Brawls, Pepper Spray, and Store Closures: Inside the Madness of Royal Pop Release Day

Nasir then walked out of the store, past the barricades and assembled police officers, and headed into the crowd, where he sold his Royal Pop within minutes. Immediately afterward, he fanned out his bounty of $100 bills, 23 in all, from an eager collector. He hopes to use the money to continue trading up until he has enough to buy an actual Royal Oak with a skeleton dial, a model that starts at $86,800. During our chat, Nasir handed me his phone and asked me to film a video of him, in which he laid out his plan to acquire the AP before his birthday on August 15th. His next move, he said, is to buy a low-end Rolex to trade with—maybe a Datejust or Oyster Perpetual.

Nearly everyone I spoke with on launch day was planning to flip their Royal Pops. Giovanni, who owns a handbag brand, had accumulated three over the course of the morning. That was the most I saw one person have, but rumors quickly spread of a family—kids and all—that had camped out together and walked away with five. Despite lining up for 21 hours, Giovanni was turned away. Instead, he paid between 2,000 and $2,800 apiece for his trio. He’d already found committed buyers for all three watches, whom Giovanni claimed were paying him $5,000 each for managing the acquisition. “Everybody’s happy. It’s capitalism at its worst,” he said, before correcting himself: “At its best.”

Reselling the Royal Pop is a booming business, at least for the moment. Through the weekend, over 1,400 Royal Pops were sold through StockX, according to a representative for the company. The average price for a watch was $1,377, while lanyards on their own sold for an average of $205. Eleven people bought the full set at an average price of $11,570 (if you bought them all at retail, the cost would be $3,240). The most-purchased versions on StockX are, in order: the blue Lan Ba, the black-and-white Ocho Negro, the Otg Roz, and the white Huit Blanc. Still, many people sold their prizes for far more than the average: On eBay, one full set hammered for $27,900, while both a Otg Roz and a La Ban sold for $6,547 each.