TALKING SHOP: David Duggan, wheeler-dealer extraordinaire

Located in the heart of Mayfair in the world famous Burlington Arcade, David Duggan has been buying and selling luxury watches for most of his adult life. Unusually for a pre-owned watch store, Duggan is also an authorised Tudor seller, adding another string to his bow. He spoke with Watch Insider’s Daniel Malins about his eye for a good deal, his zest for life, and how he’s remained so relevant in a market dominated by online platforms and algorithms.

Watch Insider: How has business been in the past 12 months? Are you detecting a settling down of the pre-owned market, in terms of a stable new price level?

DD: I think 2025 was better than 2024, but 2024 was a dreadful year!

WI: On average, how much inventory do you sit on at any given time?

DD: £2.5 million’s worth probably.

WI: So it doesn’t take a big fluctuation in the market or the currency for that to have a profound effect on business?

DD: Just a bad remark from a leading politician can affect the business for a few weeks.

WI: You moved to this location in Burlington Arcade in 2002. Which brands were hot back then and nowyou can’t give them away, or vice versa? How subtle have those changes been, at brand level?

DD: Well, if you go back 30 years, I remember Ebels were quite hot in the early 90s, and now you never hear of Ebel. In the early 90s the manager of Patek Philippe Bond Street came up to me to say he was leaving to take the manager’s job at Ebel. Who today would leave the job of manager at Patek Philippe Bond Street to go to Ebel?

In the 80s it was all about Rolex Princes. I used to travel all over the country for a Rolex Prince. Any rectangular Prince was always £900–£1,000, and we used to get £1,250 for them. You’d drive all over. Steel and gold Rolexes, they were the watches – the steel and gold gents and the steel and gold ladies. So much so that Rolex had a problem with their Day-Date. The Day-Date was the iconic watch, but suddenly everybody wanted steel and golds and not the Day-Date. So they brought out the three colour gold version: the Tridor. Can you imagine that Rolex had a problem, in that their cheaper watch was killing sales for their Day-Date? It was unbelievable. So they got the golfer Arnold Palmer to wear one, which I’ll never forget because I loved Arnold Palmer. But the Tridor was a flop and it never took off. I think it should be worth £40,000–£50,000 today, but instead it’s £16,000–£20,000.

Look at the brands that stood firm when quartz took over in the early 70s. Patek stood firm, and were considered totally out of date for carrying on with mechanical movements. Rolex, they carried on with their automatics. Those two are the kings. Omegas and Longines were really good up until then, but they said the future’s quartz. Rolex and Patek stood firm.

WI: What about Tudor?

DD: I remember going to the Baselworld watch show in 2014, and I saw their new Heritage range. Their sports models looked like 1950s James Bond Submariners, some of them. I couldn’t believe that they were doing vintage. I thought they were great. So I approached them and said: “Is there any chance of a Tudor agency?” Lo and behold, there was a guy called Sven Olsen [general manager of Tudor UK] who was a bit of a maverick, and it really appealed to him, the idea of a second-hand shop selling brand new Tudor. He said “Yeah, let’s go for it.” In 2016 we started and we’ve been going for nine years now.

WI: Is that a unique case?

DD: It’s a unique case, yes. We’ve been told we’re still the only pre-owned shop in Europe that sells brand new Tudor.

WI: Given your location and your clientele and your established reputation, could Tudor represent a blueprint for being a primary dealer for more major watch brands?

DD: What I like about us not being linked to, say, Rolex or Patek Philippe, is that we can give unbiased advice because we’re independent. If you’ve got a window full of brand new Rolexes and Pateks, you’re going to be a little bit biased. But we’re independent, so I can just buy the models that I like. And other models of Patek and Rolex that don’t do it for me, I don’t need to sell. Whereas if you’re an agent, you’ve got to sell the lot.

Because we can be unbiased, we can give very frank views on certain models. I’ve always felt I’m a wheeler-dealer, so I would always deal in pre-owned. I sell new Tudor, but we certainly would be a very powerful new retail seller for any brand, due to our longevity of staff, our service, reputation, general knowledge, and our location. When I think about it, we would be a great Patek or Rolex agent because we’ve had premises in Mayfair for 36 years.

WI: Would they have to come to you or would you start that conversation with them?

DD: No, I think they would have to approach me.

WI: Like another Tudor scenario, where it happens organically?

DD: Yes. I think there are probably enough Rolex shops around here, and I think the way Rolex and Patek are going, they want it all in-house. They’re becoming very insular. Patek are reducing the number of agents in the UK. Rolex wants to do all the servicing. For 22 years we’ve been a Rolex certified servicing agent. There used to be 72 of us, but now there are only eight in the UK.

WI: Is there a reason why these numbers have diminished so significantly over the years?

DD: I think that Rolex has got a lot stricter over the last 10 years. One big game changer was when they brought out two magnificent polishing machines. These machines are great, but they were £35,000 for the two, so a lot of people fell by the wayside. It suddenly went from 72 down to eight.

And they’re very strict. They came around here and they didn’t like how the workshop wasn’t sealed off. Typical Geneva thinking that it had to be virtually dust-proof. So we had to put a glass partition in. I think that was £7,000. You know, they have really strict standards.

But as a company, I love Rolex. They’ve been very supportive to me over the years and I just like their old-fashioned traditional values. They don’t change a lot on their movements or their cases, do they? A complicated Rolex, like a Skydweller, has the most complicated movement they’ve made since I’ve been in the job. All the others are just Day-Dates or Daytonas. There’s no moonphase perpetual calendar, minute repeater, world timer, there’s nothing like that.

WI: As an authorised Tudor dealer, do you allow pre-owned Tudors in the store as well?

DD: No, it would be a conflict. Tudor doesn’t want me to deal with anything after 1980, which works well for me.

WI: As you said, because you’re not an authorised dealer for any brand other than Tudor, you can therefore be selective about what you choose to buy and sell. Do you ever have an internal conflict where you personally like a certain watch, but you know that there are other models that you don’t like as much that would make you more money? In other words, do you rule with your head or your heart?

DD: It’s a good question. I love top quality. I love Voutilainen, I like F.P.Journe, I like A. Lange & Söhne, I love the super slim Piagets, I love a Jaeger-LeCoultre, I like Breguet tourbillons.

Being independent, you can have a crack at what you like and you’re not tied down. Does that answer your question?

WI: I guess there’s still the question of whether you go with what you love or what will make you a quick buck, on any given day?

DD: No, I go with what I love. That’s an easy one. Anything I really like, I want to buy and sell. If I don’t like it you won’t see it in the window.

WI: Are margins today similar to what they’ve always been?

DD: When I look back through the 90s, up to 1998, you didn’t have the internet. That was great fun in a way because you’d have people coming in and they didn’t have a clue what they had. “How do I know this is a fair offer? How do I know you’re not ripping me off?” I’d often get asked. I used to say, “Take it down to Sotheby’s, take it into the watch department, and find out what it will go for in auction.”

The best watch I ever bought, I bought that way. A man came in with the most magnificent first series Patek Philippe 2499 and I offered him £50,000 for it. He said it was a 21st present to him in 1956 from his parents, and he also had a Rolex Prince from his 1st birthday. He sold me the Rolex Prince but he said, “I don’t know whether you gave me a good price or not on this [the Patek Philippe 2499].” I said “Take it down to Sotheby’s and see what they say.”

Anyway, an hour later, he came back, and he said, “You were adrift.” I said “What do you mean?” He said “Well, Sotheby’s said it might go for as much as £60,000 in auction.” I said, “I think it will do.” He said, “How can you offer me £50,000 then?” I pointed out that, by the time Sotheby’s has taken its commissions out, it won’t be far away from the £50k, and we’re paying him now, whereas they’ll be paying him in four to five months’ time. Anyway, he sold it to me in the end, and I later sold it to a friend for £75,000.

WI: How do you source your watches? Do you have preferred suppliers? And have your methods changed over the years?

DD: I was very lucky. I was influenced by my brother John in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a coin dealer and he started buying American coins. He realised there was a market, in that the Heaton mint near Birmingham made a lot of American coins, and a lot of old American coins were still in this country. He put a lot of adverts out there for what he would pay for particular coins, and it made him very wealthy.

25 years later, when I got the little shop on Bond Street, I thought there’s a market here for wristwatches. So I hammered the advertising. For the next 28 years, we went in the Sunday Times, in the classic cars section. The Times said that if I advertised continuously with them, they wouldn’t put another watch dealer in. And for at least every fortnight for the next 28 years, I did a classified ad for vintage and pre-owned Patek Philippes and Rolexes. That was a winner.

Every week I went in the Exchange & Mart [an old paper specialising in classified adverts] with a big display advert. I went in all the glossy car magazines. So we did a lot of advertising, but, boy, did the watches come in. And that’s what we did from 1989 to 2005. And then, once the internet was getting bigger and bigger, I realised you didn’t need all this glossy advertising and I cut down. But I spent fortunes early on through the 90s.

WI: So, what replaced it?

DD: After 16 years, we had a lot of repeat custom and people knew of us. Repeat custom, word of mouth, and reputation. That’s still true to this day.

WI: So a lot of the pieces in your shop will be from people you’ve worked with repeatedly for a number of years?

DD: Yes.

WI: How do you compete with the algorithm-heavy, data-heavy online pre-owned platforms? Why do people keep coming back to you when they could flog their watch in five clicks online?

DD: Great question. Sounds a bit conceitful, Daniel, but I like to think I’m straightforward. I make an offer, whereas a lot of people don’t make offers. I will make an offer, and if we agree, and the watch passes all the tests upstairs in the workshop, and I’m confident that the watch is not stolen, then they get paid within five minutes.

WI: That’s a significant benefit, because people don’t like being caught up in a swamp of administration and bureaucracy, whether that’s an insurance claim or whether it’s selling your watch. I don’t think that will ever change, so it’s a significant competitive advantage I think.

DD: We have a form they can fill in in less than one minute. And then, provided I’m happy that the watch is kosher, they put the bank details at the bottom of the slip and then I load up the Barclays app and they’re paid. It’s amazing. You can buy a watch for £80,000 and the money’s in the bank and they leave having been paid.
And if I sell you a watch, I will always have a deal back for it against something else. You’re not stranded with the watch. I’m amazed that the dealers out there go: “We don’t buy back our own watches.” I can’t believe that. If we sell you a watch, we’ll always have a deal back for it with you.

WI: When you talk about checking whether a watch is kosher, and the checks that go on upstairs here, how sophisticated or otherwise have fakes become? Are they harder to spot now than they used to be?

DD: Without question, certainly with vintage watches. I buy very little vintage today for that reason. If somebody comes in with a story that I think is the truth, I will happily buy their watch. But if it comes from a dealer, I won’t. There are probably two dealers I would buy vintage from.

They’re so clever now at messing about with them. You speak to Sotheby’s and Bonhams and they say the same. Unless they really like the provenance, they don’t want to get involved. I would not buy a [Rolex Daytona] Paul Newman today unless I thought it was coming from the original owner. Because the [fake] dials are that good, they’re phenomenal. I had a fake Nautilus last year and I could not tell. And what they’re doing now, they Frankenstein them. They’ll get a Nautilus case made in Hong Kong, and the same calibre movement that goes in the Nautilus goes in one or two other Patek automatics. So they’ll buy a Patek gold automatic for £15k, take the movement out, put it in the Hong Kong Nautilus case and dial, and the whole shebang will cost them £25,000. It’s costing them 25 grand, and even today they’ll get 65 grand back. They still make 40 grand, so you can see why the market exists.

WI: What changes have you noticed in your store regarding buying habits over the years?

DD: One of the biggest changes for me of the last 10 years is how people have become so date conscious. You remember how, after Covid, even steel Datejusts were going for more than retail. Everything steel Rolex was going for more than retail. It brought into the market a lot of yuppies and a lot of young kids. And they brought a car mentality, whereby they will pay more for a 2025 watch than a 2024 or a 2023. I just don’t get this, I really don’t. You get a Daytona – I sold one today, black ceramic 2016 – and if it had been 2025 I’d have got £3,000 more. Now, that watch is built to last for 200 years, so what’s nine years?

WI: Does that therefore mean that someone like me can get a bargain for a 2016 Rolex because, for irrational reasons, there’s a cooling off in demand at that level?

DD: I would certainly do that.

WI: Do you display everything you stock or is there a secret drawer under the counter just for VIPs?

DD: Just to be a bit of a disappointment, I’m probably the only person that you’ll interview who doesn’t have a collection. I’ve always sold everything I have. Life’s for living. I enjoy champagne more than a coffin full of fantastic watches.

WI: Are there examples over the years where there’s been a watch that no-one’s been interested in at the time, but it’s then gone on to be astonishingly popular?

DD: Military Rolex Submariners. I had a man – I think he was linked with the army – and throughout 1990 he sent me three separate boxes of mint Omega military watches, and four mint, brand new military Rolex Submariners. I bought 12 from him that year. Now, just one of those today in that condition has got to be worth £200,000. At the time, I was buying them for £500 and selling them to Italian dealers for £650. I looked at them and I thought: “These aren’t particularly nice.”
Can you imagine that? 12 went through my hands in 1990 and I flogged them for 650 quid each!

WI: To what extent do you feel like Burlington Arcade, even with its amazing location and history and prestige, can also become a glass ceiling for you? Do you have ambitions to stretch your wings a bit and outgrow the space you’re in?

DD: No. I’m 70 now, so I think I’m beyond that. But I want to work till I die. I’d love to be in here at 85, that’d be great. I had a bloke in here at 80 and he looked as fit as a fiddle. Long may that continue.

I’d have loved to open a shop in Geneva, Tokyo, or New York. But you can’t set your standards in those places unless you’re physically there yourself. So you could have some guy in there that you think’s doing a good job, but he might be fleecing the public and ruining your reputation. Whereas at least here, with the boys that I’ve got working with me, they know how I deal and I know how they deal, and that works well for me.

I used to get dealers from Australia and New Zealand asking to use my franchise – “Linked with David Duggan” or “Supplied by David Duggan” – just for the reputation. I said “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re doing 12,000 miles away.”

WI: This part of London has a lot of tourist footfall going through it, so how often do you get a punter stumble across your store and get sucked in by what they see in the window? Or is it largely about repeat customers?

DD: People want to buy something from the Burlington Arcade. It’s amazing. People come in and say that they bought their engagement ring 40 years ago out of the Burlington Arcade, so they think it would be nice to buy a watch. I always say to the staff: “Make the moment memorable and have a laugh.” If I hear laughter, I know there’s a chance for a sale.

WI: Would it be a watch’s physical state and how it’s presented in its box, or would it be the verifiable provenance of that watch that’s the more important factor when it comes to its resale value?

DD: Good question. I could have a Daytona, 1979, dated on a Rolex guarantee, and a client’s name written in. Or the same watch but with no guarantee, but serviced at Rolex in the last two years. I would prefer the one that’s been serviced at Rolex in the last two years than the watch with a guarantee that anybody could have written.

WI: So provenance is king?

DD: Yes. If it’s been serviced recently by Rolex or Patek Philippe, that fills me with more confidence. A guarantee from 1970 could have gone through 50 different hands or 50 different dealers messing about with it. What sort of thing have you ended up with then? Whereas if it’s just come out of Rolex or Patek, I’d prefer to see that.

A watch has got to have a story behind it and I’ve got to like the person. Three weeks ago, I sold a 1976 Daytona. It was a reference 6263, the original owner’s name was on the guarantee. It had the dates, the box, the original booklets, and the original owner has become a friend. In 2019 he left it with me, but he wanted too much money. I wanted to buy it but he wanted too much money. And only in the last two months, he says “My daughter’s getting married, I’d like some money for the watch”, and he brought his price down to £65,000. He was wanting £100,000, which is too much, but at £65,000 it was well worth it.

I told the buyer that I can get the man whose name is on the guarantee from 1976 to get in touch to explain how he bought it originally. My [now] friend sent me a letter today to give to the client. He wrote that he was celebrating his 21st birthday in 1976, and he went into a Rolex agent’s shop. The owner there insisted on him buying this Daytona, which was totally undesirable at the time, for £340. He said he’s only wore it for ‘best’ over the years, before leaving it with me [David Duggan] in 2019.

He’s put all this in a letter, and I’m going to give it to the collector. Now, how cool is that? To have a vintage Daytona, 1976, and the original owner’s still living and explaining in a personal letter how he bought it. I think if that was sold in a Sotheby’s auction, it would be worth £100,000 now, with all that context.

WI: Stories like that must be a key part of what keeps you getting out of bed every day. It’s a passion project for you.

DD: Yeah, it always has been. I’ve met some amazing people and incredible characters, not to mention royalty and a few notable sportsmen.