The Rolex Pepsi is officially gone.

On Tuesday at Watches and Wonders in Geneva, the Swiss watchmaker confirmed it had pulled the GMT-Master II ref. 126710BLRO from its catalog, ending the run of one of the most sought-after steel sports watches of the past decade and sending prices for pre-owned examples soaring even higher. “Secondary market prices on the steel Pepsi have surged past $30,000, with unworn examples pushing above $40,000,” Robertino Altieri, CEO and founder of online marketplace WatchGuys, told Robb Report. The Crown also discontinued the white-gold iteration (Ref. 126719BLRO) that debuted in 2014, four years before the steel.

The news comes as no surprise to those in the know. Five industry experts we interviewed ahead of Watches and Wonders predicted the Crown would nix the Pepsi. Speculation of a discontinuation has been swirling for months, in fact, as some of the watchmaker’s authorized dealers—C.D. Peacock and London Jewelers, for example—removed the Pepsi from their websites. By late February, amid a report by WatchPro that authorized dealers were no longer getting fresh deliveries, prices jumped to the mid-$20,000s.

“We knew this was coming,” adds Altieri. “Authorized dealers had stopped receiving deliveries months ago, and waitlists were frozen by February. What we did not expect was the absence of a replacement.”

The watch world had been betting on a Coke replacement for months, helped along by a Rolex patent filing published in 2024 that described a process for producing a multicolored ceramic component using red-and-black as the central example. Instead, the Crown demurred: no Coke, and, in a first for the ceramic era, no red bezel in the steel lineup at all.

So, what happens next? History may have some clues: When the Submariner Hulk was discontinued in 2020, the model roughly doubled in value within the next two years, from around $14,000 to nearly $30,000. The Pepsi starts from a higher floor, and if the pattern holds, don’t be surprised to see prices north of $35,000 by the end of the year. “Prices on 2026-dated examples will likely push toward $40,000, with earlier production years trading lower,” says Altieri.

The bubble could, of course, burst if the Pepsi returns with improved manufacturing as rumors suggest. “The ceramic bezel has always had production issues, and if Rolex brings back a red bezel in any form within the next couple of years, the premium deflates,” Altieri adds. “I am watching this one closely, not chasing it.”

The Pepsi has had what Giovanni Prigigallo, cofounder and head of business development at EveryWatch, describes as “the most volatile and closely watched trajectories in the modern Rolex market,” with prices rising amid discontinuation chatter, then correcting. It seems that yo-yoing may continue yet. 

So, if you own a Pepsi already, hold onto it. If you don’t, expect to shell out an even bigger premium to add it to your collection.