The short history of the Carl F. Bucherer brand - Rolex calls it a day

In the summer of 2023, there was a real big deal with the takeover of the Bucherer jewelry chain by the luxury watch giant Rolex – but there was no big bang.

At the time, the watch community wondered what the watch manufacturer would do with its expanded existence as a global retailer. Until then, Rolex had deliberately stayed out of the retail business.

There was one common denominator in all the Rolex/Bucherer deliberations: The Swiss watch brand will not ignore the vast amount of data on the behavior of luxury buyers. In other words, what's going well and what's not so well.

And now there has been a conclusion which, although it cannot be called a delayed Big Bang, has nevertheless caused a great stir in the industry.

The Carl F. Bucherer watch brand, founded personally by owner Jörg Bucherer in 2001, is being discontinued. While the brand, including the entire Bucherer history, boasts a respectable 137 years of age, dials bearing the Carl F. Bucherer logo—a tribute to Bucherer founder Carl Friedrich Bucherer—delighted watch enthusiasts for just 24 years.

It can't really have been the design or technical expertise that was to blame. And sales weren't that bad either. In good years, they reportedly generated CHF 80 to 100 million, although they never turned a profit.

Marcel Speiser of the Swiss Handelszeitung writes this and explains: “The watch brand Carl F. Bucherer was a hobby of Bucherer patron Jörg Bucherer, who died in November 2023.”

There are no official statements from either Bucherer or Rolex at the end, except that Bucherer dismissed everything to Bilanz Watches as “mere rumors,” as Marcel Speiser knows.

However, given the numerous media reports about the demise of Carl F. Bucherer, this doesn't seem to be true. Why should the Rolex Group—which includes Rolex and Tudor—struggle with a brand in an already tense market that, while undoubtedly beautiful, has never made a profit.

The latter is particularly astonishing, since, on the one hand, according to Bilanz Watches, CHF 250 million had been invested in the brand and, with the Bucherer network, over 100 PoS were available worldwide, virtually free of charge.

According to Handelszeitung, Carl F. Bucherer watches were also often sold as bundles with the most sought-after Rolex models – which in turn led to a dramatic drop in prices on the pre-owned market. This apparently wasn't good for the brand's image or the business with new watches – without a Rolex affiliation. Rolex will now end this business entirely.