Secondary market flat as Cartier Roadster continues to thrive
Secondary market research platform WatchCharts’ Mark Xu runs through his key observations from July, with the Cartier Fraudster notable for its continued strong performance.
In July, the WatchCharts Overall Market Index was flat at +0.0%. Patek Philippe gained +1.2% led by the Nautilus (+1.5%) and the Aquanaut (+0.8%). Audemars Piguet inched up by +0.2% while Rolex lost -0.6%. The best-performing brand of the month is Glashütte Original (+1.4%) thanks to gains of the Pano collection (+2.2%).
July was a mostly stable month, with all major brands fluctuating by less than 1.5%. The range from the worst performer (Breitling, -1.0%) to the best (Glashütte Original, +1.4%) is also the smallest so far in 2026.
At Watches and Wonders in April, Cartier brought back the Roadster after a 14-year absence (the original ran from 2002 to 2012) with seven different variants, ranging from a $9,300 stainless steel, medium-sized model (WSRD0019) to a $57,000 yellow gold, large-sized model (WGRD0012). The WatchCharts Cartier Roadster Market Index, which tracks pre-owned examples of the originals, is up +5.3% since the announcement and touched an all-time high in early August.
More broadly, Cartier overall has had an excellent year: the Cartier Market Index is up +10.7% over the past year, with all collections trending positive. The Tank leads at +13.0%, followed by the Panthère at +11.9% (which we discussed in our 1Q26 Watch Market Report) and the Santos at +11.6%. Meanwhile, the Roadster is also performing strongly at +7.7% in the past year.
Looking further back, though, the Roadster’s record is quietly better than the brand’s. Since January 2020, the Roadster Index is up +25.1% against the brand’s overall +18.7%. While the brand gave back most of its 2021 gains through the following year, the Roadster held most of its ground.
Most original Roadster models lean towards more affordable price points. Twenty of the twenty-six references we track trade below $5,000, and the median sits at about $4,100 — a fraction of the relaunched models’ retail prices. The past year has favoured the lower end of the Roadster market: references under $4,000 are up an average of +14%, with eleven of twelve gaining, while those above $6,000 managed just +2%. Ref. W62025V3 (among the most heavily traded in the collection) is up +22% over the past year, while Ref. W62004V3 (which has seen substantially more listings since April) gained a whopping +41%. Both references are trading at around $3,400.
What a relaunch really does is remind people a watch exists. The Roadster has been in the market all along; what changed in April is how many collectors started looking at it. In the three full months since relaunch, we have seen a surge in sales of discontinued Roadster models, with overall secondary demand for the collection reaching record highs.
The new models also supply an anchor: at $9,300 to $57,000, they make a $3,400 original look like an inexpensive route into the same design, which is why the affordable end of the collection moved while more expensive pieces did not. In such situations, attention serves as the driving force behind the market movements.
