Watch lawsuits and squabbles

I’ll leave it for others to decide what position to take on these different watch-related lawsuits. I’ll note that most are dismissed (but in the case of specific pieces, not necessarily because there wasn’t found to be an issue with a watch).

The takeaways? Get promises in writing, and it’s on the buyer to do their homework, especially given the role opinion and subjectivity play in assessing vintage watch condition. Oh, and check the comps, too.

Collector v Dealer

Dealer v Auction House

Manufacture v Employees (and…Auction House and Seller)

  • @perezcope in 2023 broke the story of a franken Speedmaster sold by Phillips to Omega at auction. This was the first time that the mainstream media picked up on any industry shenanigans…for some, about time. So you can not only read about this on the source (perezcope.com) and in trade articles such as SJX, Fratello, Rolex Forums, but also the mainstream media sites such as CNN, Fortune, Bloomberg…and after all other major outlets had posted news on this and there was no way they could avoid not writing an article, Hodinkee wrote an article as well (you’ll want to read the comments). One thing that seems that will never change…the lack of dealers commenting on events like this. You might hear reference to it, such as on the Significant Watches Episode 35 (at 38+ minutes), where the team talks about dealers threatening others if they talk about the watch and asking people not to talk about it. Dealers protecting themselves and their buddies at the expense of collectors…sad but the way of the hobby, and a bummer indeed.

    You will still only hear accusations of bad behavior by specific auction houses from Perezcope and in collector comments. Unsurprisingly, we don’t see any negative comments about auction houses in industry press/blogs, who are incented not to burn bridges with those that provide access and advertising dollars. As an example, SJX comments that “that alleged fraud doesn’t really matter all that much”, which in my personal opinion, is a painful painful to read. And the only quote in the article related to the auction house involved is provided via a collector:
    “You cannot blame Phillips for the crookery as they were not the owners of the watch and were most probably not aware of the games played in the background. They relied on the Omega Museum and probably were fooled as well.” There is actually no mention of Perezsope’s name (Jose Pereztroika) in the article at all, which seems like quite an oversight – both given that he is the one that discovered the franken, and that he notified the auction house in advance of the sale so they could take action. Unfortunately, Phillips said that they were not alerted to any issues with the watch prior, though they did issue an injunction against Jose Pereztroika in advance of his article.
    Some may think that the SJX site is influenced by their paid relationship for past collaboration with Phillips. And while there is nothing wrong with being paid to advertise, I have heard others suggesting that when a third party is paying a news site, the transfer of dollars makes unbiased reporting a challenge.

Dealer v Dealer

  • Stuart Kaplan, MD, Plaintiff, v. Erik Grovhowiak, et al., Defendants. Plaintiff “alleges that he entered into an agreement with Grochowiak to repair and sell a watch that Kaplan owned, or, if not sold by a certain date, return the watch to Kaplan. Kaplan revoked the authority he gave to Grochowiak, and Grochowiak failed to sell the watch by the set date but refused to return the watch to Kaplan, instead purportedly selling the watch to Wong for an unknown sum. Grochowiak also failed to return other watches and accessories that Kaplan had entrusted to him.” Grochowiak’s company is LCCG Enterprises, LLC dba It’s Only Time. Alessandro Ciani is also a defendant. (BC635468)
  • H.Q. Milton, Inc., Plaintiff, v. Jessy Webster, et al., Defendants. H.Q. Milton brought a successful suit against Jessy Webster and Hidekazu Matsuba, for “a temporary restraining order to prevent defendants Jessy Webster and Kazu Matsuba from using allegedly misappropriated trade secrets.” This after the defendants collected information on H.Q. clients and steered some purchases to Webster’s own vintage watch site, Oyster Palace. (Case No. 17-cv-06598-PJH, 11-22-2017)
  • EHSA v HODINKEE, with EHSA claiming lack of payment for a watch by HODINKEE (New York County Supreme Court, 152399/2022). About $5k in value…I wonder why this wasn’t settled before this point. Someone clearly is ticked off…

Dealer v The Government
This is a new one, a suit involving insider trading. So not a suit about watches, but rather involving a watch dealer (Robert Maron).

Collector v Auction House
We do not see as many lawsuits between collectors and auction houses as we do between collectors and dealers, due to the legal terms of the sale that provides auction houses with a greater level of protection, and the sheer cost.

  • Andrew Woods, Plaintiff, v. Antiquorum USA, Defendant. Plaintiff’s motion is granted, and Antiquorum was ordered to pay per a prior settlement agreement. (No. 17cv3803, November 6, 2017) My favorite part of this is that Antiquorum provided mafia collectible as collateral until they could make full payment.
  • A watch collector sued Antiquorum in Manhattan Supreme Court for lack of payment following the sale of his Rolex watch. The lawsuit, from Behrooz Sarafraz claims that Antiquorum also failed to pay numerous other customers and that auctioneer Charles Tearle admitted to the backlog in IOUs to customers. (2017)
  • When I first posted this next example it didn’t include a lawsuit, and I don’t personally believe shady dealing, but it was a situation that wasn’t well-received by collectors and II felt worth mentioning. It began with Christie’s Passion of Time auction (November 2023), a sale from the collection of Mohammed Zaman, starting an hour late. That in itself was unusual (and irritating when you get up at 1AM to join the auction online), but things really got odd when the auctioneer then announced a significantly adjusted estimate with the opening of each lot (not announced earlier, rather in-room). I’ve been trying to rack my brain for another example of when any lot estimate was increased at the time of a opening and can’t think of one…no less for *every* lot in an auction (if you know of any examples, please let me know). I can’t think of a time when an estimate was changed any time after the catalog distribution, either.
    In the end, 70% of the lots went for the low estimate, and post-auction Christie’s said “a third party from the United States approached us to ask if the seller would consider a third-party guarantee”. Trying to parse out the comment quotes lead me to assume that:
    1) Christie’s went looking for a guarantor due to weak interest in the auction, and
    2) the guarantee was provided by an entity that has been involved in auctions historically, though not watch auctions.
    With this guarantee, Christie’s then needed to increase lot estimates in order to drive prospective buyers to higher amounts in order to offset the amount they would have paid the entity for the guarantee.
    Again, nothing untoward here that I know of, rather just extremely poor experience for collectors through the execution on Christie’s part to have this at the last minute (well, actually beyond the last minute as the auction started so late..). The only issue could be if the guarantor (Paddle 1013) was bidding on lots without an announcement by Christie’s, which I would expect did not occur.
    Regardless, we now all have the opportunity to make Paddle 1013 jokes for years to come.
    *UPDATE: at the start of December 2023, Zaman filed a civil suit against Christie’s (he sounds like a joy to deal with, truly). That resulted in Christie’s sending a notice to all bidders not to pay for their “won” timepieces yet, as they are all impounded. Amazing. What a nightmare. If anyone can navigate the Swiss filing to provide more information on the suit, please let me know.

Auction House: Internal Politics
But beyond issues with a specific watch, we also see auction house financial questions. Again, specific to Antiquorum:

Collector v Collector
For fun, as I know we all like to read forums, you can read one about lawsuits regarding defamation on a board. No kidding!

Collector v Private Sellers/Smaller Dealers
This category includes experiences that collectors have with less well-known dealers, and we do see some sellers seem to have more negative feedback than others: