Hello dear OF,
Im quite new to this whole vintage Omega thing. So my question is, wether or not a certain Ebay seller can be trusted or not? His name is closer0924 (https://www.ebay.de/str/closer0924/ROLEX/_i.html?store_cat=6493451015&_sop=15Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network) and he has sold many watches, so I thought some of you might know him. Im located in Germany, which is why this seller isn't ideal to begin with, since he is located in Japan. Still he offers many nice Omega and Tag Heuer models I like, for a reasonable price. He also offers a 2 week return policy. What do you guys think?
Thank you very much,
Leo

 

The seller is solid. If you search ‘closer’ on th forum you’ll find they are mentioned frequently as a known reseller in Japan.
Currency weakness means now is a decent time to buy. Just factor in your countries import tax

 

Half a dozen Omega purchases, all sent to New Zealand promptly and well-protected. All watches as described. Happy to recommend.

 

Closer is a good seller. I've bought two watches from him. Very good service/postage and communication. The watches have been in really good nick. Not that cheap and Japanese tend not to be comfortable undervaluing for customs...As has been said, factor in your country's VAT/import taxes. However, you pay for what you get...and paying a bit more, in my experience, was worth it.

 

I think you have a lot of protection buying from eBay..The bad thing with buying from outside the EU if you are located in Germany are the custom taxes..

 

'closer0924' is not so well known in Japan, but he is a well-known seller on the Omega Forum.

If you are interested in the 'closer0924' watch on ebay, check out the Chrono 24 as well.' There are times when 'closer0924' is selling the same watch for less than ebay.

 

He came highly recommended and I bought a sparkle dial seamaster from them. Great communication and fast shipping to the east coast USA. Keep an eye out for unscrupulous sellers who steal his pics and sell the same watch for a different, usually higher, price.



Only the first listing is closer, the rest, not so much. If you go to each one, you'll see only theirs are going to be the highest quality.

 

closer is a well known second hand store in Japan, I have also bought more than a few pieces from them, being an actual store their ebay prices are actually tax free.

that very same being a store is why they MUST list full price on the customs papers as they need it to be selling it without domestic sales tax. Descriptions and pics have always been great in my experience.

 

this isn't even selling a different watch, as they have their watches listed on domestic sales channels too, people clone their listings to ebay, to cash in on people who don't find/cant order directly.

if you buy one of those, they buy from closer on rakuten or yahoo and then forward it.

 

Same good experience here.
Bought a nice vintage Iwc from them at a reasonable price.
Shipped via dhl, got here in Italy from Japan in three work days.
Would deal again with them.

 

Legit high-volume seller with relatively fair prices for mostly mediocre pieces. If you look through them all very closely, you will occasionally find something of higher quality.

 

I just bought this watch yesterday from Closer and I found a similar post with the same pictures and higher price.
not sure which one is legit or both?
both watches will going through the ebay authenticity process

picture on the right is the one that i bought

I will let you know the results

 

Well, closer's shows as a Completed Auction and the other one is just gone. But notice Dan Giza still has it listed, I guess he didn't catch on yet. Typically I would take the same photo from each seller and compare the quality as zoomed in as one can go. What strikes me as odd in this case, is Dan Ginza actually had the better quality photos this time around. Who knows as internet compression can be a big factor as well. The idea is that usually you can't download the highest quality originals and the original seller should have the best quality ones uploaded. Any others would have been downloaded and recompressed at upload and you will see a drastic quality/size difference.

 

I follow a Grand Seiko forum and I believe you can buy from Closer through Rakuten, with significant savings after some period of time if an item has not sold- I have not personally done this but it exists may be worth checking. You can also open an account with one of the Buying agents such as From Japan (Buyee) and bid directly on yahoo Japan auctions if youre in the mood to swim in the deep end.....

 

I bought a watch from Closer and it was a smooth and good transaction.

 

Did you use the Rakuen Japan website? Thank you

 

I am signed up with From Japan and have access to Rakuten through them- but I have not used it yet. I can view listings and search, there is translation available but there are some sellers that will not sell to out-of-Japan buyers using 3rd party buying service- its a bit complicated I have not yet pulled the trigger- so I cant give details of the process yet.

 

Any estimate on what the custom/import fee is when shipping from Japan to the US (if any)? Or maybe someone can share the tax percentage they paid when buying from Japan in the US?

It's hard to gauge whether it's a good deal when there's the unknown of custom/import taxes. Or is that not relevant for private buyers?

 

$800 import cutoff, then it's a formula:

• Movement – Flat fee of $1.53
• Case – 4.2%
• Bracelet/Band – 9.8% for textile/metal, 2% for others (9102.21.90)

Many shippers like DHL also charge their own fee on top of it.

 

Thanks for the breakdown. So the fee isn't really that bad if most of the cost is allocated to the movement.