I think we had a common preference for larger watches from 1998-2022, when we were looking for larger watches, starting with 40mm, 41mm, 44mm, for Rolex. We had this bias towards some of the “smaller watches”, like 34mm to 36mm. I can say the cutoff is 36mm because anything smaller than 36mm is classified as “small”, 36mm-40mm is “medium”, 41-47mm is “large”, and there are exceptions such as the Audemars Piguet T3 which is a 54mm jumbo. By 2008-2014, we can see that ladies with smaller wrists will choose the Rolex Yacht Prestige II or the Deepsea Seaman Cameron 44mm, that is a hit.
Almost all of the beautiful golden ratio dress watches in the 33-36mm range were resisted because they were said to be “too small” or even described as “gnomishly ugly” so they would be priced low. If you had been smart enough to buy one of these great cheap replica watches at that time, you would be super rich now. Just like Breguet and Vacheron Constantin made beautiful 36mm tourbillons in 2000. By 2022, that was cheap, and now they’ve gone up in price by at least 40%.
Times have changed, people are changing their tastes, feeling “bored” and wearing bigger watches. Starting with Panerai, who used to make bigger watches, in 2017 they started slimming down their watches.
By 2018, they launched a 45mm ultra-thin automatic 3-day watch, limited to 100 pieces, the 1940 PAM00694, then a 42, 40mm to meet the market demand. Rolex released the vintage Explorer I, 214270 in 2021 in the 36 mm size, a signature move for the traditional watchmaker Rolex.
A price that reflects the needs of most watch collectors. The included AP Perpetual Calendar is 36mm and I bought it in 2017 for $60,000 and I sold it to a gym manager in 2020 for just $57,000. This is good news for a small watch coming in and more people are in favor of getting this beautiful watch.
The Rolex Day Date 41mm is replaced by the Day Date 40mm as their new Day Date line alongside the Day Date 36mm. In addition, we can see that the price of the vintage Day Date 36mm is rising, which means that more people are looking for the Day Date in a smaller diameter format.
On the other hand, Vacheron Constantin has introduced the 2300V series with a diameter of 37 mm and the 4500V series with a diameter of 41 mm to meet the demand for larger and medium sized replica watches usa.
More important is the dial design. Some watches look as if they are very large, and different dial designs, along with lug widths and bracelet designs can change the perception of how “large” or “small” a watch is compared to some watches of the same diameter.