u/FreedomFriez

After yesterday's complete and utter mess at the boutiques (riot police in at least one location, several stores reportedly refusing to open), I pulled the data on early Chrono24 listings for all 8 Royal Pop models through this evening.

Active USD listings with their asking prices:

https://preview.redd.it/31aop764ms1h1.png?width=1852&format=png&auto=webp&s=e39255c0c61d1249732946319239f63174d33ab9

Early pricing seems to be gravitating towards 4-6x retail (caveat that it's still early and we don't have a lot of data to go with). The Huit Blanc, with the white case/dial and it's 8 randomly selected multi-colored screws seems to be leading the pack at $2.3K, with the Lan Ba at $1.7K at the bottom.

For context, Royal Pops come in two flavors: Savonnettes where the crown is at 3 and have a side-winder layout, (just on the Otg Roz and Lan Ba models) and Lépine where the crown is at 12 with an open-face layout, on the remaining 6 of the 8 models. The Savonnettes are $20 more for some reason at retail, but on the secondary there's not much distinction yet other than the Lan Ba coming in the cheapest.

For comparison, here's where MoonSwatch refs are at today on Chrono24:

• Mission to the Moon (the OG SO33B100): ~$340, ~1.3× retail
• Mission to Moonshine Gold (SO33M700): ~$480, ~1.5×
• Mission to the Moonphase Snoopy (SO33W700): ~$555, ~1.8×

Common MoonSwatches followed a similar initial price craze of 6-10× retail at launch and came down to ~1.3× three years out. The only models that held a minor premium long-term were the ones with actual mechanical differences (e.g. moonphase).It'll be interesting to see if Royal Pops follow the same path. We'll know a lot more once retail distribution stabilizes (or doesn't).

Takeaway from all this is that unless for some reason you need some Royal Pop in your life immediately, I would hold off on buying anywhere close to the secondary price right now.