I am, it must be said, a lucky boy.
I haven’t bought any watches of note for a number of years, for various reasons, but when i was actively buying i did amass a nice collection of Seiko, Omega and Rolex, amongst others.
Recently, I popped a number of my watches onto the “My Collection” section on Chrono24 and have been surprised by the value they ascribe to my watches - my 1968 5513 and 1968 1675 are both valued at 5 figures, my 1964 and 1968 Seamaster 300’s are surprisingly expensive too.
I’d like to use Chrono24 to support any insurance claim which may come about in the future. I am a nerd by profession, so have a database containing purchase details and pictures/serial numbers of all of my “high value” watches, but the current value feature of Chrono24 could be of interest also.
Are the values pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, or are they based on something a little more solid?
Thank you
Richard
I don’t think that an insurance company would accept a Chrono24 valuation for a claim. There are too many variations with vintage watches for a generic valuation to work. (ie one 5513 can be worth 3 to 4 times another, dependent upon condition, originality, extras etc etc).
You best bet would be to take your watches to a jeweller/AD and get them professionally valued. And yep, the GMT and Sub are probably currently worth £10-12k+, much more if you’ve got the original warranty papers for them.
Last edited by Bravo73; 13th January 2020 at 10:35.
Thank you for the reply - I wasn't planning on using C24 as the basis for a claim in isolation but, as you have mentioned above, with Rolex pricing especially, there are so many variables that a valuation given today may be merely indicative this time next year. My thinking was that it would show a trend, so if my 5513 was valued at 1k today (and, no, I'm not selling!) but C24 showed a +10% increase generally in 5513 prices over a 12 month period, then I would know that I should be looking for £1100 as a replacement price should something unfortunate happen at that point.
The question, really, was about the accuracy of the pricing - we've probably all seen the fanciful pricing on Xupes over the past few days and Watchfinder can sometimes ask way more than the market will support for a used watch, but the thing I like with C24 is that it shows a value which is not based on me trying to either sell or buy. So, if that price is an average of 5513's sold over the relevant period of time, would it be a more accurate view of what the market value is likely to be?
Or is it just a bloke in his Mum's basement thinking of random numbers?
C24 maintains live price trackers for hundreds (poss thousands) of popular watch models, based on its on own sales data (and there's usually ~0.5 million watches listed at an one time), so valuations should be a fair reflection of current market prices, with the minor caveat that it's the priciest place to buy after bricks & mortar ADs.
An insurance company agrees to underwrite a policy based on an assessment of risk. My advice is to inform your insurer as to what you believe is the true value of your watch collection.
If the value / risk is too high, some insurer's will decline to underwrite the policy or impose policy endorsements, i.e, you may need to have an approved safe installed?
Being under insured may result in the same outcome as not being insured at all. It is best to ask their advice on seeking valuations, taking photos etc
Another two caveats, if I may:Originally Posted by earlofsodbury
1) the prices (valuations) shown are both an average for private as well as commercial sellers. Assume you are a private seller you usually won’t be able to achiever the same price as a watch dealer say (as the buyer has less protection from you and less trust in you than a dealer). So the valuations are usually not the price you can actually achieve.
2) I just did a test with a Nomos Orion that I’m trying to sell on Chrono24. That particular model is only offered 7x by different vendors, I’m the only private seller: if I lower my asking price (which I just did, to test my theory), then the ‘value’ of this watch also drops. That can only mean that valuations are based on asking prices, not on prices actually achieved - and in my case can be quite distorted if there aren’t many listings for a particular model (which of course shouldn’t be an issue with a more popular model like a Rolex or similar).
Hope that helps, cheers
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
C24 is the broker, providing protection to both parties, so the vast majority of sales it generates - private or dealer - will go through their secure transaction portal, hence they will base their tracking data on sold prices.
Add to that the fact that almost all dealers don't accept offers on the desirable watches that are actively tracked, and you end up with a fairly reliable guide price.
As a previous poster already said - it's still more important to establish what your insurance company will actually accept by way of valuations and cover.
Fair enough re insurance cover, so definitely a useful guide. But I disagree with your first point, I don’t believe that their valuations are based on sold prices, at least not exclusively - otherwise their valuation of my watch shouldn’t have changed when I adjusted its asking price earlier to see what happens - as no sake took actually place on that one.
I don't know the if the ch24 algorithm takes listed or sold watches prices to the valuation.
It the first option, you need to remember that if you're private seller you have to sale it by ch24 or keep the watch on ch24 site for some time (like months).
So many users raise prices above the cloud level after selling watches on the other way, just to not have PMs and offers and let this time pass.
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