[dcolkitt]

Any speculative profit you hope to make on buying a limited edition Rolex is entirely reliant on the business of Rolex continuing to market the brand of Rolex.

But if you don't have a formal contractual relationship with Rolex SA, then it's quite simply not an investment contract.

[jakelazaroff]

> Any speculative profit you hope to make on buying a limited edition Rolex is entirely reliant on the business of Rolex continuing to market the brand of Rolex.

That is not at all true. Rolexes will continue to accrue value even (especially?) if the company goes out of business.

[scg]

To the extent that the Rolex brand has a certain inertia that will propel it further even after the company ceases to exist, that inertia can be attributed to company's previous marketing efforts.

Indeed, the brand may retain value for some time even if the company goes out of business, perhaps even for a very long time. Nevertheless, that doesn't negate the fact that ongoing marketing efforts can amplify the brand's value and momentum, and the brand's inertia will be even stronger should the company cease to exist.

Another way to look at this is to put yourself in the shoes of a prospective buyer in 1923. Wouldn't you say in that situation you rely on the company's continuing marketing efforts to further the value of the brand? At what point in the last 100 years do you stop relying on the company's efforts?

Also, Rolex can easily destroy brand value with ill-considered promotional campaigns, so you rely on the company to not mess it up.

[nonethewiser]

Maybe.

[unyttigfjelltol]

A Rolex is a tangible art object that also performs a useful function. If, on the other hand, the issuing company sold NFTs with no tangible, functional, or aesthetic component and somehow sold people on the idea Rolex the company was going to pump these otherwise useless bits and bytes to the moon, then you're actually talking about something analogous to crypto.

[dcolkitt]

There's literally nothing in existing law that identifies tangibility as a specific criteria for what constitutes a security and what constitutes a commodity. In fact both the CFTC and SEC are specifically on record as saying Bitcoin constitutes a commodity. And obviously Bitcoin is as intangible as it gets.