Luxury watches up for sale to raise cash

Analysis of the Watch Register’s database, which holds £1.5billion worth of lost and stolen watches, shows that there has been a 36 per cent increase over the last year in the number of checks on luxury watches undertaken by pawnbrokers.

The increase in searches indicates that the cost-of-living crisis is driving some luxury watch owners to pawn their timepieces in order to obtain a shortterm inflow of cash. Luxury watches are one of the first assets that people will liquidate in a financial crisis. Consumer research from the Watch Register finds that 22 per cent of luxury watch owners have sold a watch or watches over the past two years. Of those who had sold a watch or watches, four in 10 (37 per cent) said they had done so as a result of the costof-living crisis and needed the money.

Second-hand luxury watches can fetch thousands of pounds, with the findings revealing that the highest proportion (19 per cent) of those sold in the past two years were worth between £6,000 and £9,999, followed by 17 per cent worth between £4,000 and £4,999 and 15 per cent £5,000 to £5,999.

Katya Hills, managing director at the Watch Register, said: “The preowned luxury watch market has become increasingly lucrative, and it’s no surprise to see that owners needing to boost cash reserves during the current cost-of-living crisis are finding ways to do so by pawning their watches or resorting to selling them.”