"What is my watch worth?" It's one of the most commonly asked questions in the watch market by owners and collectors.
Traditionally, finding out what your watch is worth would involve taking your watch to a jewellers or pawn brokers and pay for a watch valuation. It would typically be the RRP of the same or similar model for insurance purposes. Today, there's a whole digital world out there with many individual opinions, data from online marketplaces and watch dealers offering trade prices, which can become even more confusing!
This article aims to equip you with tips and advice on how to accurately value your watches, to aid you if you are looking to sell yourself, simply discover the valuation or to gauge on whether the offers you receive on your watch is fair.
Learning the key aspects of your watch
The first step of valuing your watch accurately is learning about its necessary information that will contribute to its value.
- Find out the specific model number and serial number of your watch. These can be typically found on the watch's warranty card, or on the watch itself.
- The next factor that can affect its value is understanding the provenance; the age, ownership history and service history. Check if your watch has any receipts of sale or service receipts that indicate the dates. It will also indicate whether your watch is covered under the manufacture warranty, which can affect its value.
- Gather all the contents and accessories that come with your watch. It can be an important factor for buyers today to know it comes as a complete set: outer boxes, presentation box, swing tags etc.
Search the online marketplaces for your watch
So, you now know the exact watch that you have, its provenance and what it comes with. You'll now use this as a benchmark for doing your research. If your watch is rare, there may not be many similar examples out there to help with your valuation, so sometimes a little flexibility is acceptable, i.e increasing the year range, or the same model but different colour dial.
There are many platforms, services and marketplaces available online for watch owners to buy and sell on, so I'll be sharing today the few that I use to aid me in valuing my watches. I'll also value the modern Omega Seamaster Diver 300m as an example.
eBay and their Authenticity Guarantee
Let's take a look at eBay. This platform has grown exponentially in users and sales volume due to its introduction of the "Authenticity Guarantee" service, whereby any watch valued at over $2,000 is automatically put through the process of sending to an independent Authenticator. I use this platform myself for advertising, meaning private individuals and businesses both use eBay.
Using the Omega Seamaster Diver 300m as an example, which has an RRP of £5,600, we will assume our example is a 2022 model, in excellent condition and complete with box & papers.
The first step is to search the model number "210.30.42.20.03.001", filter down into just the UK listings and scan the adverts that have a similar age.
You'll now have an idea of the typical advertised price for this model, so let's take it one step further. We're now going to view completed and sold listings, by selecting the option in the filter tab.
The results show sold models varying between £3.5-4k. By clicking on each example, the description for each should show you if the condition and year is similar to yours. It's worth noting eBay typically have selling fees of around 10%.
Using Chrono24 to value your watch
With a similar strategy to eBay, we'll input the model number into Chrono24, filtering to the UK and specific years to compare against. Chrono24 charge a 6.5% selling fee, and with a little haggling, the net amount is likely to near 10-12% lower than the advertised price. With two legitimate comparisons, we've ended up on a similar figure.
Receiving quotes from Watch Dealers
The final step is to receive quotes from watch dealers. Bear in mind they need to make a cut and allow for any refurbishment costs and various other operating expenses.
Receiving quotes in the range of £2.8-3k could be interpreted as a target selling price of £3.5-3.7k, indicating both the trade value and market value of the watch.
The Tricky Task of Valuing Rare Watches
For watches that are rarely seen on online marketplaces such as eBay or Chrono24, it can involve a lot more research in figuring out its value. Typing the model number into search engines may yield results from Auction Houses over the years, or dealers that have sold that particular reference in the past.
Using this data, you'll also need to take into account the current market behaviour and performance from a broader sense. Is the market in a bull or bear state? Is there economic growth or instability? Perhaps a detailed blog for another day...
