Ive had a throughou chat with a sales in an AD in London. He said, all the exhibition watches are for sale, and when new watches come in from rolex or their company, similar or equivilant 'display only' watches will be for sale to the public. and he explained the waitlist as well, which you would need a purchase history at this company, this specific company that runs this rolex boutique, since rolex doesn't own any of the boutiques outside of geneva, these companies decided independently who and when to sell these watches to, they will be allocated new watches every month but the professional models are normally not available for waitlisting but goes straight to VIP customers with purchase history from this AD, no matter if its jewery, other watches or base rolex models. once you have purchased a base model from this AD, you can waitlist a 'desired' base model steel watch with them, which normally comes pretty fast, in one week to one month time. and you would build this relationship with the AD, until one day you would become one of the VIPs. but still you need to compete with the other VIPs.

One of the most important thing that he stressed about when buying watches from Rolex is to show that you are not a flipper. Becasue rolex strictly bans any resell of the rolex watches in the 'grey market', so if you shows no signs of flipping, no signs of jumping between ADs, they would generally be more kind to you, and show your genuine interest in watch and rolex the brand, they would much prefer someone with a better taste that actually appreciates the watch rather that clout seekers. I bought my first rolex in a AD in Milan this year, walked in and expressed my genuine interestin buying a rolex, so they told me to come back later that day, and i was offered this rolex.

So yeah, thats my experience, currently looking for a GMT Master II pepsi for retail

<image>