Why buy from a dealer if I can get my vintage watch on the cheap from Ebay?
On left is ours on the right is one I purchased from Ebay about a year ago. Both are Tissot, but they are miles apart.
Let’s start with a question I get asked quite often; why spend extra with a dealer when there are bargain vintage watches on Ebay? I’ve been guilty of this very question in the past too, but now I’m going to explain why I was wrong to think I was getting a bargain at all. Having the luxury of a watchmaker in the family meant I took some liberties when I first started vintage watches, if I saw something broken or damaged at a flea market I would just buy it and send it off to be repaired, and in those days parts where plentiful. These were the days when you could buy a Datejust 1603 for $800 and the guy who you just bought it from was more than happy to move on from what was just an old watch. When you moved on from that watch yourself whether it be because you found something new or because you were tired of being asked if it was real (very few people knew before 85 Rolex used acrylic, once again no vintage appreciation) you were happy to break even. Quick side note, the same summer I sold my Datejust I walked away from a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T for $3500 because the interior was toast and it needed paint, you might be thinking this must of been another lifetime but no it was 2003 and I was in college. Back to the question at hand these were normal operating procedures for the times, but in just over a decade things would change to the extreme and the watch buying choices we make now have far greater consequences. Today there are no $3500 dollar 68 Chargers there are no $800 dollar Datejusts, if you do happen to find either you should probably run not walk in the other direction.
The problem is to fix one of these derelicts is often times more expensive than it is to buy one that has been properly sorted. I have access to a Rolex Master Watchmaker, who will charge you in the neighborhood of $600 just to do a complete service on your watch. Sure there are independents who may charge less, but it’s been my experience that the going rate is right around $400 dollars. Now in both examples you are paying for their time and what ever parts they may need to put your watch back into spec, their labor does not go down because your watch is less expensive. For this reason your bargain watch on Ebay just stopped being a bargain and now can turn into a nightmare.
The vintage watch market it the best it’s ever been and this means that the margins are tight as no one is willing to give anything away. We’ll use the example of the two Tissots pictured above, the one on the left is one of ours listed for $600 and the one on the right is a watch I purchased a year ago for $200 on Ebay. Our watch is a Tissot Seastar with a co-branded Turler dial, fully serviced, with a brand new strap ready to wear and backed by a warranty for $600 straight to your door nothing else needed. The Ebay Tissot was a different story all together, as I received it in running condition which is Ebay speak for definitely not serviced. It needed a service and a strap before it could be worn and the crystal was so badly scratched it couldn’t be read in direct sunlight. The service cost with parts at my price was $350 dollars and that came out to a total price of $550 in 2017/18 money and took a few weeks to source and complete. Your results may vary, at least in my case for an extra $50 I could have just had a watch ready to wear and been all the things I had to make my bargain watch. I had never given this perspective much thought, thinking I was better off doing it on my own and in the long run I wasn’t even saving money I was just spending it over a longer period.
The bottom line here is when you buy the bargain watch on Ebay you should know it’s rarely the finished product. It will most likely need a service and parts, and if you don’t have access to a watchmaker you just got burned. There is a certain exhilaration to finding that sweat Ebay score, the fantastic deal that you can tell all your watch friends about. You just have to remember that the typical Ebay seller also knows this and he also knows he won’t be getting top dollar for the watch he has listed, he want’s to make money on his sale so he’s not interested in providing you with that perfect watch, because you wont be surprised when it’s not. You bought it as is and you will take on any problem you may come across on your own. So you should start to think about the final value of that watch and what you may be able to get it for somewhere else. For instance when you sell a watch to a dealer he’s going to use Ebay’s completed items to come up with a price for your watch and he’s going to come up with that price assuming your watch needs some work no matter how nice or how well you looked after it. He needs to be sure that when it’s sold to the next buyer he’s able to guarantee that it’s the finished product and a good dealer is going to be willing to stand behind it and be there if it ever goes wrong. I’m not going to discourage anyone from hunting down deals and taking risks, it’s part of the fun of vintage watches. I’m just here to warn you that cheap can become expensive quickly and that dealer price may not seem so bad in the long run.