A leather bag with a designer’s name stamped on it might look expensive, but that doesn’t mean it has lasting value. The same goes for watches, jewelry, artwork, and similar collectibles. Some pieces truly belong in the luxury category, while others only carry the illusion of it.
If you ever plan to sell or borrow against high-end items, knowing what qualifies as “luxury” can change how much you walk away with. Materials, craftsmanship, brand legacy, and scarcity all determine how much an item can fetch. However, not every branded or expensive purchase retains its worth.
Before assuming an item is within the luxury tier, it helps to know what appraisers look for.
What Qualities Define a Luxury Item?
These five factors separate investment-worthy items from overpriced goods that lose value:
- Scarcity: Limited production runs, exclusivity, and long waitlists differentiate luxury from mass-market pieces. This scarcity pushes demand and keeps some watches, bags, and jewelry from losing value over time.
- Craftsmanship: Expert hands construct and finish these goods with techniques passed down through decades or even centuries. You see it in clean diamond settings, flawless leatherwork, and movement construction inside a high-end watch.
- Heritage: Luxury brands build reputations across generations, evident in names like Van Cleef & Arpels, Patek Philippe, Cartier, and Hermès. Decades of consistent quality give these legacy brands weight in resale, and buyers track that history when deciding to pay.
- Materials: High-value goods use top-tier components, from untreated natural diamonds to investment-grade gold and platinum. The same applies to timepieces built with proprietary alloys or handbags made with exotic skins. These materials affect pricing, durability, and trade value.
- Exclusivity: Limited availability and brand gatekeeping make some pieces harder to access, which pushes demand and value higher.
Luxury vs. Mid-Tier vs. Mass-Market: What’s the Difference?
Plenty of high-priced items fall into mid-tier or mass-market categories, not luxury. To know what’s valuable long-term, you need to know the difference between them.
LUXURY: Controlled, Proven, and Rare
From Cartier to Hermès, leading jewelry houses and handbag brands keep their pieces scarce. They also build trust through decades of impressive resale performance. Craftsmanship shows in every piece, from internal manufacturing to external finish. Demand stays strong because supply stays low and the quality does not drop.
MID-TIER DESIGNER: Branded and Accessible
Brands in this category target buyers who want the look of luxury without waitlists or higher price ranges. Their products follow trends and build brand recognition through logos and mass visibility. Examples of mid-tier designers include Michael Kors, COACH, and Kate Spade. Items from these labels range between affordable and expensive, but demand falls fast once they enter resale.
MASS-MARKET: Trend-Focused and Widely Available
Mass-market items encompass the vast majority of department store jewelry, watches, clothes, and handbags without heritage backing. Examples of leading brands include fast-fashion giants like SHEIN, Forever 21, Zara, and H&M, all of which rarely use top-tier materials and pay closer attention to volume and instant profit growth. They follow trends, push out dozens of seasonal designs, and compete on price.
Types of Luxury Items That Hold or Grow in Value
High price tags and heritage logos may attract attention, but collectors, lenders, and seasoned buyers pursue a limited group of assets, including:
1. Fine Jewelry
Luxury consumers love investment-grade pieces, particularly those with high gold purity and excellent gemstone quality. 18K gold, GIA-graded diamonds, untreated sapphires from Kashmir or Burma, and Colombian emeralds are some examples of precious metals and gemstones that retain or grow in value. Branded pieces from legacy houses add another layer of value. Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Tiffany & Co., David Yurman, and Harry Winston, to name a few, attract global attention and produce heirloom-quality designs that collectors continue to seek long after original retail.
2. Watches
Mechanical construction, limited runs, and historical relevance turn select models into long-term assets. Brands like Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and other leading watch brands dominate this category because they control production tightly, maintain strict design evolution, and back every piece with decades of mechanical refinement.
Seasoned collectors meticulously track reference numbers, dial variations, serial ranges, and original documentation. For instance, a Patek Philippe Nautilus in stainless steel with original box and papers can command triple its retail value, depending on market timing and condition. A Royal Oak model from Audemars Piguet is also widely sought-after in secondary markets, particularly first- and second-generation pieces.
3. Designer Handbags
The luxury handbag category splits quickly between trend pieces and long-term assets. Very few brands produce bags that hold or gain value. Hermès leads this space with the Birkin and Kelly lines, especially in neutral colors or exotic skins. Waitlists, scarcity, and collector demand keep these bags in circulation well above retail. A Birkin 25 in Togo leather with gold hardware, for example, can sell for double its store price, assuming it’s in pristine condition and in original packaging.
Chanel ranks second in this category, but with more volatility. Vintage Classic Flap and Boy bags in neutral tones perform best, as rising retail prices, shifting brand policies, and quality concerns have affected resale margins for newer pieces in recent years.
Louis Vuitton ranks lower in terms of long-term value but still sees consistent resale demand. Limited editions, discontinued monograms, and pieces from the Murakami or Stephen Sprouse collaborations attract collectors, but most models lose value over time.
Other brands, including Dior, Fendi, and Goyard, maintain niche followings but require rare styles or near-perfect conditions to reach high resale numbers.
4. Artwork
Unlike wearable luxury, fine art does not follow retail cycles. It trades through galleries, auction houses, and private sales, with value depending on provenance, exhibition history, and artist reputation. Original work from established painters and brands performs better than limited prints or decorative pieces. Lesser-known names can also gain traction if their work appears in museum collections or receives coverage from respected curators. Size, medium, and subject matter affect pricing, too, with large-scale paintings and sculptures often outperforming smaller studies.
Artwork behaves less predictably than other luxury categories, but top-tier works hold or grow in value, especially when backed by documentation and public sales history.
At Biltmore Loan and Jewelry, We Buy Them All
Plus we pay a premium. Bring your items in for appraisal today. Our GIA-certified gemologists and luxury goods specialists will verify documentation, assess overall condition, confirm production history, and review current market performance before buying your items outright or accepting them as collateral. Visit us at 10830 N Scottsdale Road to sell your luxury items or borrow against them.