With the increased competition for the purchase of good watches (at least in the vintage world), I’ve often wondered how many non members use and view the information being freely offered up by contributing members.

Turns out @dsio and @Trev have built such a wonderful platform that the info is accessible at all times. I for sure intend to look at it more often.
It is quite interesting.
To access the info, go to « members » in the main menu, and then select « online ». At the bottom of the page you will find statistics of whose on line

And what the heck are those « robots »??

 

They are good robots

https://www.clickcease.com/blog/what-is-bot-traffic/

 

The main statistic is 618 guests vs 171 members at this moment. So when members give away their best secrets in a generous impulse be aware.

No wonder prices have increased over time and demand risen. Sure they are stalling for certain types of watches, but this goes to show the ripple effect of a forum publication.

Not even mentioning when some of the information published here gets reused (often without attribution) by various blogs and online magazines.

 

Have given several things away over the years and was surprised how many non posters PM,d me for what I was giving away.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/free-postage.20474/

This one had probably 30-40 lurkers ask for it.....

 

Wow @STANDY that is an impressive number and quite telling!
And it goes to show how many stand to receive when we give away precious intel — what intelligence services call “sources and methods”.

Helping and educating can be done without shooting oneself in the foot.

 

I often browse the forum without being logged in. The same might be true for at least some of those "Guests", although admittedly only a very small proportion, I presume.

 

It's not an unusual distribution in communities of most types that there are a few super active members, active members and then a long tail of the quiet majority. And then even with a free to register forum you have guests many of whom are perhaps fed through by the likes of Google and Bing and may just view one specific page.

It's always good to remember that it's all free to view but the positives of sharing within a community of interest outweigh the downsides in 99.9% of cases for me and I always learn something from a visit to a community like this

 

There’s also probably a fair number of members who do not contribute much. Some of them may just be shy, humble and in good faith.
As we know, others are professionals who have joined at one point or another, including to buy watches off the sales forum. Of course we all know many honest and passionate professionals.
However and again awareness of our reach here is key.

Welcome to the forum, and it’s nice to have a fresh and positive viewpoint being expressed.
I think most agree on the positives— it’s also nice to prevent the negatives.

 

Many thanks, it's good to be here and I tend to find I learn more from focused forums like this than the likes of FB Pages

 

There has always been takers lurking. My point above was to highlight the fact.

I am with you on the above comment.

 

Our posts crossed as I edited mine
Agree with you the number of queries you got is telling!

Adding: if there are 3.6 guests on line vs members, and there are 50K members now, this means in fact 230K people potentially reading the forum.
That’s a pretty decent count when you compare it say with the readership of major newspapers.
Does anyone know what Hodinkee’s readership numbers are?

I suppose @Trev and @dsio have overall traffic info according to industry standards. Curious whether that’s public- or publishable.

 

And ever new member gets pointed to the FS forum here and told not to use EBay for some reason

 

I like to think I'm one of those professionals, a honest one. Some of us do exist! If I wanted to make an easy buck, I would have chosen another career path.

Sharks will be sharks I think, with or without barriers. The 200 posts limits is good imho. But restraining intel too much (self censorship?) would be bad for all I think... shady operators and dishonest people love darkness and secrecy, and OF being quite open, it helps weeding them out.

 

I’m in favor of being strategic with knowledge that’s being shared for free.
Teaching people to learn for themselves how to do their due diligence and to identify what’s good and what’s bad is a huge service rendered.
Discussions about history and discussions that raise the level of understanding of horology are wonderful.
Helping people find modern watches is fine.
But I draw the line at giving away sources of a limited supply.
There are collectors and dealers who use forums to learn, monitor trends and shop for their own benefit without sharing their best kept secrets except with their closest friends — I think active members have something to learn from that too.

Edit/ add: also people should be aware when they post certain types of watches and create excitement they contribute to price increases which may significant. I have been a culprit. In hindsight I am reminded of the wisdom @LouS inherited from Laurent aka @Noodia, who used to say “collect where it’s quiet”. This also means keeping quiet at times.

 

I mostly agree with you, but I think the only secret here is obsession: if as a collector or a dealer you want to shop for "good" watches, you have to put in the hours (watching ebay, trawling auctions, whatever your channels are). There are no shortcuts, so I don't feel very threatened when I share something, perhaps wrongly. If somebody wants to be as good (as bad?) as me, he will have to spend countless hours in the workshop dismantling and repairing, and in front of a PC in the evening, on Sundays, etc.

I don't think there is a real problem of supply for vintage watches in general, at least for me. Millions of those little things out there. Of course, if you want one specific model... you may fall into the rabbit hole of collecting the same thing as everybody else. I buy on ebay mostly, I don't have much trouble finding nice things, not too "hot" or fancy, that don't break the bank ( < 1000euros, serviced; I've sold two omega and two longines this month for example). It is a small, but fun, side of my business.

 

Been a while since I gave anything away ( I am Scottish ) but on the last few occasions I did stipulate a min. number of posts which I consider only fair.

 

My thoughts on the subject a few months ago:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/auctions-when-is-it-ok-to-discuss.88888/#post-1150634

 

Agree with you in many ways - but there are some tricks one learns that can make a watch affordable when it could not otherwise be.
If your job is to buy and resell and you know you will resell, you may be willing to pay more because your transactions follow the market and you're not taking such a long term risk. If you buy high because you're buying a hot ticket item, you can sell high. Also one transaction will compensate another and you win some / you lose some, over several transactions things iron themselves out.
But someone else (like me) spending on watches they'd like to hold indefinitely or for several years, without knowing where the winds of fashion or markets will go, it makes a huge difference if it can be found at half price or not. It's not a market.
Of course it's a non essential expense --whereas you're making a living out of it.
But it's an expense some of us would like to be able to keep to a minimum.

 

Starting from my personal situation and point of view, I'll pinpoint and explain a few things:

- "hot" items will always fetch crazy prices by definition, you just have to look at the private section; you can see also that the ones partly responsible for this are the collectors themselves imho. I think the dealers try to ride the wave but ironically, I'm not always sure the small ones make real money off it. Hot items have to be bought somewhere, nowadays everybody has an internet access and wants to sell high => small margins (or ludicrous prices, that don't sell well; lots of unsold watches in the dealer's section). Of course some big shots are able to create trends (Hodinkee comes to mind), but they are the exceptions.
That explains why I have no "hot" items in my inventory. Too much money involved.

- I have to win every time, if it evens itself out over several transactions it means I work for free.
Also my clients don't want to buy over the internet, that does not mean they do not consult it for pricing. So how do I do? I buy low (duh!), I take risks and I work on the watches but also, I sell at a price lower or not higher than most of the prices I see here on the private transactions or even on ebay. This way I don't have to sit on an expensive inventory (keep in mind that I'm a repair guy not a seller) that takes years to sell. If you had bought the same watch than me (and had it serviced), you may have paid 10-30% less. Or not... Not life changing anyway, and I'm not hoovering the market.

A good and clear example of what I don't do : buy a watch on this forum (surfing on the knowledge) that is already at "market price" (thus buying high), and try to resell on C24 while obfuscating some facts.

Take this 135.011 for example (a reference I can't help to buy from time to time):

The C24 listing (no relume mentioned, "regulated", yeah right):
https://www.chrono24.co.uk/omega/600-seamaster-1966--id11085280.htm

The original OF listing (you can't be more honest than that!):
https://omegaforums.net/threads/black-dial-military-style-omega-seamaster-600-135-011-£895.92531/

A comparable watch I'm waiting for, that sat unsold for months at 1k (you better be sure that my limit price was 40% of this, even if I bought it for myself)
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Collectors-...itary-tritium-stainless-st-watch/392354387905Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

(@Davidt : if you want me to remove any mention of this from my post I'll do it immediately, just ask)

This is a shit job by the C24 seller, and I don't think the guy who does it will be active for long. This watch will probably not sell unserviced at this price (I hope so!). But I agree with you, we all could really do without wankers like him.

So we may arrive at the point I'd like to make : dealers are probably behind the wave, maybe fueling the frenzy a little, but I'm not sure they are responsible for the huge price increases we all saw this past 15 years. The parasitic example I listed before don't explain all. It is a systemic and structural phenomenon : Internet and forums and virtual market places, modern marketing of mechanical watches, general vintage trend, high profile events, general awareness for vintage watches.

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope I've been clear; I think it is actually interesting to discuss this in the open!