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Keith T

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hpreston

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Bought this Maratac a few years ago for an extended overseas trip. I thought I had lost it, but found it this weekend doing some organizing. Really like the crown at 4:30, don’t love the case thickness.
 

Dino944

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Statistically, there are nearly surely deals to be had. A lot of them are likely passed over because they are just super risky bets. However, this particular watch, if it is real, is a bad bet for nearly all buyers. A potential 10x return on a 1 in a thousand bet is an astounding poor bet to make.

On the seller's side, and let's assume for a moment that you have an authentic item, it makes a bit more sense to sell to a well respected dealer, but a lot of people just don't know what they are sitting on, and if they have a small clue, it's a risk to talk to a vintage dealer with a lot more knowledge. I mean, I had no idea that this old Daytona could be something like $20K until maybe a year and a half ago, at earliest. I thought, maybe $8-10K? And I am a huge nerd in a watch adjacent field. If you don't know, you don't know. We (Styleforum team) taped a podcast with experts on vintage, and it really is about being able to take advantage of arbritrage. I expect that the vintage watch market is analogous.

Apropos of nothing, a visit to a half dozen or so vintage dealers in Florence and Rome in January showed me that prices easily varied for vintage Rolexes, Omegas, and Heuers, easily by 25%, and that was within a city. And some highly recommended dealers had very dubiously high prices for watches that, to me, looked quite poorly redialed.

Sure there are deals to be had on some vintage watches from many brands, but not on sport model Rolex watches, and I've never heard of a $100 pre-owned Patek. The "Buy an authentic vintage sport model Rolex at a bargain price ship" sailed a long time ago. People who sell nice vintage watches have known that these watches going up in value since the 90s.

Don't get me wrong, sure someone can have or inherit a watch and not realize it has jumped in value drastically. However, thanks to the internet, these days its not that hard to do a bit of research and figure out an approximate value of a watch (provided its not something really obscure.

However, someone in the business of selling watches, shouldn't have to rely on a friend/consumer with little to no hands on experience with a brand to tell them what it is. Having 2 guys who know little about a watch, who have little hands on experience with real ones vs fake ones well that's just a recipe for wheeling and dealing in fakes and Franken watches and they might not even know it.

As for Italy, its practically its own market. It is pretty close to being the watch world's cradle of civilization for renewed interest in mechanical watches and Rolex sports watches. The Italians are largely responsible for starting the, "Daytona Craze." Prior to them becoming interested in and buying lots of Daytonas, they were chronographs that sat in AD show cases for long periods, and no one wanted them. They even have their own name for the original orange hand Rolex Explorer II -1655, they call it il Freccione - "The Arrow."Years ago when I worked at a nice British clothing store in college, I had a client visiting from Italy. He was wearing 2 watches, a yellow Gold Daytona on a strap on one wrist and an IWC Novecento (Rectangular perpetual calendar) on his other wrist. I was wearing a steel Sub and I chatted with him about watches, and he said, watches are huge in Italy, and he can't get enough of them. He said he prefered to wear 2 watches rather than a GMT function piece so he can give more of his watches wrist time at the same time. With the strong demand for sports watches, particularly Rolex in Italy, prices are probably higher there than in many other parts of the world.
 

LA Guy

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Sure there are deals to be had on some vintage watches from many brands, but not on sport model Rolex watches, and I've never heard of a $100 pre-owned Patek. The "Buy an authentic vintage sport model Rolex at a bargain price ship" sailed a long time ago. People who sell nice vintage watches have known that these watches going up in value since the 90s.

Don't get me wrong, sure someone can have or inherit a watch and not realize it has jumped in value drastically. However, thanks to the internet, these days its not that hard to do a bit of research and figure out an approximate value of a watch (provided its not something really obscure.

However, someone in the business of selling watches, shouldn't have to rely on a friend/consumer with little to no hands on experience with a brand to tell them what it is. Having 2 guys who know little about a watch, who have little hands on experience with real ones vs fake ones well that's just a recipe for wheeling and dealing in fakes and Franken watches and they might not even know it.

As for Italy, its practically its own market. It is pretty close to being the watch world's cradle of civilization for renewed interest in mechanical watches and Rolex sports watches. The Italians are largely responsible for starting the, "Daytona Craze." Prior to them becoming interested in and buying lots of Daytonas, they were chronographs that sat in AD show cases for long periods, and no one wanted them. They even have their own name for the original orange hand Rolex Explorer II -1655, they call it il Freccione - "The Arrow."Years ago when I worked at a nice British clothing store in college, I had a client visiting from Italy. He was wearing 2 watches, a yellow Gold Daytona on a strap on one wrist and an IWC Novecento (Rectangular perpetual calendar) on his other wrist. I was wearing a steel Sub and I chatted with him about watches, and he said, watches are huge in Italy, and he can't get enough of them. He said he prefered to wear 2 watches rather than a GMT function piece so he can give more of his watches wrist time at the same time. With the strong demand for sports watches, particularly Rolex in Italy, prices are probably higher there than in many other parts of the world.
Honestly, the prices were not that out of whack compared to UK prices, which are in turn hgiher than US prices, which are in turn higher than prices in Japan (for vintage watches). Maybe part of this is the strong dollar, and part because Italy is under a bit of economic stress these days. The USD just goes a long way right now.

I am not going to step on the landmine discussion of this particular sub, but I've seen numerous watches in Japan, in the same or better condition than found in the US, for 25-35% lower than here, including vintage sport model Rolexes and late model used Rolexes. I have, on the other hand, seen some things that are fairly commonplace here (some pretty standard older Datejusts, for example) selling at japanese stores for over 2x the prices that are commanded here. I tried to get them to explain the differences in price, but the explanations were definitely lost in translation.
 

earthdragon

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If this thread had not taken such A tragic detour, it might have been entertaining.....
It is on par with my worst ever experience of sleeping overnight on a Thanksgiving night at Newark Airport....
 

Scuppers

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If this thread had not taken such A tragic detour, it might have been entertaining.....
It is on par with my worst ever experience of sleeping overnight on a Thanksgiving night at Newark Airport....
Or a pissing contest when the wind changes... that’s just never good :crackup:
 

LA Guy

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If this thread had not taken such A tragic detour, it might have been entertaining.....
It is on par with my worst ever experience of sleeping overnight on a Thanksgiving night at Newark Airport....
Showers in airport lounges keep you on life support, at least.
 

LA Guy

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I was flying United “Cattle Class”. My last ever flight with them... Not even a sandwich coupon.....

Ah, basic economy, where you don't even have the dignity of a pre-assigned seat.

The worst non-budget airline. You can still get into the lounge. Yes, you are going to pay a premium, but it's so worth a semi-comfortable night.
 

earthdragon

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Ah, basic economy, where you don't even have the dignity of a pre-assigned seat.

The worst non-budget airline. You can still get into the lounge. Yes, you are going to pay a premium, but it's so worth a semi-comfortable night.
DELTA all the way now domestic ( Amex comes in handy for the Lounge)...
 

LA Guy

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DELTA all the way now domestic ( Amex comes in handy for the Lounge)...
I also use Delta for international as well, and have their Amex. A lot of the domestic lounges are pretty spacious and you can kill long layovers (after the shower) eating finger sandwiches.
 

Texasmade

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I still fly United because Houston is a hub for them. They were great when they were just Continental Airlines. The company went to **** when they merged with United.
 

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