Walk the case at any watch show, and you'll find three brands doing roughly the same thing: skeletonized movements, tonneau cases, wild materials, price tags with a lot of zeros. Richard Mille, Franck Muller, and Hublot all sell the same pitch on paper. Bold design. Technical flex. Status on the wrist.
Only one of them has a waitlist that outruns the watch itself. For some Richard Mille models, buyers can expect to wait anywhere from six months to several years just for the chance to purchase, depending on rarity and demand.
The materials aren't the difference. RM works in carbon TPT and quartz TPT. So does Hublot, in its own composites. Franck Muller has been bending sapphire and titanium into strange shapes since before either of them existed. The pricing isn't the difference either. Push any of the three to their top end, and you're well past six figures. Franck Muller's Aeternitas Mega 4 has cleared $2 million. Hublot's boutique pieces aren't cheap. None of these brands is winning on spec sheets.
RM wins on something none of those measures:Â who's allowed to buy one.
Scarcity Is the Product
Here's the part most people miss. Richard Mille doesn't sell watches. It sells access to watches. Production numbers stay tight on purpose. Allocation goes through authorized dealers who decide who's ready for a piece, not who has the cash in a bank account. Dealers typically prioritize clients based on purchase history with the brand or store, ongoing relationships, and sometimes perceived loyalty or influence. If you have never bought from them before, you are unlikely to get the call for a new release, no matter your budget. You can walk in with the money and still walk out without a watch. That's not a bug in the system. That's the entire system.
Franck Muller never built that wall. The catalog is enormous, prices range from a few thousand dollars to seven figures, and pieces are easier to find if you want one. Hublot, especially post-LVMH, embraced volume and mainstream marketing instead of gatekeeping. Both are good watches you can actually buy. That's precisely the problem if your goal is to be the brand people talk about.
Scarcity does something pricing alone can't. It turns the watch into proof you were let in.
RM Built a Story, Not a Watch
Franck Muller was arguably the first to adopt this design language, the aggressive curvex case, the loud complications, the "watch as spectacle" idea that RM later ran with. But Franck Muller conveyed a story of craftsmanship. Richard Mille told a performance story, and it recruited the right people to carry it.
Rafael Nadal wore an RM tourbillon through Grand Slam finals that weighed next to nothing and, by every account, withstood more abuse than a $1 million object should survive. That's not a celebrity endorsement.That's a stress test with a trophy at the end. Every RM ambassador since has reinforced the same idea: this isn't a dress watch that happens to be expensive. It's a machine built for people who move.
Hublot chased a similar sports-marketing playbook (football, Formula 1) but spread itself across many partnerships and price points, so the exclusivity never landed the same way. Franck Muller mostly skipped the ambassador game entirely and let the case shape speak for itself. It spoke, but not as loudly.
The Flex Economy Did the Rest of the Work
RM's rise tracks almost perfectly with the Instagram era, and that's no coincidence. Owners became the marketing department. A tourbillon on a steering wheel, a wrist shot against a private jet, the watch as the punchline of a lifestyle photo. Nobody paid for that content. Owners created it because owning the piece was the point, and showing it was the payoff.
Franck Muller and Hublot get worn too, but they don't trigger the same reflex. Part of that is availability. It's hard to flex something your friend could also buy. Part of it is that RM built its entire identity around being unattainable, so each instance reads like a status update rather than a purchase.
What This Means at Resale
RM pieces hold value, and some models trade above retail, because the allocation model keeps supply artificially tight relative to growing demand. You're not merely buying a watch.You're buying a spot in the line of everyone who wants in, and that line is worth something the day you decide to sell.
Franck Muller and Hublot don't carry that same premium at resale. They're well-made watches that depreciate more like watches, because the market can actually get enough of them. Supply meets demand rather than falling short. Which references hold up best within Richard Mille's own catalog, and why, is worth its own breakdown below.
Acquisition: How to Improve Your Chances of Being Allocated a Richard Mille
There's no shortcut around the fundamental rule: RM allocation runs on relationships, not cash on hand. That said, a few things genuinely move the needle.
Buy before you buy the piece you want. Building purchase history with a specific boutique, starting with a more accessible reference, tells that dealer you're a real collector and not a flipper. Most allocation decisions come down to trust, and trust gets built one transaction at a time.
Pick one boutique and stay loyal to it. Spreading yourself across five authorized dealers in five cities dilutes the relationship each of them has with you. A single relationship manager who knows your taste and your history is worth more than five acquaintances who don't.
Be specific and be patient. Tell your dealer exactly which reference you want, in which material, rather than "something new." Vague interest gets deprioritized behind specific, informed requests. And expect the wait. Depending on the model, that's anywhere from several months to several years, and rushing it tends to work against you.
For most people, the realistic path in is the secondary market rather than the waitlist. That's not a consolation prize. It's simply how the system is built to work for the vast majority of buyers, us included when we're sourcing for clients.
Investment: Which RM Models Actually Hold or Appreciate Best
Not every Richard Mille appreciates, and the ones that do share a few traits: real production scarcity, a documented technical first, or a strong tie to a specific athlete or moment. Generic sport references without one of those three things tend to move with the broader market rather than outperform it, no matter how well made they are.
Athlete collaborations lead the pack. The RM 035 and RM 27 series tied to Rafael Nadal, the RM 011 Felipe Massa, and the RM 038 Bubba Watson have consistently traded at or above original retail, because each one carries a story that doesn't expire. Technical firsts hold up just as well. The RM UP-01 Ferrari, limited to 150 pieces and the thinnest mechanical watch ever made, has changed hands well above its launch price. Skull references like the RM 52-05 and RM 52-01 also command strong premiums, since they combine low production with instant recognizability.
Material matters too, though it's a smaller factor than story. Current-production sport models in Carbon TPT tend to hold value more reliably than the same reference in steel or titanium, since the material itself is harder to source and more expensive to work with. Discontinued mid-range references without an athlete tie or a technical milestone are the ones that have softened the most, and are, honestly, the best entry point if you want a real Richard Mille without paying the premium the flagship pieces carry.
Alternatives: Other Brands With Similar Exclusivity Models
Richard Mille didn't invent the allocation system. It just took it further than most.
Patek Philippe runs the most disciplined version of this model in traditional Swiss watchmaking. The brand produces around 60,000 watches a year across its entire catalog, keeps sport references like the Nautilus and Aquanaut in permanent short supply, and CEO Thierry Stern has said publicly that not everyone should get a Patek. Waitlists for popular Nautilus and Aquanaut configurations commonly run four to eight years, and allocation depends heavily on purchase history, often tens of thousands of dollars spent on other models first.
Rolex works the same way for its sports models. Steel Daytonas, Pepsi GMT-Master IIs, and certain Submariner configurations are essentially unavailable to a first-time buyer walking into a boutique, regardless of budget. Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak, especially in steel, follows an identical pattern.
F.P. Journe and Greubel Forsey sit at the far end of this spectrum. Both are independent makers with genuinely tiny annual production, sometimes just a few dozen pieces of a given reference, and cult followings among serious collectors who want something rarer than anything a big house can offer. If exclusivity is the goal rather than motorsport styling specifically, these two are worth a serious look.
The common thread across all of them is the same one that makes Richard Mille work: production stays deliberately below demand, and the brand, not the buyer, decides who gets in.
Market Trends: How Future Shifts Could Affect Resale Value
A few things are worth watching if you're holding or considering any of these pieces.
The pandemic-era surge that pushed secondary prices on allocation-model watches to as much as five times retail has cooled significantly across the industry. That correction has mostly hit discontinued and mid-tier references without a strong story, while flagship allocation pieces from Richard Mille, Patek, and AP have held up better, since scarcity there is structural rather than a temporary supply crunch.
Watch how allocation brands manage production going forward. If Richard Mille or Patek were ever to meaningfully increase output, that would put real downward pressure on resale premiums across the board, since so much of the current value is built on artificial scarcity rather than raw demand alone. Neither brand shows signs of doing that, but it's the single biggest risk to this entire category of collecting.
Franck Muller and Hublot, without that scarcity model, are more exposed to ordinary market cycles. Their resale values will likely continue to track general luxury spending and brand momentum rather than moving independently the way RM and Patek do. That's not necessarily bad news for owners. It just means these are watches you buy to wear and enjoy, not assets you're counting on to outperform.
What We'd Tell You At the Counter
If you're deciding among the three, ask yourself what you're actually buying. A Franck Muller gets you genuine, underrated horological ambition without the wait. A Hublot offers bold design and brand recognition at a friendlier price and on a shorter list. A Richard Mille gets you all of that, plus the story, the access problem, and the resale premium that comes from being hard to get. If your goal is exclusivity, it is also worth exploring independent makers like F.P. Journe or Greubel Forsey, whose extremely limited production and cult status make them favorites among collectors looking for something rare on the wrist.
None of that is really about the watch on the wrist. It's about what getting one says you had to go through to get it.
Curious what your Richard Mille, Franck Muller, or Hublot is actually worth right now? Book an appointment, and we'll evaluate it in person, no obligation.
