Hi folks,
ebay has been my main source for most of my watch collection tiempieces for the past 10 years or so. Over the years, I've gathered a considerable amount of very nice watches at affordable prices including most of my Omega vintage wristwatches from the early era, 20ies,30 and 40ies. Now, every time I browse through ebay international site all over the world, I realize that prices have been going quit rapidly and wonder why. Sometimes i find watches very similar to the ones i own or even in poorer conditions for prices 2 or 3 times higher than the price I've originally paid for(and honestly, much higher than common cense would stand for as acceptable) and I wonder why... are all the nicer timepieces been held by collectors and in that way be more and more rare to find?? A friend of mine, also a collector of vintage timepieces use to say that it is better to invest in "old watches" than keep the money in the bank at ridiculous interest rates! I now begin to understand why!

 

The advent of Ebay is a two-edged sword. It makes for many more watch-buying opportunities with large numbers of watches available from which to choose at one's fingertips but, Ebay also has "knocked prices clear out of the park" when compared with what could be acquired for little cash outlay in the pre-Ebay days.

Its price is now dimly recalled, but an early 1950s IWC stainless steel model with caliber 89 movement resides here that was acquired for less than $100 some 20-25 years ago. Seems like it was a $70-$75 purchase at a gun show.

A gun show used to be a fairly reliable place to find high-grade watches. Coin shows too. Occasionally one could "sneak up on" good watches and take them away for a nice price.

Pawn shops used to be good too. Now they're scared of vintage watch models and invariably complain of being burned on the oldie watches when any inquiry is made about having any in stock. Just asked the local pawn shop about older watches again recently. They won't even take them in, saying there's no money in them. They're missing out because they don't have the knowledge to be discerning.