Alright everyone, to date I must admit i have been quite lucky in buying watches from various forum members and even the infamous ebay. I have sold multiple times as well without ever a hiccup.

Recently (a couple of weeks ago) I was browsing chrono24 and noticed what looked like a nice Mark II (non racing dial). been a bit obsessed with Mark IIs and really wanted to add a vintage one to the collection.

well after 1 negotiation and going with faith on some rather crappy pics I bit the bullet and went for it. I turned down a forum member here on his mkII but should not have (lesson learned) due to dial being a replacement along with the hands.

So I ended up paying 1900 bucks including shipping from Spain to me which I felt was okish.
I received it last week and from the outside looking in it looked pretty good. dial and hands are really nice back sea monster is just in great shape.



I also liked the 1169/154 bracelet.
Now there were no movement shots (another lesson learned) which was probably not a smart move on my part but you know how this goes when the urge is strong.

the bracelet was so nasty it took me two hours to clean it which probably should have been a sign of "shit what will it look inside the case then"...........so because I am curious as to the serial number I cracked it open.
the serial number was fine in the 30XXXX making it somewhere between 70 and 72 and overall I did not see many if any tool marks and so on. What I did see though was a really rusted crown and completely shot gaskets and the watch was exposed to moisture at some point in its life but as Tanner (TM Watch) pointed out still in good shape.

Now for the record the watch was advertised as "recently serviced" see below.
"
Descripción: Recién revisado y pulido. Con un año de garantía desde la fecha de compra. Observar fotos para ver estado en general. Estéticamente bien, no es un producto nuevo, tiene síntomas de uso.

Description: Revised and polished. One year warranty since purchase. View photos to see general conditions. A esthetically well, is not a new product has signs of use."


I emailed the company which at face value looks like a decent one to deal with (even have a legit store and website) and they have been responding to emails. they said I could send the watch back for them to fix it or ask for a refund. well the dial and hands are really nice so I decided against sending it to them for a refund but how confident would you be from them to fix it when what they sent was considered serviced????? I am going to go with not confident.

Therefore, I did tell them I was going keep it but I asked for them to help take care of some of the cost of the service which to me seemed like a reasonable compromise rather than having the watch shipped across the ocean a few times.....
Fast forward to today, I got a text from Tanner and he said the movement was in good shape but the main spring was broken and the watch was not recently serviced.

I did pay with paypal and will inquire about my options. I am in for another 500 bucks to get it to where it needs to be which overall is fairly reasonable (total roughly 2400 bucks in tip top shape) but I still think they should own some of it.

thoughts???

 

I think it is definitely reasonable to ask them to eat some of the cost, its just I can't see them taking much of it. If you like it enough that you can't face returning it I think you can justify your portion of the extra cost having it serviced by a trusted watchmaker (TM). These people tend to be stubborn and may just do another botched job or will be happy to sell it to another person as if you send it back

 

That is precisely what they said "we have other buyers interested." The only thing folks like that understand is bad publicity . I have on purpose not revealed the name here and mods can let me know if it would be appropriate to share .
To be honest I would hate for someone else to do business w them.

 

It really is a game of bluffing isn't it, they obviously don't want it back. It's whether or not you would be happy spending the money and forgetting the bad service from said dealer going forward. If not I think you could get a nice example for $1700-1900 if you sit tight.

Since they agreed to fix the problem I don't know if it's fair to name, they could have made a genuine mistake. Did you look at references before?

 

briefly looked how long they had been on Chrono24 and how many sales they had and it looked decent.
I bought a mark IV with paper in Italy a Mark 4.5 on ebay and both sellers were stellar and it all came as advertised.

the watch has great bones so I will keep it and most likely will get stuck with paying for it all but at least I will know it was done right. overall 2400 is not a bad deal and it came with a nice 1169/154 bracelet with all links which these days are hard to find.