Editor’s Note
As luxury watches and jewelry gain status as asset classes, they have become prime targets for theft and fraud. This article outlines practical steps collectors can take to protect their investments.
In particular, over the past five years, we’ve seen watches and jewelry gain popularity and status as asset classes. As a direct result, these luxury goods have become targets for theft and fraud amid the boom in the secondary market. Of course, there are steps you can take to protect against theft, from traveling smart to safe home storage and specialty insurance products, to even being intentional and conscious about how you wear your watches and jewelry out into the world day to day. When it comes to buying in the pre-owned market, there are also practices you can follow to educate yourself on the landscape and vet sellers. Still, there’s an added layer you can incorporate into your collecting journey, and you don’t have to wait until that unfortunate moment when theft or fraud may occur to register your watch with one or both of the world’s top two databases in the luxury watch and jewelry space. Today, in this two-part story, we’ll look at one of these organizations and how best to use it to safeguard your collection.
The Art Loss Register was founded in London back in 1990 and has since become the world’s largest private database of lost, stolen, and looted art, antiques, jewelry, and collectibles. By the 2010s, the organization noticed an uptick in watch and jewelry thefts and fraud. At the time, there was also a gap in the market when Rolex stopped making its lost-and-stolen database available to the public.
Hills was working at The Art Loss Register at the time, noticed the void and market need, and saw an opportunity. In 2014, she founded The Watch Register as a dedicated platform within The Art Loss Register’s portfolio.
Today, the platform offers checks via WhatsApp, iMessage, and text message, so that people on the move at a trade show or doing business coffee can do a quick serial number check and get instant results. The cost of a serial number verification is $16 per individual check or as low as $2.50 for users checking higher volumes of watches.
In addition to fraud prevention, loss recovery is the second pillar of The Watch Register. Here, collectors can register a timepiece that has been lost or stolen for $20 per watch. The Watch Register then operates on a no-win, no-fee basis—they charge a location or recovery fee only if a recovery is successful. Using their comprehensive database of over hundreds of thousands of items, The Watch Register works closely with law enforcement agencies, insurance companies (like Hodinkee Insurance), and the victims themselves to investigate, locate, and return the items to the rightful owner.
Thanks to this approach, the recovery rates are increasing. Looking at the first six months of 2025, The Watch Register located 607 lost and stolen watches through their global database, a 26% increase on the same period in 2024. Among those recovered timepieces, 87 were physically returned to their owners, a 14% increase on the same period in 2024. However, it’s important to note that these recoveries are the direct result of collectors having the best possible details on their missing watch.
It’s also worth noting that if you’re a Hodinkee Insurance customer, you have the ability to include a serial number for every watch you add to your policy.
In addition to safely storing your watch and its documentation, insurance is another important part of safeguarding your collection, and, of course, Hodinkee Insurance is always here to help with this layer of protection. However, you don’t have to wait to make an insurance claim before you report your lost or stolen watch to The Watch Register.
For more information on The Watch Register, you can visit their website for additional details and to register your timepieces. In the meantime, stay tuned for part two exploring the Richemont group’s watch and jewelry database, Enquirus.
