Auctions. Upcoming and advice.

Wibbs

Just a thought for a thread on online and offline auctions and advice on how to navigate them to get the best deal and watch for you


Just a few things I've gleaned over the years in no particular order...

Avoid "auction fever" and set a limit and stick to it. Sniping sites like bidnapper can be a boon here(also allows you more wriggle room to withdraw a bid too).

Precious few watch models are so rare as to render you into a quivering mess that must bid all to get one. So called "rare" models usually come up once a month if not week. Truly rare is once or twice a year. You will see another one in a weeks time.

Research prices for the watch you're after. Tag a few auction examples in your watchlist and see what they actually fetch. All too often dealer buy it now(BIN) prices are three times the actual value.

Research the model online. Look at pics, even collect them so you know what to look for. Search forums for expert help.

Condition is everything. If a model usually sells for the 300 quid mark in OK condition and 400 in near mint, better to pay the extra 100 in the longterm.

Factor in a service with any vintage. Unless the dealer can show a genuine receipt for a recent service. Otherwise assume it's got years of crud under the bonnet.

With quartz or electronic, tuning fork etc make sure they state that it's working. If they say "was working, just needs battery" walk away.

Avoid redials like the very plague unless it's an extremely rare model or going for half nothing.

If you go outside the EU factor in taxes/duty. That 200 quid bargain can look like a real pain in the arse when the gubberment adds another 100 quid on top.

Avoid sellers who say "no returns", or don't do paypal or bank transfer. You want some guarantee if you buy a pig in a poke.

Feedback is great but it ain't everything. Still bad feedback is to be avoided like the plague.

Be extremely careful with sales from eastern Europe(particularly Ukraine) as so many are fakes or Frankenwatches(put togethers from separate parts). The far east is another area where caution should be exercised. India the same(plus the climate seems to play havoc with the movements and dials). Some say avoid Italy, but personally I've bought a few items from Italy and never once had a problem. YMMV.

Don't buy into dealer hype. EG Sicura are NOT Brietlings or anything like it. They're in the majority of cases crappy pin pallet low grade watches but the B word sells them for far above their intrinsic value. Mega rare = none on the Bay this week. "Mint condition" = I wiped the manure off and turned up the contrast in me camera. "May need service" = Running like a three legged horse. "Restored" = redial and I took a brillo pad and Vim to the case. "Military style" = about as military as a pantomime dame. "Brand new strap" = Please sweet jesus don't look at the state of the dial. You get the idea.

You will likely get burned at some stage as you go on. However if you research and take your time then it'll be a slight scald as opposed to the full Nikki Lauda.

My 3 cents.

Menas

Great advice Wibbs.
I would add one point.
Look at the postage and packing costs. Some sellers charge a load for this but don't use a signed for service.
I paid 40 euro once for shipping of an expensive watch, but it was sent by regular post and the postie just left it on my doorstep as I was at work!

Wibbs

Yep postage is one to keep an eye on alright TH. Some really take the pee. Some German and UK sellers I've noted do so more than others.


Keep em coming

Eoin

Nothing new here for the more experienced people, but here are some of the points I've picked up over the last couple of years.

Use other eBay websites to search; not just ebay.ie/co.uk/com. A lot of sellers who are used to a large domestic market are quite insular and don't think about other nationalities, so their items might just appear on ebay.de etc.

Research the brand as well as the model. Some brands sound like they're Swiss or German, but are anything but. You might also find companies that were good Swiss brands, but went bust and their name bought by a company that churns out cheap stuff under the same banner. Do NOT rely on RRPs from the manufacturer's website - with the dodgy brands, it's often a crazily high price so it looks like great value on Amazon.

Forget about any groupon type watch deals. Just don't. Similarly, the majority of Amazon watch "sales" are just watches yo-yoing between ridiculously high RRPs and still over the odds prices.

It's not just high end watches that are faked - there are fake versions of 20 quid Casio digital watches and everything in-between.

Further to Trigger Happy's point - some countries don't have the most reliable/honest postal service, so consider paying extra for a respected courier service, if the seller is just quoting for standard post.

Before you buy Russian, talk to peasant!

Wibbs

Eoin wrote: »

Use other eBay websites to search; not just ebay.ie/co.uk/com. A lot of sellers who are used to a large domestic market are quite insular and don't think about other nationalities, so their items might just appear on ebay.de etc.

+1000 and in the EU anyway I've yet to find a seller who won't sell to Ireland if you drop them an message*, even if they come up as "may not post to Ireland". US sellers tend to be much more wary of/dead against selling outside the US, limiting themselves to CONUS(continental US).

This stuff works for buying non watch related items too. Though why you'd be doing something like that is beyond me. That's just odd.






*I frame the message in English with a google translate for their language as a courtesy. My appalling schoolboy French has come out on occasion and in those cases I think they sold to me out of a sense of pity.

Eoin

Wibbs wrote: »

Avoid "auction fever" and set a limit and stick to it. Sniping sites like bidnapper can be a boon here(also allows you more wriggle room to withdraw a bid too).

www.gixen.com is a good (free) service too.

HDMI

I haven't been down to O'Reillys auctions in a while now but the one time that I actually won and went to pay I was shocked that they did not take plastic. Cash or cheque only, I had to do a runner up the road to find an atm.

Also try view the item before the auction and ask any questions no matter how trivial. The 3 watch lot that I was looking at were advertised as being from the 1920's -30's and to my wifes dismay ( Mr know it all had to open his mouth) I questioned the date and they brought their "expert" down and he insisted that the listing was correct. I explained Bulova's dating system and the watch was 1960, another and he fobbed me off, on auction day he stated 1960.

Also factor in servicing, the 3 watch lot that I purchased all had to be serviced, one was actually running 20 minutes fast per day. These 3 are long gone but were really nice after running repairs and crystal replacement, wish I still had the Gruen.

Eoin

Here is an example of silly bidding on eBay.

It's a Steinhart Ocean One Green that sells new (and is in stock) for 350 + 10 shipping. With a few mins left, bidding is at just over 300 and shipping to Europe would be 35. So it's a saving of maybe 20 quid on a new watch to buy a second hand one.

Plus the seller says "Buyer covers the paypal fees.", which I am fairly sure is not allowed on eBay.

Wibbs

I have found that the "experts"(not) can be a real boon as mistakes, good ones for the buyer, can be made all to regularly.

Wibbs

Eoin wrote: »

Here is an example of silly bidding on eBay.

It's a Steinhart Ocean One Green that sells new (and is in stock) for 350 + 10 shipping. With a few mins left, bidding is at just over 300 and shipping to Europe would be 35. So it's a saving of maybe 20 quid on a new watch to buy a second hand one.

Good oul auction fever alright. Add in shill bidding and the widespread idea that ebay is always cheaper and it's a recipe to get burned alright.

Cos I'm interested and usually broke I keep a long watchlist running on vintage watches for fun just to see prices. Recently I've noted the same watches coming up for auction time and time again. I don't mean they don't sell, they sell, but then the dealer relists them a week later. I've seen this with three or four different watches in the last two months. Either the watches involved are pure dirt and get returned, or rather than putting a reserve which might put off some potential buyers, they're shilling their own sales putting in the reserve as a snipe and if it passes that it sells, if not... Given how many of these I've seen and I'm looking at a very narrow search criteria, I'd strongly suspect the latter. I'd not noticed this kinda thing in the past.

So all the more reason for folks to keep their powder dry. Have patience. Unless the model you're after is truly rare, then just take a month to search and watchlist a few examples and see what they fetch. See how many come up and if the same one comes up twice...

HDMI

If buying on eBay.com be very wary of purchases coming from the USA. They are now using the global shipping program which means the seller has to ship the watch to an eBay forwarding service, import fees are paid to eBay at a higher price than Irish customs would charge you.

Current example sale price $459.00
Shipping $38.13
Import charges from eBay $137.57 much more than Irish custom fees.

Wibbs

Yep H, that global shipping lark is a right old con. Never mind that ebay changed a good while back and essentially made all auctions "private" thereby increasing the chances of shilling. The days of ebay being good for buying, or at least easy enough with the chance of getting a good deal is long gone. Well you still can, but you have to have a lot of time on your hands, really need to know your stuff on the item in question and be prepared to think outa the box*. There's a lot more variety in price for the same models of watches. So dealers can have pie in the sky BIN prices of say 1000 quid for a model, yet the same model can go for 2-300 quid from a private seller auction. Daftly I've seen some of the dealer prices being paid. I can kinda understand buying from a bricks and mortar outfit so you have some guarantee, but on ebay its pretty much a level enough playing field there.


*as Eoin said, don't stick to ebay.ie. Try localised ebays like .fr or .de or .es. .it is usually chockablock with stuff(per capita the Italians buy more watches than anyone else, stylish bastids that they are). If they say they only ship in country a polite email can often change their mind(IME the US and for some odd reason the UK can be exceptions here).

Secondly learn a bit of the local lingo and search accordingly. EG if you're on ebay.fr and are looking for a divers watch don't search for "diver", but instead search for "plongee", instead of "vintage" search for "ancienne". that sorta thing. You'd be surprised how many more items you may have missed can show up.

There are also value differences depending on country too. Outside of the obvious Omega/Rolex stuff, some brands might be stronger in one region compared to another. Sheer numbers come into it too, so a Russian watch sold in the UK is usually gonna be more expensive than one sold in Russia, or places bordering it. Ditto for French brands in France, or American brands in America. It seems really obvious but not to all.

If you're a vintage buff look at models and eras and even companies that may not be currently fashionable. Though this is becoming harder compared to the past. There was a time you couldn't give 1970's stuff away, even from the major makers. Still a 70's Omega is often gonna be cheaper than a 50's one depending on the particular model.