A fellow watch friend of mine (like me just started delving into vintages) shared this story with me. I'm wondering what would OF do/think/share your thoughts regarding this.

My friend was looking for a vintage and he happen to find one at a local forum selling a pretty nice piece. However upon further inspection, it had a refurbished dial and wrong hands. (he has read up quite abit on this and had several vintage friends to confirm it) he politely informed the seller, and the seller said he bought it from a local vintage shop whom he trusted the seller.

This local vintage shop is quite popular and has many different types of clientele. So my friends would visit it and found out that there were at least 2-3 more pieces which had wrong hands/wrong case/ redial stuff. Vintage owner doesn't deny it out rightly but he does point out to us some watches which have relumes and such.

My friend then discovered that the seller of that particular watch went back to the vintage shop, informed he wanted to get it on consignment and it got sold the next day. He didn't inform the owner nor the new owner of the flaws. (owner didn't know of the flaws too)

Isn't it the onus of the vintage shop owner to have at least vetted through the pieces that he's selling? Just hearing this that he buys and sells pieces like that kinda makes me mad. Poor souls (yes ok they aren't poor cause they didn't do their homework) are just buying...

Some of us said, perhaps the owner trusts his suppliers too much, to the point where he doesn't bother. And he deals in a variety of vintages from rolex, Pateks, AP, Jlc....

 

This comes up a lot here, and there seems to be levels of culpability.

Ignorance can sometimes be excused, if the issue is esoteric, but most around here feel that if a dealer is a professional, they should know their business, be an expert, and not have many of these type of issues arise.

On the other hand, willfully foisting on an unsuspecting public issues, as a dealer, that you know are incorrect, is just plain criminal.

 

IMO, dealers care if watches are sellable, not if they are 100% correct. They will charge a huge premium no matter what, however.

I have only ever come close to buying a vintage watch from a dealer once, and that was because it was mislabelled and massively underpriced. Sadly it had sold just before I got into contact with them.

 

I presume the vintage shop sells much more than just watches, yes? While I agree that he should indeed be knowledgeable on the subject of the items he sells, I think it would be a huge ask if we were to hold him to the standards of a vintage Omega expert. Perhaps we spend too much time in communities with such a deep level of knowledge that it seems like it should be commonplace, but it really isn't. As long as he isn't selling outright fake pieces, the old adage of caveat emptor applies very strongly here, in my opinion.

 

He specializes in only watches. Sells nothing else.

 

Oh not so good then. Not good at all. I guess the best course of action is to just stay away, and to advise anyone you know to do the same.

 

I have spoken to the ones close to me who are into watches. Granted, another watch collector friend of mine bought a vintage omega from him and it was legit down to the crystal. Guess he's the lucky one.

 

In my opinion, if the shop owner deliberately misdescribes any of his items, then he is liable to whatever penalties the civil law or even criminal law proscribes. The buyer will have reciprocal rights to return the item and get his money back.

However, if the watch is not misdescribed, and the buyer makes assumptions outwith the information supplied, then finds out these assumptions are incorrect, then unfortunately, I believe you will be reliant on the goodwill of the dealer and how he sees potential reputational damage -v- loss of profit on the transaction.

Much as we might like to impose our standards regarding openness, detail of description, willingness to accept returns from purchasers in any circumstance etc, that's not how the rest of the world tends to work. I don't believe "buyer's remorse" is a legally enforceable right .

In the present case, if the watch was sold as "genuine, all original" or similar, then I'd say a buyer would have a case to return it, if he has good evidence the statement is false. If it wasn't then he is on shaky ground.

We might like to think watch collectors are special flowers, but when it comes to transacting with dealers (I don't count the sellers on this forum) in the wide world, it's a cliche, but as always Caveat Emptor!

 

Happens all day long in dealer land

Just read this thread, the dealer even tries to wiggle out of all the unscrupulous listings


https://omegaforums.net/threads/very-pleasing-original-dial.38857/

 

Wow what the hell.

So I was speaking to some friends who are into watches and having bought 1-2 vintages...

Personally, i think its either

1) the owner trusts his suppliers to find him pieces that are more or less legit (90-100%)

2) he's targeting masses who just want to own a vintage. They don't care about polished lugs or wrong backcase.

3) he moves the items rather quickly, meaning there's always a demand for such lesser than perfect items.

however, I understand that buying vintage means you should be buying at least 95-100% correct accurate. Like example, if someone wants to sell a UG Polerouter with all original but just a replacement crystal, then fine its still vintage, its still correct, just that its a aftermarket crystal. Of course a full original set should cost more.

Honestly, I do not mind an aftermarket crystal as long as everything else is original and not relume/redone. I can slowly source for a correct time/era crystal after getting it.

But i guess every consumer is different, and masses do not really care for such details.

However, I do feel that as a seller, I should make such details noticeable to potential sellers so that they know what they are buying.

 

Crystal is a common replacement and I wouldn't bother about that at any time buying. Just a bonus if you get one but wouldn't worry if the seller didn't tell me.
I would always go brand crystals if available at service.

 

As mentioned (or perhaps I should say implied) by @Mouse_at_Large, the vast majority of sellers couldn't care less whether their watches are refinished or not. Ethics don't come into it. Most of their customers can't spot an obvious redial and anyway wouldn't know its effect on value and collectability, so they just need a watch to look a bit glitzy and that's enough for their business model. If this person sells watches on a regular basis then you can be certain he knows it's a redial. An early lesson in watch collecting is that about 98% of people selling more than one or two watches are either sharks, ignorant or simply not bothered about you. Rough on the other 2% but there it is.

 

Actually, I think they do care, as unless they are either completely ignorant of the consequences of selling misdescribed goods or just don't care about the potential consequences, then only to the extent that they are protected from (to them) undesirable consequences.

In reality, the "collector" market is a small subset of the wider watch buying public. If a dealer can shift a refurbished watch quicker and at a reasonable profit to a buyer who does not care about originality, then that's what he'll do. £1 from a collector and £1 from a non-collector are the same to him. And unless the buyer meets a WIS who decides to mock him for his non-original purchase I'm pretty sure he'll will be happy with the purchase. If there wasn't a market for refurbished watches, then nobody would refurbish them . I've also seen it suggested that without rediallers/refurbishers, a lot more watches would simply be scrapped.

Now you may argue that the buyer is only happy due to ignorance, but I'll bet if you put a heavily patinated watch next to a reasonably skillfully refurbished example of the same watch, the vast majority of the general public would choose the refurbished example. That's down to personal choice and taste, not I'd argue, ignorance. Being Scottish, I've tasted many whiskys over the years. Despite what some may tell me, dislike of peaty malts does not mean I'm not a true whisky lover

 

I think it lies somewhere in between. They probably care enough not to get their pants sued off, but not enough to take the pains and lose sales to those who don't know as much. Like you said, it doesn't matter whether it's a knowledgeable collector or a general member of the public buying the piece, as long as he pockets the money.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they took their nicer pieces and sold them privately to collectors they know, and leave the crap behind for those who'll buy any old thing.

Btw, thanks @STANDY for providing that link, that was quite the interesting read.

 

yeah i was reading it on the way home. holy smokes.

 

As a related aside, the same California-based dealer who was the subject of the thread (that I initiated) linked by @STANDY has continued to misrepresent watches. Here are two follow-up posts that I created, including one very recent one:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/wannabuyawatch-is-atitagain.60925/

https://omegaforums.net/threads/wannabuyawatch-–-the-misrepresentations-continue.63574/

 

I think we are saying the same thing in slightly different words!