Jump to content

Where to find bargains?


ITProDad

Recommended Posts

I've been having great luck with ebay lately.  It takes a while to find  searches that work and give good results but once you do you can get ebay to send you alerts when new items matching those searches are found. 

You might also have access to catawiki, not sure.  It's not available in Canada :(.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

         

 

                                                           INFORMATION                                                   

 

                                                            

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm afraid that the watch market has evolved beyond bargains. In my experience, there's always something wrong with the watches that are left. Sellers are usually quite experienced and know exactly what they're selling. eBay gets too many eyeballs and the watch virus is too widespread for true bargains to be available for long. Professional watch dealers have people looking for them all day long so there's not much left for enthusiasts like us.

In the past year, I've seen a friend buy a JLC Memovox, only to spend $800 on reparations and parts. A similar story with a "bargain" Omega chronograph. After parts and repairs, he paid more for it than if he bought a decent one in the first place.

To answer your question, I sometimes buy at watch fairs, local online marketplaces but I mostly buy watches that need some TLC from friends who are also collectors and hobby watch flippers. They can quickly and easily sell them to me and I have some nice projects for a decent price.

Edited by Nutiborskoku
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Auction houses can be fruitful but be careful you need a close inspection which is  usually offered a day or two before the actual day of the auction. Omegas ,Rolexes etc that are not working especially vintage are to avoided.

If there is one problem when looking for antiques, watches etc is the sellers use the internet as we all do, so rarely anything is sold at a true bargain price.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can get bargains you just have to look for them, people do wrongly list things and in order to find a price for something it often helps if you known what you are searching for, sellers don't always and often come to the wrong conclusion on price, I have had recently a 14 kt gold automatic longines for £120 listed as gold filled a lack of understanding on American gold markings on the sellers part I should imagine, a 9 ct pocket watch listed as gold plated at £50.00 again an ill-informed seller, a quarter repeater pocket watch listed as a chiming watch £99.00 buy it now and various IWC pocket watches, I don't attend auctions anywhere near as much as I used to commission charges are an average of 25% now with many at 30%  I find them a bit of a non starter now.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I usually use E-bay, as house bound at present. Traders are a joke price on e-bay, and as said before a lot of scrap watches, which is fine if cheap, when learning the hobby. I personally have a pile of not fixing as not worth the cost of a repair, saying that i also have acquired some nice pocket watches before which work, just need hands/crystal. Wish i could get to boot sales, but expect the same, people hunting for them, before its opened.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, stevew said:

I usually use E-bay, as house bound at present. Traders are a joke price on e-bay, and as said before a lot of scrap watches, which is fine if cheap, when learning the hobby. I personally have a pile of not fixing as not worth the cost of a repair, saying that i also have acquired some nice pocket watches before which work, just need hands/crystal. Wish i could get to boot sales, but expect the same, people hunting for them, before its opened.

Exactly. The best watches are already gone when it's open for the public. I know for a fact that dealers at watch fairs are swapping and buying the best pieces from each other long before the official opening time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, ITProDad said:

 


“Boot sales”. ?? Not familiar with that term


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

A UK term. Car boot sales, a large gathering where people drive into a field and sell items from their car boot (trunk in US parlance) typically Sunday mornings. Again like the above they're now saturated with dealers getting in early as possible and buying up the best stuff and many sellers now either knowing the rough value of things or having watched too many episodes of Dickinson's real deal or bargain hunt think every bit of crap they have is worth a load more than it really is.

 

Edited by m1ks
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A UK term. Car boot sales, a large gathering where people drive into a field and sell items from their car boot (trunk in US parlance) typically Sunday mornings. Again like the above they're now saturated with dealers getting in early as possible and buying up the best stuff and many sellers now either knowing the rough value of things or having watched too many episodes of Dickinson's real deal or bargain hunt think every bit of crap they have is worth a load more than it really is.
 


Ha!! [emoji851]. I’m from Texas. I was actually thinking there was some kind of gray market cowboy boot traveling show of which I was woefully unaware! Thank you for helping with my English!

It does sound like fun.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I don't about bargains, but the NAWCC chapter meetings and regionals can be fertile grounds. There is a lot of trading that goes on, but wristwatches might be only a third of what you come across. The rest are clocks and pocket watches.
Have Fun!


I started with pocket watches. I have about 52. Maybe I should put some up for sale or trade.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends ..if you are looking for watches from the big players,bargains are sparse.If you are content to just have good running watches look at the off brands. 17 jewels or better,round crystal and stainless steel cases with screw down backs..buy intact complete watches whenever possible.you Will often be surprised to find that a watch that looks like it was pried out of the asphalt will have a spotless movement..the reverse is also true. Old caravelle watches came with horrid cases and very nice citizen movements. HMT watches have very sturdy cases . And a movement that will interchange directly with the caravelle.. lots of ways to have fun for not a lot of money.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget to look at the job lot and junk lot auctions on ebay. You know the sort of thing, "{random number} watches for spares or repair", also look at lots that say "watch faces", as these are often complete watches, but also be aware that an "Automatic" may in fact be a manual wind, or even a quartz, so inspect the pictures carefully. Avoid anything that is being sold with out of focus or poor pictures, it is probably a piece of garbage, deliberately badly photographed.

You do occasionally get some nice pieces in among the dross. Don't expect any Rolexes or Omegas (excepting the usual crop of fakes of course), but do look out for odd ball stuff, high end, but relatively unknown Swiss marques, mechanical Seikos in with a bunch of modern cheap Chinese "copper frying pan" watches, Swiss automatics, high end Swiss quartz, very scratched up crystals, missing crowns, disgustingly filthy straps and other relatively easily fixed items in both the single lots and job lots.

Oh.. and if you want to beat me on the auction, bid £4.05p or more.:P

Edited by AndyHull
Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • people be honest.... Swatch is evil for the watchmakers and repairers, BUT not everything in watches from Switzerland is from the Swatch-Group. As far as i know, Selitta got sacked by Swatch as a Movement-Assembler for them and they started to produce Movements in their own Name with slight Modifications. As far as i know, they sell Parts to the Market for their Movements. In most cases, if a ETA-Movement fails, it is a valid Option to replace it with a Selitta Movement, which i consider the Solution for this Mess with the Swatch-Group...... I have no Connection to anybody at Selitta, but being a Swiss-Guy, i still like to have Swiss-Made Watches, but not from the Swatch-Group.   ok ? regards, Ernst
    • Just one more greedy act by Swatch. They started a number of years ago here in the US..cutting off supplies to watchmakers that could build complications that many Swatch houses couldn't even touch. Old school masters who had gone through some of the most prestigious houses in the world. Otto Frei has some statements on their page about it. I tell all my customers to avoid new Swiss watches like the plague,..unless they just want an older one in their collection that still has some parts out on the market, or they have really deep pockets and don't mind waiting months and paying through the nose to get it back. Plenty of others to choose from..IE Seiko,..or other non-swiss brands Even a number of Chinese brands are catching up with the Swiss,..and I think that in time, their actions will be their downfall
    • Yes. If that's not what you are experiencing...start looking for something rubbing. A 1st guess is that one of the hands is rubbing against the hole in the center of the dial. Especially if you now have lower amplitude in face up/ face down positions.
    • Once a movement has the dial and hands put back and it is recased, would you expect the assembled watch to have the same amplitude as when the movement is in a movement holder and is without hands and dial? Thanks
    • C07641+ not sure what the "+" is for after the last digit.
×
×
  • Create New...