Watchmaker's estate: $54,700 ???

[LittleWatchShop]

Here's a guy in Arkansas putting an estate he acquired on ebay.  Curious I was.  He shows you the stuff with a series of terrible videos.  This kind of stuff intrigues me, but this guy is whistling Dixie, IMHO.

I tried to find a reason to go buy it but failed.

[JohnR725]

15 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

but this guy is whistling Dixie, IMHO.

What you meant to say was you wish him well on his fantasies.

 

[oldhippy]

He hasn’t a clue about salesman ship. As you say terrible videos and the mumbling audio. Did he just think of a number when it came to selling because he says many times he hasn’t a clue what a lot of the stuff is for. I don't think he has a hope in hell selling that for the asking price. 

[nickelsilver]

3 hours of video, shot vertically with a shaky hand . He'll make more money separating it into lots and selling them on Ebay, though it's far more work. Doubt he'd come close to the asking price though still.

[praezis]

6 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

He'll make more money separating it into lots and selling them on Ebay, though it's far more work.

Exactly what I thought: he wants the maybe possible amount from selling all single items - but leaving the involved work to others.

There are a few very nice accessories, which makes me think that the major tools and machines are already missing.

Frank

[LittleWatchShop]

52 minutes ago, praezis said:

There are a few very nice accessories, which makes me think that the major tools and machines are already missing.

Agreed.  Notice the numbered stickers on some of the items.  That tells me that there was some sort of pre-sale.  Possibly before he acquired it... But, if this were a working watchmaker's estate, there should be something nice...not incomplete Seitz sets.  These are the leftovers.

Notice the lathe with a grinding wheel on it.  Not exactly a "watchmaker" use model.  And where is the collet set?

[nickelsilver]

Last century when I was in school I was alerted that a well known watchmaker and author was selling off all his stuff as one lot. It was a couple hours drive, so talked to him on the phone first, "there's no cherry-picking, it's all or nothing"; OK. Went down, he had a couple of nice lathes, but from his writing I was expecting one set up for milling and dividing... "no, sold that to another guy", what about that rounding up tool? "sold to another guy", and so forth. So it was the dregs, already been cherry-picked.

 

A sad thing that happens is when a watchmaker passes and folks come in and pick off the good stuff for nothing from the unknowing widow, leaving the cigar boxes full of random junk and a few forlorn 3/4 empty assortments, or a lathe which magically is missing all its accessories.

[KarlvonKoln]

Egad!  Well, I saw some watches, watch parts, and pliers near the end.  But mostly I saw a whole lot of boxes and cases, with the implication that there were vintage watchmaking tools in them.  There's no way I'd spend $40,000 or more on implications.  
(That, and I don't presently have $40,000 to spend.)
That man has big dreams, but I'm afraid I cannot bring myself to be all that optimistic for him.

[VWatchie]

55 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

A sad thing that happens is when a watchmaker passes and folks come in and pick off the good stuff for nothing from the unknowing widow, leaving the cigar boxes full of random junk and a few forlorn 3/4 empty assortments, or a lathe which magically is missing all its accessories.

This reminds me of the following quote:

"I'm afraid one day I will die and my wife will sell my watches for what I told her I paid for them."

[Vinito]

2 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

A sad thing that happens is when a watchmaker passes and folks come in and pick off the good stuff for nothing from the unknowing widow, leaving the cigar boxes full of random junk and a few forlorn 3/4 empty assortments, or a lathe which magically is missing all its accessories.

This thread is making me want to kick myself (again)

My brother was a master watchmaker and had an extremely nice shop. He started in the mid '70s so did it for forever, so you can imagine.

He passed away several years ago and his wife even had me help her kind of assess some kind of ballpark values on his stuff. I was aware of a lot of it, but wasn't actually into watchmaking back then. She ended up ignoring everything I said and sold the whole lot for $10K, and the buyer ends up being a slimy import who basically haphazardly just tossed piles of everything into boxes and loaded into a truck. Obviously just flipping everything.
Heck, had I known that would have been her decision, I would have paid her that much just for sentimental reasons. Plus now that I'm starting to get into it a little myself, I would have had an awesome shop full of tools to do anything that ever came up once I learned how to use it. The best beginner tool kit ever.

Anyway, long story longer. $40K for just what I'm seeing is clearly absurd after I got to see my brother's shop get sold off for 1/4 that.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Vinito

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, KarlvonKoln said:

Egad!  Well, I saw some watches, watch parts, and pliers near the end.  But mostly I saw a whole lot of boxes and cases, with the implication that there were vintage watchmaking tools in them.  There's no way I'd spend $40,000 or more on implications.  
(That, and I don't presently have $40,000 to spend.)
That man has big dreams, but I'm afraid I cannot bring myself to be all that optimistic for him.

boxes inside boxes, i have to get myself some of those.  Maybe he thinks prospective buyers have xray vision.

[LittleWatchShop]

24 minutes ago, Vinito said:

This thread is making me want to kick myself (again)

My brother was a master watchmaker and had an extremely nice shop. He started in the mid '70s so did it for forever, so you can imagine.

If you happen to read my introduction from a couple of years ago, you will see that I almost made a similar mistake.  My dad was a watchmaker and I inherited his equipment along with some boxes of watches.  I almost started selling it all on ebay and then had an epiphany--decided to become a watchmaker!  Nothing to the level of what this guy is selling.  A couple of lathes, six staking sets, watchbench complete with every tool you would need on a daily basis.  Timing machine, microscope...and other stuff.  I have since bought more...lol.

[JohnR725]

If you look at the reviews of the seller the last three items are watch related. I'm guessing a mustard dip does tell when the water by selling a few items at what seemed to be too much money and based on that decided that he has $1 trillion of stuff you could sell at all is one big lot. Unfortunately I've seen this before on eBay and typically though just sit there forever because nobody can afford to pay that for what they're going to get just isn't worth it.

Oh and then the item numbers I'm assuming he purchased this from somewhere else.

 

[LittleWatchShop]

He dropped the starting bid after a relisting.

[spectre6000]

Yet no less astronomical...