trend follow that of the 2020 models or could something different happen?
This article is co-authored with Zach Blass from Time+Tide.
Rolex at Watches & Wonders this year can be described in two words: acid trip. Sure, there were the usual incremental updates to lines such as the GMT Master II and Rolex Daytona. And it was exciting to see the new 1908 have a sapphire caseback across all models and the platinum anniversary Daytona as well. Even the debut of RLX titanium in the Yacht-Master 42 line was an exciting development above the typical colour change of a bezel or dial. But where things got really weird and, perhaps, wonderful, depending on your tastes, were the new Day-Date Jigsaw models and the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Celebration Dial.
A presumed tribute to the success of the varying lacquer-coluored Oyster Perpetual watches introduced in 2020, and their history with the Stella-dial era of Rolex, the Oyster Perpetual Celebration dial is largely executed in their turquoise colour with balloon like bubbles rising up from the bottom. These bubbles are each rendered in the other lacquer colours, a mix between yellow, green, candy pink, coral red, and turquoise. It received mixed fanfare, with some appreciating the cheeky nod to past OPs and others, with more classic taste, claiming it looked like a rainbow vomited on the dial. So it was hard to gauge just how many people were going to chase after these watches.
Well, months later it has become clear that these Oyster Perpetual Celebration Dial watches, in 31mm, 36mm, and 41mm, are scarcely allocated to retailers – and by extension their clients. And, as we have recently shared, they are finally starting to hit the secondary market. “
With such scarcity, both at retail and on the secondary market, the initial offers within these listings are quite ambitious.
We have evaluated that the Oyster Perpetual 41 Celebration Dial currently has a first offer price of EUR 34,500, which, compared to its EUR 6,450 retail price, is a 434.8% difference.
By comparison, the original Oyster Perpetual 41 Turquoise, which became an absolute hypebeast after the sale of the Patek Phillipe Nautilus ref. 5711/1A-018 Tiffany Dial for US$6.5M, had climbed to just over EUR 25,000. The hype around it was so big, we even shared the story of someone being offered a Rolex Daytona, which was then trading for US$35,000 – US$40,000, for their Oyster Perpetual Turquoise in a straight trade.
So, to an extent, it should not come as a surprise that EUR 34,500 is where the first offer prices have landed. But, that being said, the Celebration Dial is much more contentious among collectors than the pure turquoise dial model was. It will be interesting to see where listing prices land as more come to market.
It will be interesting to see whether this model will follow the trend of the Oyster models unveiled in 2020: a huge hype and very rapid growth and then stabilize on lower prices, or given the possible limited availability of the configuration, the price will remain ever so high.
The question, however, is will the secondary market ever really be saturated with Celebration Dial OPs? That’s what needs to happen in order to burst the bubble a bit and allow secondary prices to settle.
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