Like many of you, I’m growing more frustrated with ebay. Here’s my usual experience with the mighty auction house. Stop me if this sounds familiar:

1) Sift through hundreds of crap watches trying to find a diamond in the rough. For the most part this is a tedious and a complete waste of valuable time.
2) Finally stumble on a watch I’d like to own. Determine value and what I’m prepared to pay for the watch.
3) Wait. (I’m a last second sniper).
4) Observe in disgust as the bidding makes a mockery of the “auction” process with shill bidding running wild.
5) Decide that I am unwilling to overpay and play into the seller’s tactics. Drop the watch from my queue and move on.
6) Return to #1.

I do sometimes get lucky with a BIN but this is a very, very rare occurrence and mostly due to freak luck by logging in and finding an item before anyone else sees it. In my experience, most BIN watches are BIN for a reason (a complete fake/fraud with the seller hoping to catch a sucker). On the flip side, any seller who makes a big point of mentioning “no reserve” can be translated as “don’t worry, I’ll shill bid this watch up to a price I want it to sell for anyway”.

I’ve been following a watch this week where each night a zero feedback buyer has upped the price by $400. The seller has four other watches for sale and surprise, surprise the bidder is interested in all of them! Today I log in and see a new bidder at the head of the pack. Look a little closer and the new bidder has 49 bid retractions over the last six months. Return to #1.

My question, is ebay your main source? I would love to cultivate a relationship with a couple of local sources but my watch guy does not buy or sell, he only services watches. Percentage wise, how often are you purchasing from ebay? 10%? 50%? 100%?

 

A high percentage of my best purchases have come through ebay, including a couple of high-end watches that I acquired for a fraction of their true values. Like MSN, probably around 80% of my collection came from ebay, and many of those represented excellent value.

It is true that patience, diligence and knowledge are all required in order to take full advantage, and most of my frustrations have been limited to watches that sold privately before the end of the auctions. Even that, however, can also work to one's advantage.

 

As this hobby gets more popular, more shenanigans will ensue. My view of eBay varies from total disgust to mild disdain but where else are you gonna see that kind of variety offered? However, less and less of my purchases are made via eBay nowadays. While there aren't many bargains, you won't get ripped off buying from forum members. There's also a few other sources like gold scrappers and vintage shops (not necessarily just watches). Occasionally one of the watchmakers I know comes up with a nice one too.

 

Ebay is probably one of the best places to get a vintage piece. You have to be able to withstand the game of bidding and fake bids but oh the rewards can be so nice sometimes

 

I think eBay is attractive place for vintage watch collector. Yes, there are many landmines, but as other said, could be very rewarding. Many of my key vintage pieces are from eBay.
Unfortunately my location is not eBay friendly. Most times I need to use proxy to get the watch from eBay, which means it needed to be sent to friends or families in 'eBay friendly' location such as US, Australia or UK before shipped to Indonesia. Otherwise I will snap more eBay jewel find.

 

While eBay might be my biggest source in terms of numbers of watches acquired, it is probably the lowest ratio of watches bought vs offered.

it took many, many years for the bricks and mortar auctions houses to sort themselves out, and even now, there can be problems. The human being can be so devious and immoral, and it only takes one or two to soil an entire industry, leading others to think that bad behaviour is justified, or acceptable.

The thing I notice about eBay is that my buying vs viewing ratio has declined in the last two years, and my purchases from "pickers" has risen dramatically. This means I am paying more for watches that I used to buy from eBay, but are simply not available anymore. However my strike rate is zero from the pickers. (Ie no fakes/deceptions/bad parts).

my background is mining gems. The new mines always (ok usually) threw the biggest and best stones in the early phase. eBay is like that. I feel it has matured, and it's very hard now to find lovely "barn finds" anymore.

and don't talk to me about customer service.....

 

I usually find my watches at ebay too, but as i really like gambling i also try for the auctions or accept bin offers that other persons would run
away from (like from sellers with zero or low feedback) Most of the time paypal has to chime in and get my money back but sometimes it works fine.
You also have some great experiences like one guy from belgium who didnt want to use Paypal and instead as proof of trust he did sent
me a Ploprof and said wire me the money me when it arrives.
But i do have the feeling that the amount of nice pieces for nice prices has rapidly dropped in ebay.

 

I buy and sell watches on eBay. Some I buy are "gems" others are crap.

In buying it's trusting the seller and knowing if there is an issue it will be dealt with.

In selling, do what ever it takes to make the buyer happy...even taking a watch back 6-12 months after the sale.


As for 0 Feedback buyers or "shill" bidders, NO TOLERANCE! We cancel their bids and block them.

 

About 60% of my collection have come from eBay, 20% from conventional auction houses, 10 % directly from other collectors and 10% I bought new over the last 25 years.

Of the eBay watches, 25% have been broken and therefore were bought as a gamble that has, mostly, paid off.

 

I've got two vintage speedmasters, both acquired since last Christmas. One came from the FS section here and one from eBay. I keep an eye out every couple of days for new listings but my one eBay find was a BIN with best offer. I saw it five mins after it had been listed and put in a slightly low offer (I wasn't actually looking for that model at the time so I figured if they accept, great, otherwise nothing ventured...). As it happened I got the watch for less than similar auctions had ended for but it was purely down to lucky timing.

 

So everyone here seems to favour eBay as their source...but that then begs the question of who, exactly, are the folks at all the trade auctions, buying acres of vintage watches? Every time I go to one, the people in the room seem to be purposeful dealers first and foremost, with the occasional enthusiast, so there's clearly another tier of watch buying and selling outside eBay.

It's obvious that the convenience of eBay is addictive in much the same way that watching The Dukes of Hazzard was for some (y'know, a few chases, a couple of wrecks, the odd large breasted distraction, them darnn revenooers...) but I'm not completely convinced. There's still the odd gem out there in conventional auction houses.

Shill bidding? Nowhere more popular than eBay, I think, and the whole set-up of The Swamp invites and more importantly, rewards it. At least in conventional houses, there is the occasional genuine estate sale item, left to find its own price...although there can be shill bids in conventional houses, too, of course. But I'd submit that shill bidding on the 'Bay is more certain than possible.

 

Like a few folk have said, it's the convenience of eBay. My brother is a pro poker player and everyone assumes he spends hours in casinos. He actually rarely goes as he says he can play ten hands in one minute on line, against one hand in ten minutes in a casino. For me, that's the draw of eBay. It takes time but the sheer volume of listings you see over a relatively short period of time, means every now and again you see a genuine estate sale, from a private seller, barn find, left to find its true value. This type of seller would never go to a fair. If it wasn't for eBay they'd sell it to a local jeweller who'd polish the s£!@ out of it and half the charm and value would be lost.

 

I purchased all of my vintage watches (2) on ebay, both at fair prices and had satisfying results.

 

Looking forward to that!

 

Add a couple of zeros to the end of that and you'll (a) have a better sample size and (b) be nearing the same number of eBay transactions the 5+ year veterans are at. Advice wasn't so easily given 7 or 8 years ago since there weren't as many forums, and only a few allowed eBay links. Apologies in advance for sounding like the old man telling stories of yesteryear, but you guys have it easy in comparison - especially as members of Omega Forums.

Oh, and of course we're glad you scored 2 nice watches.