Many fine watches outlive their first owner’s interest in them. A Royal Oak bought a decade ago may already be on its second or third wrist.
Today the manufacture introduced The Watch Keepers, its own end-to-end service for Certified Pre-Owned AP timepieces. It’s a digital platform where registered users buy and sell authenticated watches, and nothing gets listed until it has been back in the care of AP’s own watchmakers.
From Wrist To Listing
Selling starts online. You register, verify the serial number and prove ownership. To qualify, the watch must be at least two years past its first sellout date. An insured courier then takes it to AP’s Customer Service facilities, where watchmakers authenticate it, cross-reference it against the archive registers and assess its condition.
From there, AP shoots high-resolution photos and writes the listing itself, with information only the manufacture can provide. A five-point grading system assesses the aesthetic condition of the case, dial and bracelet. You review it, choose between a set price or bidding, and decide when it goes live. Until the sale closes, the watch stays your property, kept securely at AP.
Buyers can browse the full catalogue with an account, but must complete the same registration before they can transact. Every watch ships with a Watch Keepers travel pouch, a certificate of authenticity and a two-year warranty covering proper functioning.
The Archive Is The Asset
Once you’ve produced watches yourself, you learn how much of a watch’s story lives in the brand’s own records. A dealer can open a caseback. Only the manufacture can open the archive, and that cross-reference is the strongest thing on this platform.
Putting a manufacture’s own grade on condition is a smart call too. It’s the part of a pre-owned purchase buyers trust least.
One Question
AP presents the platform as a virtual home, with color-themed rooms and Expert Watch Keepers guiding you as digital avatars. I like that real AP team members stand behind those avatars.
Whether a seasoned collector wants to walk through rooms, or simply wants the reference, the grade and the photos as fast as possible, I’ll judge once I’ve used it. For newcomers, whom AP clearly wants to welcome, the guided approach may be exactly right.
I’m a believer in certified pre-owned, because the idea is right: our watches deserve care long after the first owner moves on. Nobody is better placed to give it than the house that made them, and AP has stepped up to do exactly that.
The rollout starts in Europe and Switzerland before expanding region by region.
Read more about watches here.
