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Leaving your watches

pdxleaf
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F**k your watches, you have an adopted son who lives in China?!! This is the first we hear about this? I am seriously hurt.

Regarding your watches, there are two simple approaches. One is valuation and two is disposal.

Valuation is simple. Have an appraisal or similar that identifies for each watch condition and description, including pictures.

Disposal is more complicated. Identify sources for sale and expected retail versus wholesale so she knows the least to accept vs most to expect. Try to suggest where to sell. For valuable pieces, the easist for your spouse is to just auction. They will get closer to retail than if they sell to a retailer who will give them wholesale at best. They can sell here at OF under your name if they want a good price better than wholesale. But the easiest is an auction house.

You have a son? Does he box, what are his interests, what does he want to be when he grows up, does he know Sooper Dooper? Inquirying minds want to know! Sheesh, just when I thiught I understood you you drop a bomb like this.
 
Walrus
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pdxleaf pdxleaf
F**k your watches, you have an adopted son who lives in China?!! This is the first we hear about this? I am seriously hurt.

Regarding your watches, there are two simple approaches. One is valuation and two is disposal.

Valuation is simple. Have an appraisal or similar that identifies for each watch condition and description, including pictures.

Disposal is more complicated. Identify sources for sale and expected retail versus wholesale so she knows the least to accept vs most to expect. Try to suggest where to sell. For valuable pieces, the easist for your spouse is to just auction. They will get closer to retail than if they sell to a retailer who will give them wholesale at best. They can sell here at OF under your name if they want a good price better than wholesale. But the easiest is an auction house.

You have a son? Does he box, what are his interests, what does he want to be when he grows up, does he know Sooper Dooper? Inquirying minds want to know! Sheesh, just when I thiught I understood you you drop a bomb like this.
Ha thanks Dave good suggestions. When u say auction it threw me off for a minute as you know I don’t got anything worthy of Christie’s so you mean eBay. Ya if I can get her a rough on idea on value she is an eBay user. As far as my son yes Dylan. He is currently Heifei China doing very well it was some sad stuff for a while and some songs are better left unsung but things are ok I’ll fill you in on a DM as I had some follow up info on a topic we discussed a while back. Actually almost sent you a DM about it yesterday but it was a tough week. You gotta be uncle Dave anyway when he gets back to the states. He does know sooper and unfortunately knows Baxter the cat who passed away in January. He is showing some talent with the piano and guitar seems to pick it up naturally. That’s cool it was never a gift for me I spent a lot of time grinding.
Edited:
 
hronists
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rob#1 rob#1
I think there might have been a thread on OF before about something similar - Is there a website like Discogs for watches? On Discogs you can detail your record collection by label numbers and/or bar codes, then state whether they are in Excellent, Good, or Poor condition. It constantly takes into account fluctuations in pricing based on their sales database, etc. (currently albums from the 90s are soaring in value) and has all different variants of the same LP listed (there can be hundreds for albums like Dark Side of the Moon). You can then export a spreadsheet containing the details of your collection for later use. Photos aren’t in the spreadsheet but are on the database - a watch version should contain photos like @lindo has.

chrono24 kinda have functionality like this.
 
ckhaing
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hronists hronists
chrono24 kinda have functionality like this.

i have been using the chron24 "watch collection" function lately in the last a few months to log the collection

from that database, it is potentially easier to sell the watches in the future if decided to, but i have not sell any one yet
Edited:
 
Canuck
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Our son isn’t interested in my watches, chronometers, and clocks. Several years ago, he told me that shortly after he inherits my collection, he’ll donate my chronometers to the local naval museum! Reason for second thought. Maybe I’ll donate my collection to a charity, instead!
 
Out of TIME!
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Stories are crazy from NAWCC collectors with no heirs & what happens to their collections.
One of them, the executor came in & took more than inventory for the estate aucction or donation of the collection. Which was evident by the diffence in wall colour where items had hung, but were not present.....
When working in jewelery store, people would come in with items & "What will you give me for it?" & occasionally the store owner would buy it for very little.
NAWCC would have auctions from estates or retired watchmakers. One member donated his entire shop, he was a pioneer in making medical instruments....
So, @ some point, [ As I put it, " If you don't run out of Quarters first! ] (pass away )
Reduce the articles in the collection so they are with good people & for your son!
Leave him a Dollar pocket watch! LOL!
Ciao! Mike
 
Evitzee
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The auction houses were originally the purview of dealers who would negotiate among themselves to determine who would bid on which lots to keep competition down, and prices low. It wasn't a fair system and the consignors got low prices for their items. That's changed now as more and more individuals use the auction system to buy and sell. Getting the best price when selling your items is never easy, there are purposely set obstacles in your way.
Edited:
 
jsducote
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For those of you considering self-written/online wills, I saw a valuable piece of information in the "free legal advice" column of the paper a few weeks ago: Don't forget to include a "remainder of estate" clause. It's easy to think of the big stuff and list who you want certain things to go to, but you'll almost never remember to list every little thing of value, so your estate will likely wind up in probate anyway. If you add a statement at the end that everything else not specifically enumerated goes to ___, then you lessen (may be impossible to avoid) having any potential heirs fighting over it.
[/IANAL]
 
Out of TIME!
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My wife has a story:
Old Auntie, finally ran out of Quarters!
The executor flew in fromTX, to OH.
Did his duties, made sure of all the arngements & set it in motion.
While the relatvies gathered & paid their respect, the executor liquidated the entire estate.
Executor shows up at the wake, doles out the cheques.
He returned back to TX......
That so & so.....I was promised ....
I love this story, no arguments, it is a done deal!
Ciao! Mike
 
Out of TIME!
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Rail tracks in photo were a spur in San Fernando Valley, CA cirica 1975
There is a bus way there now Woodland Hills Victory Blvd. By Pierce College!
If anyone is curious....
 
Darlinboy
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If you don't have a value list, your spouse doesn't know how much you've been spending on watches, and you're not in good health, PM me.
🍿
 
Walrus
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Canuck Canuck
Our son isn’t interested in my watches, chronometers, and clocks. Several years ago, he told me that shortly after he inherits my collection, he’ll donate my chronometers to the local naval museum! Reason for second thought. Maybe I’ll donate my collection to a charity, instead!
That’s cool I’m sure you know this but when you donate to a museum they will often put a tag with a “donated by….” On the item. I ended up with a collection of items made in Paul Reveres shop. I kept a couple spikes used to hold the hulls of schooners together and brought the rest to the Revere house in Boston MA. I had them put my buddy who passed away much to young on some of the items and just my family name on the others. Nothing of significant value but I liked it going to a museum more than the thought of selling it on eBay or whatever. That would definitely be cool to do if I had any watches that were worthy to be in any type of museum, so far that is not the case but the game ain’t over yet, who knows.
 
Pianotuna
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I have a google Drive folder with a ledger in Sheets (Excel equivalent) recording the who, what, where, when and how much, and a link in that spreadsheet to a google doc that describes the watch, the advertisement (date, full listing, price) plus my thoughts on the piece and a few photos. Excel or google Sheets are entirely functional as databases for this purpose.

I have an additional folder in Drive with a truckload of pix of all of them.
Son #1, who’s into watches but hasn’t really started his own collecting, has a copy of the link to the folder and son #2 is broadly aware of the collection and that it has a certain value, more or less. The boys can work out what they like and get rid of the rest.
I don’t think the watches will bother them much, it’ll be the 50 pianos …

there’s some sound advice offered above. Wills, access codes/ passwords should all be placed somewhere reliable and in those instances where specific items have very specific destinations, directions spelt out clearly.
Keeping something private from the wife? Can’t help you there! 😬
 
river rat
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One thing about donating to a museum they mite show some and sell some of them if they already have the same clock, watch, chronometer they don’t want doubles so make sure they show it and not sell it before you donate.
 
perks713
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Canuck Canuck
Several years ago, he told me that shortly after he inherits my collection, he’ll donate my chronometers to the local naval museum!
This sent me down a google rabbit hole reading about the Canadian navy during my daughters nap today. I probably should have done something more productive 😀
 
Nobel Prize
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I have a spreadsheet as well. This reminds me to update it.

i also have in my will the contact info for a trusted friend that knows watches. Actually a couple of people here are listed there. The point being, if my wife or son are left behind with a box full of watches I know I trust a few people to help cash the watches out or advise them.
 
ghce
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Evitzee Evitzee
The auction houses were originally the purview of dealers who would negotiate among themselves to determine who would bid on which lots to keep competition down, and prices low. It wasn't a fair system and the consignors got low prices for their items. That's changed now as more and more individuals use the auction system to buy and sell. Getting the best price when selling your items is never easy, there are purposely set obstacles in your way.

That reminds me of my Fathers Seamaster and other very nice gold/ Diamond/Ruby and assorted gemstone rings that my Father and Mother purchased in Sydney at a "Trade only" auction in the 1970's where the items were all passed hand to hand around a large table where the seated dealers could examine and view then bid on.
Dont know exactly how they got into the auction but I gather it was most unusual.
Prices were very cheap compared to general auction or retail and only high end stuff was on offer.
 
Omegafanman
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Wills are your wishes and wishes do not always come true / they can be challenged for a lot of reasons by family, goverment and companies.
Also sometimes things have changed / life or tax laws have thrown a curved ball - so for good reason it is better to change things. However people record assets a key thing is to update your records, wills and wishes every few years and make sure you have a damn good executor(s) who you can trust to make sensible honest calls / sort everything out to the spirit of what you would want (and keep it simple / trust them to do a good ... you wont be around to worry about it anyway :0).
 
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