Horological Meandering

Auction houses are often unethical. There. I've said it. Frankly though, a lot of newbie and philistine watch collectors like to buy from auction houses, since these often neavou riche buyers feel that auction houses have properly vetted the watch (when t...  

But I greatly appreciate your boldness and candor here--and your concern. At some point, I'd like to sell an asset through an auction house or a seller appropriate for the asset and this is really eye opening for myself, at least. Appreciate everything yo... 

Yeah, I'm not going to get any new friends from Sotheby's today. But I feel it's important to point this out because A LOT OF PEOPLE think auction houses have well run operations and are staffed with experts who are accurate and precise all the time. But ... 

They can always blame the seller/ owner. Is this a close auction or upcoming. Link please. Thanks.

www.sothebys.com

...but has been sitting in a safe deposit box the entire time?

...these 50 years in the safe, all sealed up!?

PP seal vs. Geneva seal.

It's definitely not a Year 2020. And this is a prime example of how auction house "experts" aren't really experts, and that they're usually quite rushed. Sometimes an auction house will take a seller's word on what the item is and do no checking themselve... 

www.watchprosite.com

Hypothetically, if I had a stolen watch, I'd consider consigning it to an auction house. Since it's likely the auction house will protect the consignor. Especially if that consignor is a frequent consignor.

Awful to read this. I presume they didn't give you any information as to the identity of the seller?

I fully understand why you hesitated (and finally didn't) take legal action. Always more complex - and expensive - when in international cases.

They cheat everyone! But this billionaire had his suspicions and the resources to hire experts to double check his purchases. Unfortunately a large portion of his collection has problems. www.cbsnews.com

The problems will never stop. People joke he's been "corkscrewed."

Let's say a fence who deals in stolen goods is a frequent consignor at this auction house. Of course the auction house will protect their good client, and shield the identity of the consignor. Thus, criminals who fence stolen goods probably frequent aucti... 

Why didn’t you choose to start a legal action against all this ?

Antiquorum is the worse!

surely many sleepless night at that time.

Thanks for bringing this out- knowledge is power. Using an auction house seemingly adds a gloss of respectability with the fancy brochures etc. At the end of the day, if they are willing to advertise and then not stand by the provenance, indeed nor assist... 

Don't have any experience with auction houses yet, but I thought about trying it a few times. One question regarding the auctioning of Stolen watches: would it be better to inform the Police or other authorities about the Stolen watch and let them contact... 

It is a sad reality but true nonetheless. Where there is money to be made, more often than not, there are people trying to take advantage of the system set up 🤦‍♂️😡👎 In my case, all I can do is boycott auction houses, regardless if they have something I c... 

I think this was a key understanding for me. Take that together with the sheer volume of many catalogues and you have the perfect recipe for errors, omissions, mistakes and so on. This is without even beginning to consider unethical behavior, so even befo... 

Once you understand auction house operations, and how thinly vetted everything is (sometimes not at all vetted), and the sheer volume of products that overwhelms a very small team, all in a short time frame... it is - as you said - "the perfect recipe for... 

I don't think I understood your post. Numerical facts are not subject to interpretation, the year of a watch is either the year the watch was produced or sold. A year doesn't account for the condition of the watch. Sure, generally newer watches are in bet... 

Will establish the age. I have bought from Christie’s and Sotheby’s and they have always provided an Extract from Archives in addition to original papers.

I agree. Nobody is saying it's deliberate. Almost everyone is agreeing that Sotheby's abuses their influence, is extremely clumsy, and that people make too many assumptions when they deal with "reputable" auction houses.

The motivation for this is all about generating large commissions by the auction houses. As part of this watches that shouldn’t be accepted for legitimate auction are being sold and promoted. The auction houses know who they are selling on behalf of and y... 

Let’s do it !

How do you feel we should deal with the problem of dubious dealings ?

But I am conflicted insofar as I think there are certain watches or upcoming lots which are in the general interest of members here and so should we ban discussion of those? I’m not sure. And then, what about the value of posts warning of dubious lots? Su... 

All of our rules are about one thing... What would be good for the community AT SCALE and to prevent abuse. Keep in mind, it needs to be able to pass scrutiny while being scaled up. Our Terms of Conduct prevent discussion on watches that are for sale. Bec... 

We can definitely talk about auctions and individual lots after they're finished. But the conversation shouldn't be centered about the price. Connoisseur-ship is not about what something is worth financially, but by what it means to us as individuals in a... 

Because it's too ripe for abuse. Let's say a member here owns a watch that they're consigning to an auction house for auction. What's to prevent that user from making a post stating "check out this really cool watch at auction" and not mention he's the se... 

,,, although several watch companies have begun to experiment with blockchain technology to record date of production, sale, ownership and overhaul. Vacheron Constantin was among the first to explore the technology in 2017-2018. Breitling and Ulysse Nardi... 

FYI, I said "philistine" not "Palestinian." You must be a fast reader! I've nearly made a similar mistake before by reading too quickly! Watch company executives who want to seem cool and futurists have turned to their team to make "blockchain" waves. But... 

Blockchain doesn't require websites. The entire process of validating the authenticity of a product, its ownership and transfer of ownership, and therefore of its value, can be conducted securely from one mobile device to another. The mobile devices thems... 

I've explored blockchain and other traceability tech with luxury brands, big pharma, etc and it's full of holes for two fundamental reasons: 1. Digital validation does not easily translate to physical goods. Any physical unique identifier can be replicate... 

The secretariat of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change has a ‘climate chain coalition’ that for three years has been studying and testing ways to use blockchain to manage inventories of GHG gases. That is, as physical, tradable commodities. Tha... 

Tracking pollution through blockchain; from the source of mining the materials... That'd be interesting.

I think you stated some even bigger problems with blockchain in retail than the ones I mentioned and you stated the problems much more simply and clearly than I did. The micro-imaging so far seems to be the most promising.

I'm impressed that you know the etymology of the world philistine and thank you for educating me on the etymology. The "Palestine" definition is somewhat obsolete in today's world, and it's even more obvious in the context of my post that I did not mean t... 

Simply unbelievable…. Sadly, nothing surprises me anymore

It's like the people who fly Singapore Airlines or are fans of The Four Seasons Hotel... They're fan boys and they tell others how wonderful it is to work with these dealers and auction houses. BUT. WHEN A PROBLEM HAPPENS... How are you treated at these f... 

the US Antiquorum one was a non-malicious but annoying mistake that happened 6-7 year ago. They put the wrong address on the box, and provided the same wrong address to the courier, so my watch went to my neighbour! Fortunately, this was only a few doors ... 

I've had infuriating experiences with Bonhams and Antiquorum. Less experience with Christies, but I hear they're better to deal with than the average auction house. Those people at Antiquorum sure were clumsy! Wrong address! And trying to pass off a frank... 

One such dealer sold me a Patek 3940P “with papers dated 2006,” and it took me more than a year to figure out that the dial of my watch was specific to the 1990s. The dealer simply hadn’t bothered to open the caseback to confirm a match in serial numbers ... 

Thank you for sharing! Even the most reputable dealers don't do their homework sometimes. They just want to pass a piece of inventory and collect a margin. They're not looking at things through a magnifying glass carefully enough and noticing every detail... 

In my experience it’s people with family money who have no appreciation for what it takes to earn capital

I was talking to a Porsche dealer and he said pretty much that. One of his long term customers owns a very successful bakery and he would come in every once in a while to buy a new car. The baker's kids however are constantly trading into the newest hot G... 

After you bootstrap a business from 0 to 1, you’ll never be able to spend money again.