Imagine a situation where you see a 2915 (first reference) of the Omega Speedmaster on a flee market table sold by an old grandmother. She tells you that this was her husbands watch and you ask her what she asked for it. She says: I would let it got for 3000 Euro. Would you then pay the asking for the watch and walk away or would you advise her to take it to an auction house? How would most watch collectors react? To be honest, i believe that i would just pay the 3000 Euro and "grab the bargain", as many people would do. (3000 Euro is still a significant amount of money.)
Many collectors are "hunting" daily for bargains or watches "under market" and im sure that they are also confronted with such situations. Sometimes we forget that when somesone "grabs a bargain" the other side ends up with a pretty bad deal.

The other questions that arise in the same instance is if it would make a difference if someone would haggle the grandmother down even further or if it would make a difference it it wouldnt be a friendly grandmother but an unfriendly pawn shop owner or a "unknown person" over the internet. Or maybe if the seller would drive a Ferrari and appear not to care about money? Some people may react differently to different kinds of sellers. Ethically i would have less of a problem buying the watch from a "careless rich guy" but by law it would still be a rip off, no matter from whom someone buys. Would the situation be different if the grandmother would have said something like "i dont know the value of the watch, what would you be willing to pay for it?" - Would you then just reply with the true value or leave this answer out and say that you would take it for 3000?

That being said, in such a situation the grandma would be clearly the looser as she is uninformed. So the buyer would take advantage of the uninformed seller. We blame auction houses for taking advantage of uninformed buyers but dont we sometimes also take advantage of uninformed sellers? Or is the proper information in todays internet-world simply the sole responsibility of each and every individual?

What do you guys think about this?

 

Posed this very question before and consensus was that it is seller's responsibility to intelligently price and buyers responsibility to intelligently buy. With Internet there really is no excuse not to.

 

Shake it, tell her the battery seems to be broken, and offer 2000 €.

 

By law, if a seller offers something at a price (even if it is 10x below market value) to a private buyer, the buyer is not entitled to signify to the seller the "real" value of the object.

From a moral standpoint, it is down to the buyer.
I already have noticed the seller of an object that their price was way below market, but I've also bought a watch at a third of (what I believed to be) market value, because the guy was a collector and had access to all of the info I had. He just didn't care enough to do the research on the details of his watch.

There is no right & wrong, it's just up to each one of us to make the decision that will make us feel the best.

 

Why then do we judge auction houses for "hiding" information about their watches sold or to present them "in the best light"?

I think that auction houses should do the best in their ability to provide all relevant information about the watches, even if it would reduce the final sales price. Simply because the customer base of the auction house believes the house to do so. And by not doing so the auction house leaves the customer in this misbelief.

So does "it is seller's responsibility to intelligently price and buyers responsibility to intelligently buy" also apply when buying from auction houses?

 

Hi default,

I truly understand your point of view. It happened to me last year with a 145.012. The stem was broken.
The fact is if you don't buy it, someone will do it 5 minutes after and with no remorse.
if really you were so uncomfortable with grandmother"s price you would tell her the truth, wouldn't you?

 

CAVEAT EMPTOR.

 

I think it's up to you to say something like "That's a very fair price.". Remember she's the one at the flea market, it was her responsibility to check the price out in some way. I was recently visiting a friend and his wife brings out a stunning Breguet Chrono in gold from the 70's that her father has asked her to look after and gets appraised. She thought it was worth abut 500 Euros.
It's the guys that knock on the doors of lonely old widows out in the countryside, go in and set about strip mining everything they can of value from the household that are the ones morally bankrupt.

 

Of course it applies to auctions. Intelligent Buying = Caveat Emptor. Intelligent Selling = setting the right price based on condition (quality) and market. There is no excuse for misrepresentation. Not mutual or efficient.

 

Some people selling stuff don't care most of the time, only the first quick cash they can get. I have told many people about
their items being worth more or less and most think you are blowing smoke so to speak. Of the few times people listened I was shopped out of the deal. So it is up to your own ethical standards imho. m

 

I answer that question with a story from a watch collector friend.

He usually deals in antiques and furniture.

One day he's at this grandmas house. Husband was quite well off financially, but passed away recently and didn't left much of a pension fund except for tangible assets. So after buying some furniture and gold coins he asks her if her husband left her any watches.
She replied yes, and quickly after that returns with a mint Rolex 1665 double red Seadweller.
Astonished by the condition he asks her what she wants for the watch. She knew , it being a Rolex, that the watch had some value. Just not how much apparently and quoted 5.000 €.

He replied to her, that the watch would be worth much much more than that. That he would have to check how much cash he can gather and would be back at her place in a couple of days to collect the other stuff he bought before.

So fast forward a week, he comes back. Tells her the watch is at least worth 25-50k depending condition and box and papers etc. He doesn't have that much money but would be willing to pay around 20.000€.

The grandma replied that she found it to be very kind and respectful of him to not just take her initial offer of 5.000€, and to tell her how much the watch could be worth but for his honesty she would be happy if he would pay her the initial offer of 5.000€. That this would still be a lot of money for her and if he would be able to sell it in the future for more, good for him.

Just shows that honesty sometimes pays of. Karma I guess. Guy got a mint 1665 DRSD for a friction of the market value.


Oh and BTW "by law" does not apply in Germany. Even on the private side. If something is worth generally more than around 100-110% the asking price and you as a buyer know that and proceed with the sale with malicious intend (i.e. You know you can flip it right on and intend to do so) it is punishable by criminal law resulting in a fine or even jail time up to three years. On the civil law side the contract will be invalid, and the seller will be treated as if the sale never appeared, meaning you have to hand out the item to him, he in return has to refund you the money.

Cheers,

Max

 

I think it's pretty cut and dry if the seller names a price. The moral "grey area" is when you come upon a proprietary piece and the old owner says "I don't know what it's worth - what can you offer?" I've been in that situation a couple times (most recently last week) and it's a very delicate balancing act of capitalism / passion / morality.

 

If the grandma took the watch to get it appraised and the appraiser vastly undervalued the watch in order to try and purchase it and did, that would be obviously unethical. As to the OP's question, it all boils down to if you can live with yourself afterwards. I guess if you have to ask the question, you probably already know the answer.

 

If you're asked to make an offer it's fine to offer a 'dealers' price. You get a watch at under retail value and they get the same as they would selling anywhere else - everyone's happy.

 

it happens to me one year ago... not exactly the same story as it was an internet ads and the watch was a 5517 ... when i tried to explain to the guy that the watch worth really much more than the 5k he was asking...first he said that the watch was already reserved... so i just try to explain that maybe he should consider taking more time before selling it and make some due diligence....he threat me a fool and said that he had no time to loose to repond to people like me ...

lesson learned

 

That gernerally what I've done. If it's worth $15K, I'll offer $10-11K. They still get way more than they thought for a $100 watch from the 1960's and I come away with a nice basis. Now, the example last week ended up going to Christie's, which may have been a direct result of me tagging it with a five figure price initially. Oh well, that's the risk you run for being honest.

 

All said ... There is nothing to be lost by applying The Golden Rule or the Mirror Test.( How would this look in the media, to my family and friends, to my business associates? )...if in doubt.

 

Did you mean to say 100% above the asking price? because otherwise it would put most antique dealers out of business. Even then it sounds both unpleasantly totalitarian and more or less unenforceable. How do you prove advance knowledge of value? I can say I bought something in all innocence, took it home to research and only then found out its true value, and nobody can prove otherwise.

Suppose I am offered something for £50 that in an obscure collecting field is worth £1000 (and this has happened). If it's some obviously desperate person selling to save their home, I'll give them what I think is a fair price but if it's an averagely well-off householder getting rid of stuff at a boot sale, that's their lookout. On that particular occasion I regarded the profit as offsetting a) the research I've done to identify this item, and b) the bad purchases I've made while I was learning. Will the state compensate me for those? I doubt it, and I don't need it to make those decisions for me.

I'll second that. A friend of mine was offered something at a flea market at about a tenth of its value. He told the stallholder it was worth much more than that and offered her a fair price. She then said oh, is it really valuable then? and took it back home with her to research the price properly. So much for fair dealing on his part.

 

I don't make up the laws I just study them.
There must be an obvious disproportion between the asking price and the real value of the item for § 138 Abs.2 BGB (German civil law code) to apply. This disproportion is defined as 100-110% above or below the real value of the item.
But every individual case and all the circumstances have to be taken into account. The 100-110 % rule is not a fixed point. More of an orientation.

Cheers,

Max