Dan S
·I have had many watches shipped by EMS and have never been charged. Only when shipped by courier. eBay gives you a significant level of protection that you won’t get if you buy directly.
Also sometimes watches from Japan aren’t polished at all. There are some very savvy and sophisticated collectors there.
I think I am going to avoid eBay and just use Sendico to buy directly from the auction sites in Japan. It does appear that most things are considerably cheaper this way. The only downside is shipping will take a little longer.
If you are seeing the same watch on Yahoo Japan, the eBay seller may not actually have the watch in hand. Many eBay sellers from Japan put a high BIN price on a watch, and if someone buys it, they buy the watch from the actual seller, then ship it. That's why you will often see the same watch listed by multiple eBay sellers. The proxy services charge much lower fees. Be aware, however, that if you use a proxy service, you cannot return an item under any circumstances. Even if it is counterfeit or you don't receive the item listed, you are totally out of luck. It is a real risk.
I reported them as fakes since they are using stolen pictures. fυck those guys ... But I might not know if it weren't for this community. So I am forever grateful for the info I get here and for the deals we are served up on the daily.
Now that you're mentioning it, I'm seeing like 5 japanese sellers have the identical set of photos on a seamaster ref 212.30.41.20.03.001 if you search it. What's that all about? Each has box and papers and similar description on condition and taxes/shipping etc. Good advice to just avoid them?
It’s what I described above. They do not own the watch. If you pay them they will buy it from the owner and ship it. Very common in Japan. Some of the watches listed are in retail stores.
It’s not really allowed by eBay but they do it anyway. Will it go through authentication coming from Japan? I haven’t paid attention to that. But even if they do that’s not how authentication works. They’re just looking to see if the watch is legit. And they are sending you the watch on the photos so I don’t see how that’s different than any other listing.
These japanese stores have the same set of photos of perfectly mint/flawless Seamasters. I as the buyer know the reference and what it looks like, so what's different to other listings is that I never saw an actual photo of the individual piece I agreed to buy. These are used watches and while some may have very minimal signs of wear you still want to see those signs before you buy it. At least I want to.
Perhaps I didn't do a good job explaining. In the situation I am talking about, the eBay sellers all show photos of the same watch, but IT IS the actual watch you are going to buy. They all skim the same photos of the same specific pre-owned watch for sale in Japan, generally from a retailers website. If you pay one of them, they buy that particular watch and ship it to you. So there will be no issue with authentication because the watch received by the authenticators is the watch shown in the listing. I look at a lot of watches sold from Japan, and I see this scenario for dozens, if not hundreds, of watches at any given time on eBay. It has been going on for years and is a standard way of doing business on eBay from Japan. On a number of occasions, I have been able to find the original listing that the others are based on.
If they are not selling the actual watch shown in the photo, that would have to be disclosed in the listing. I have seen that with some of the massive pre-owned watch dealers like Beckertime. They just show a generic pre-owned Rolex, but state it clearly in the listing. You could doublecheck by asking the seller.
Anyone have experience with this Japanese seller in eBay? https://www.ebay.com/str/purposejpn...uid=16FAFt6-T8K&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
Looks like they have a decent rating and a physical store. But most of the reviews seem to be on clothing and other type of jewelry. Found a couple of watches down the list but wondering if anyone here have had experience with them or thoughts on whether to buy from them.
I’d also say that the language barrier and the fact that eBay never had a real presence in Japan really has kept a LOT of their watches on Japanese soil which is why even the rare stuff is plentiful there.
I’ve often wondered too, when you look at all the amazing Japan only watch releases by Omega, why so much of a focus was on that country. Especially since Japan had such an enormous domestic watch industry that nearly killed the Swiss industry during the quartz crisis.
On one hand they may have had an extremely influential and successful distributor for Omega in Japan, but I’ve also wondered if making the Japanese market such a priority might have been a Swiss pride thing, making a point of succeeding in Seiko and Citizen’s homeland. Microsoft has spent a pointlessly large sum of money trying to sell XBox consoles into Japan (unsuccessfully as they only have like 0.12% market share) just because it’s Sony and Nintendo’s home market and continues to do so on principal even though every console they sell there costs many times more than its worth to market.
Just search for the cheapest one and buy from him. Often the seller "Closer"......
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.