Watches from auction houses

[thekingisdead]

I’ve seen a “job lot” of watches (5 in total) at a traditional auction house (they have online bids too).

4 of the 5 are predictably of no / little value but one of the lot is a collectible vintage watch.

Clearly buying any watch unseen is a risk / gamble, but can anyone provide any guidance as to where these auction houses get their stock?

Is it likely a collector has ended up with a non functioning watch beyond repair and moves it on thru an auction?
Or could I be looking at finding a gem for little money 😂

[Truckosaurus]

From my extensive knowledge of the auction industry (watching Bargain Hunt whilst having my lunch) it seems a lot of their 'stock' comes from estate sales and house clearances.

Maybe if you turned up to inspect the lot in advance of the sale then a friendly member of staff might give a hint as to whether it was part of a larger consignment, from a dealer, or from a private seller, etc.

As the OP suggests if a watch was truly interesting, in excellent condition, and had boxes and paperwork it probably would be a separate lot, rather than just spicing up a job lot.

[thekingisdead]

Thanks.
I’m not in the same country as the auction so this would very much be a punt, albeit from the limited information I have one that might be worth taking.

[eccles]

Sometimes interesting watches slip through the net, so you might actually get a bargain.
I would treat it as a non working watch and bid accordingly. Anything better than that will be a bonus.

[Tyrell Corp]

Every man and his dog now wearing Subs,GMT and Moonwatches, but there is a ton of really interesting low production high quality vintage stuff that are not well known about with very decent movements and build quality.

So you might get lucky, but factor in unknown restoration costs -also import duties on your end.

You could ask the auctioneer some basic questions: does it wind up, do the hands move, does it run for a day on a full wind and did it keep time?

Downside being that if it is something really special you may inadvertently alert them to it. Even for super rare watches there is normally a few for sale or sold worldwide if you search online now.