To search for watches, I follow and visit:
– forums,
– dealers (both brick-and-mortar and online),
– auction houses,
– eBay,
– Instagram,
– jewelry and antique stores, and even
– Goodwill.
Over time you may develop relationships, or knowledge of, specific sellers, and whether you are comfortable purchasing from them. If you start working with dealers, it is generally best to pick one or two with whom you would like to work, and focus on those. You would likely receive differing opinions on watches as often dealers like to talk smack about each other’s timepieces, so that may muddy the waters. In addition, dealers trade amongst themselves, so you aren’t limited to the breadth of just a single dealer’s ability to source pieces separate of the rest of the dealer community.
Some dealers and independent sellers leverage multiple channels, offering watches both on their own website, marketplaces, IG and on eBay. And after sitting on a watch for some time, dealers may post on eBay in an auction format. So if you have found the perfect watch, make sure to double-check other channels for pricing, which may vary.
My preferences for purchases are through a few specific dealers, as well as auction houses. Having said that, one of my favorite watches was purchased on eBay as a ‘Buy It Now’ (we actually made an offer below the BIN price that was accepted) from a dealer of all types of vintage goods. And another on eBay was purchased from an individual who sold everything from hunting bows to pots and pans. In both cases we did all the research we could on the sellers, made sure we knew the watch references well, requested a number of additional images and asked questions, and had a very good sense for the market value of the watches (from researching forums, blogs, eBay, auction houses, and dealer websites). Do I recommend eBay? Not for most – I was both very lucky with one watch that worked out, and the other…turned out to be a multi-year headache to eventually get repaired, and then sold thereafter.