My first bad experience after buying a watch...

I agree w OP - the description of the watch may not have been problematic, but given the events, the seller should have responded differently and with greater professionalism, assuming OPs stury is true (and I have no reason to doubt it, of course). It sounds like you are a gentleman, OP!

I try to be! In fact, even if some big money is involved, we need to keep in mind that we are just talking about a watch.
The funny thing is that he argued that he already decreased the price (500$ on 5 figures... I am a very good negotiator right 😎😜) to make a good first impression on our first deal! So thrue... The Good first impression is certainly gone now...

If I wanted to play devil's advocate, I dont think that he could have known that the watch would have stopped 4 days later... it was badly needing a service!
I say this because it happened to me once, I sold a watch and it stopped running afterwards. I felt bad for the guy, but I'd told him that it was running and needing a service.
Maybe it's all down to what you state about the watch in the first place

I never said he known the watch will stopped, of course this can happen. It happened to me as.well after selling a watch here to a fellow forum member. I was so bad and I offer him.to pay for the service of course or even to sent the watch back. He just acknowledged me and said he will have to serviced it anyway and didn't charge me. A thrue gentlemen.
But here it is more about the form and the fact that he convinced me he made me a favor selling the watch to me at a great price 😀/... I am quite sure most of the people here are thinking I am crazy to pay 5 figures for a 3 hands...) And not even try to discuss a potential agreement ( I don't even ask him to pay for the service, just asked him to wait from my watchmaker quote before trying to find an agreement to solve the issue).
BTW, the watxh was described as 'mint untouched Condition'.

I was thinking the same. Here the watch comes from US.

On the bright side the watch looks stunning. Very nice condition. I would cheerish that, eat the repair/ service cost and move on.

Carefully pick your fights, or you'll soon get exhausted.

That is the plan, thanks for the good advise 👍

Regardless of who is to blame the idea that a dealer would flip a 5-figure watch at such a low profit margin that he can't afford a $250 service is, quite frankly, bullshit. I want to know the name so that I never buy from someone who is prepared to use such an argument as justification

Agreed, so if I buy a "mint" watch from a dealer and it stops after 4 days, I would be very pissed off 😀

I think I will be more suspicious when I read 'untouched' now... It Certainly means never serviced in his life 😜

Guys, I have sympathy for both parties here depending entirely on the details (and I also appreciate that people might not want to share details on an open forum). I buy watches from a host of sources; I also sell watches in two states: 1) instant flip of watches I have usually bought as parts of a lot at auction; and, fully serviced, regulated and checked.

If I put myself in the position of the seller, I will be absolutely open that a watch is not serviced though I will have checked that it is running, can be set and keeps time (usually I let them run for a day or more either just on my desk or on my wrist). The watch would be bought "as is". That said, I have accepted a return where the buyer simply didn't like the watch - in that case, he paid return postage. But let's be clear here: these watches sell for just tens of pounds (certainly less than £200).

In the second case, I will have the watch serviced by one of the watchmakers I use and will warranty the watch (in other words, I will give a back to back warranty of the work that my watchmaker has undertaken). Should anything go wrong with these watches I am absolutely prepared to give a full refund and swallow the cost of shipping. Alternatively, the buyer can ship it back to me and I will take it back to the person who serviced the piece for a repair. Here, we're talking about watches that sell for more than £500.

Here's where I'm different to the seller in this case: I would never sell a watch for four figures that I had not had serviced. I can think of one item as an example that I have up for sale in the shop right now: an 18k gold Geneve. So let's put some numbers on this. I paid £960 for this watch (it is cosmetically gorgeous); £160 went on a service; I can't think if I bought an Omega buckle for this or if it had one; it's marked up at £1495. By the time we've paid fees and taxes, that clears me a few pennies which goes towards buying my next watch. Now, some might think that's expensive for a Geneve but when you count up what's gone into that watch I don't think it is. I'll make about £150 from that sale. I could just swap out the caseback for a stainless one and make almost £300 at melt but that's heresay. I do this because I love vintage watches and I enjoy giving them another breath of life.

As a buyer, I would be furious to buy any watch for a four figure sum and have it stop after 4 days ... unless I had got a great deal which allowed for a full service with room to spare. Let's face it .. that's what I buy most often anyway! I buy a lot at auctions and, when I do, I take the market value of the watch and subtract the price of a service along with a percentage of the total value of the finished watch and the fees ... and that's what I'll bid up to. Because I'm usually buying these for myself I will generally outbid any dealers and most other collectors.

So, what this lengthy post is saying is that the devil really is in the detail. If the watch was bought at well below market value and was described as not serviced with no warranty as to condition, both parties were contracting from a fully informed position. I can understand the frustration from both but that's the risk you take. I have three watches on the edge of my desk as I type that were in worse condition than I had determined before buying them and they all need parts that can only come from a donor movement. Such is life. I paid the right money for them ... it's my fault that they're sitting here waiting for parts that are near unobtainable. At some point, I'll get a donor, fix them up and they will be "mine" in more of a way than something I simply bought on a high street from an AD.

Thanks for posting, this is an interesting point.
Just to add Something on the 'market price'.... Market price is Something quite easy to set up when we are talking about speedmaster, seamaster, or other iconic watches you can find everywhere and even sometimes on trees (@watchknut 😉 ) ... but when we are talking about a Watch which is almost very difficult to find and which never really happen for sale on the 'visible market'...it becomes really much more difficult to adress the market price. The only way is to search , ask , and then we find one...you just listen the price...and you agree or not... but without really any comparison point. So did the Watch i bought was good deal...as i said i don't think many people would pay what was the asking price...but it was the Watch i wanted... so i paid the price.

I've been through the same recently, and sometimes you just have to pay whatever the watch is worth to you in that precise moment. The good thing about that is that you more or less "make the market" once you want/need to sell 😉

This dealer was lazy at best for not checking the watch's functionality, dishonest at worst for concealing faults. And his response is baffling. No matter what he says, when he sells a watch his name and reputation is riding on it.