Reply With QuoteHi and welcome to the forum, we all buy ours on SC.
All, curious to see where other forum members made their best deals when buying used / vintage watches?
As a background: I always was looking on ebay and Chrono24, while I had assumed that pawnshops are overpriced and a waste of time, but recently got a great deal in one.
Recently I walked by a Robertson & Suttons when they had a big January sale and got a 18k gold Cartier Tank Solo (small, quartier) for £850, reduced from their prior price of £1750 (new costs around 4k). Decent condition, no major scratches only small from normal use, leather strap is old and I will replace (but with some proper wax+polish probably still would look ok). I have been looking for a good deal on that watch since a few weeks as a gift for my girlfriend, best offers on Ebay and chrono24 were much higher, more in the range of the pawn shop price of £1750. For 800 I only found the cheap gold-plated must de cartier tanks...
By the way one more tip for market research:
If you search ebay for sold items and sort results by price asc/descending, you can guess from the order of the items how much of a discount sellers roughly accepted for Items with "Make Offer" option - interesting to see, quite often its a substantial discount of 20-40%...
Hi and welcome to the forum, we all buy ours on SC.
Welcome to the forum
Ive bought some good ones on Ebay
Also bought some awful ones
I like Sales Corner
Last edited by Velorum; 12th February 2016 at 22:05.
Great deal, thanks for the tip.
Hello and welcome to the forum.
The places you mention for vintage all carry a risk of buying a fake, a stolen watch, or something that is a Frankenstein unless you know exactly what you are doing.
There are loads of threads on here about buying vintage and the best advice is always buy from someone who is a trusted source with an excellent reputation for dealing in the types of watches that you are considering.
In time when you have enough posts under your belt you will gain access to sales corner and buying from fellow enthusiasts here does reduce the risk considerably.
That eBay tip is fab, thanks a lot!
So your the guy who keeps offering 40% lower than my asking on eBay deals.
Nice tips
If you don't want to be low balled by vulchers, don't tick the box to accept offers.Originally Posted by JPCain86
I feel it is rather dangerous on Ebay and the likes. The chance to get a fake or an incorrect watch is too high for me. I would at least check here if you're not 100% sure about the originality of the watch. It's scary to see how many redials and incorrect watches are out there.
A second hand watch shop seems to be safer, but even there sometimes I see dubious examples...
Personally I'd be happy to us the SC facility here most of the time. Use the H&V feedback and follow the "buy the seller" rule. Look to see how much they contribute to the forum if nothing else.
I also use local dealers (AD's who carry pre-owned stock) and some on-line offerings like Posh Time.
Again Personally I would not touch e-Bay with a 10 foot pole. This dislike is now extending into not trading with anybody who uses e-Bay. So a comment on SC along the lines of ".............or its off to e-Bay" is more than enough to put me off the seller. I stress Personal view only.
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