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Annapolis
·A recent thread from a new member in the modern forum got me thinking about this. Don’t want to call anyone out so I’m starting a new thread here.
The person in question bid and won on a two-tone Seamaster diver that would probably cost several thousand on the preowned market—he paid $500 and was disappointed (in a humble not-obnoxious way) to learn after-the-fact from OF that it’s a very bad fake.
The question in my mind: would you feel a lot better if you found out it was real? Or would you be nagged by the fact that you might have just taken advantage of a seller’s ignorance?
This isn’t a holier-than-thou post. Back in the day I made several thousand dollars buying and selling used camera gear—someone who didn’t understand what they had would be selling a Canon L lens, say, for $300 that was worth $1700. Easy flip for me. (This was via Craigslist and eBay, and I’d sell on one of the Canon forums, usually.) Never felt a pang of remorse then, figuring it was their fault for not researching value.
And then one time I got into a back and forth with a seller (I think it was a nice full frame DSLR body) and found out it was a recently widowed woman just looking to sell off some of her husband’s stuff quickly. She didn’t have the emotional energy to do all the research so was basically making up prices. (I’d reached out to ask questions to make sure it was a functional camera body.)
Ugh the guilt. I ended up explaining to her what she had (there were a bunch of nice lenses too and lots of other gear) and helped her sell it. In the end she made probably $7,000 more than she would have on her own.
And I realized that actually felt pretty good too. I’m not a believer in karma, but maybe it’s something like that.
With watches, I don’t play hero and look through listings for undervaluations to try to save people or anything. But there have been a few times when I’ve incidentally come across something and reached out to a seller to make sure they know what they have. As often as not, they do and just want to make a quick and easy sale. (Which makes you wonder.) But on occasion they’ve been very grateful for the info and have relisted accordingly. And it’s almost always a spouse or a kid of someone who’s passed.
Just wondering if others have done this sort of thing.
The person in question bid and won on a two-tone Seamaster diver that would probably cost several thousand on the preowned market—he paid $500 and was disappointed (in a humble not-obnoxious way) to learn after-the-fact from OF that it’s a very bad fake.
The question in my mind: would you feel a lot better if you found out it was real? Or would you be nagged by the fact that you might have just taken advantage of a seller’s ignorance?
This isn’t a holier-than-thou post. Back in the day I made several thousand dollars buying and selling used camera gear—someone who didn’t understand what they had would be selling a Canon L lens, say, for $300 that was worth $1700. Easy flip for me. (This was via Craigslist and eBay, and I’d sell on one of the Canon forums, usually.) Never felt a pang of remorse then, figuring it was their fault for not researching value.
And then one time I got into a back and forth with a seller (I think it was a nice full frame DSLR body) and found out it was a recently widowed woman just looking to sell off some of her husband’s stuff quickly. She didn’t have the emotional energy to do all the research so was basically making up prices. (I’d reached out to ask questions to make sure it was a functional camera body.)
Ugh the guilt. I ended up explaining to her what she had (there were a bunch of nice lenses too and lots of other gear) and helped her sell it. In the end she made probably $7,000 more than she would have on her own.
And I realized that actually felt pretty good too. I’m not a believer in karma, but maybe it’s something like that.
With watches, I don’t play hero and look through listings for undervaluations to try to save people or anything. But there have been a few times when I’ve incidentally come across something and reached out to a seller to make sure they know what they have. As often as not, they do and just want to make a quick and easy sale. (Which makes you wonder.) But on occasion they’ve been very grateful for the info and have relisted accordingly. And it’s almost always a spouse or a kid of someone who’s passed.
Just wondering if others have done this sort of thing.
