Market & Stock Update July 2015

Demand remains high, particularly for English and high end American, unfortunately these are also the ones most difficult to get hold of and with the general shortage of watches available to me I am now down to 40 watches in stock. I have currently only got two English watches available and have sold out of true railroad watches (although I do have a few railroad grade). I do have some watches, mainly medium quality Swiss, awaiting restoration but it is going to take some time for the stock situation to improve and it may get worse before it gets better.

In UK, Fellows of Birmingham have stopped their quarterly specialist auctions of pocket watches and are now including just a few, mainly solid gold watches, in with their general watch auctions. On eBay volume is down dramatically from a year or so ago and the availability of quality watches is even further down.

I used to import watches from the USA, volume is probably down there as well, but I have had to largely stop imports. This is largely because eBay have encouraged sellers to use a newly introduced facility (from a third party I believe) that collects import duties in the USA so that goods come straight through UK customs.

Unfortunately not only is this frequently slower it is far more expensive. Previously, if charged at all, I would pay Royal Mail £8.50 handling fees and up to about 9% VAT, with the eBay system charges it is more than double.

As an example a watch currently listed in the USA on "buy it now" is listed at $320 plus $15 postage plus a whopping $90.37 "duty" and handling! Someone is making a lot of money out of this, but no longer from me!

May Market Update - supply still declining!

Whilst some excellent silver watches are about, the supply of good mid range watches from eBay continues to decline and at the same time Fellows appear to have discontinued their quarterly specialist pocket watch auction with pocket watches being sold in their general watch auctions.

For the first time I can remember mid range Walthams are becoming hard to get hold of and, perhaps due to the declining scrap value of silver, silver cased watches are generally outnumbering those in good rolled and filled gold.

Due to my enforced shut downs in December, February and March, stock levels are currently good with some nice English watches available (pictured is a nice  "Bank" watch by J.W. Benson, 1920) and with more silver watches and half hunters than I have had for a long time, but my back log of Swiss and American watches is lower than it has been for several years which does not look good for the winter when I would normally be doing 20% - 30% more watches than during the summer.

Market Update - more silver watches!

The new financial year has seen some improvement in supply, particularly of silver cased watches. For at least two years I have been struggling to get good Swiss and American movements in silver cases with the majority of watches being in gold plate, now the ratio is much more balanced.

There has also been a drop in the number of movements being sold for spares.

It would appear that the significant and steady drop in silver (and gold) prices since the high in 2011/12, when it was more than double the current price, has resulted in fewer watches being scrapped for their silver content which has to be a good thing!

November Market Update:

The first paragraph was published on the web site on October 19th and is repeated here for background:

Following some months with very limited availability of high quality English watches I have managed to find a few really nice ones in the last few weeks but supply of watches generally has been difficult and I am now attacking my rather long back log of medium to good quality Swiss watches and revisiting some watches that previously proved... recalcitrant when I did not then have time to investigate in depth.

November:

It is now the middle of November and the supply situation has gone from bad to worse, there is little on offer and despite more aggressive bidding I am getting in between a quarter and a third the number of watches I would expect at this time of year and prices have increased significantly - a Swiss made watch for Benson and a Waltham have both just sold for 50% more than I would expect and an Omega for double my maximum bid which normally would have stood a reasonable chance of winning.

I had hoped that sellers were holding back for the Christmas market and that might still be the case but if so time is running out. A few (expensive) solid gold watches may become available in a week or two and I still have a backlog but it will not last forever!

February Market and Stock Update

In the three months to the end of January I sold 90 watches which is far in excess of the rate I can restore them as a “one man band”. During February the number sold dropped significantly, probably as a result of very low inventory, seasonal factors and a bias in my inventory towards more expensive American railroad watches over the last couple of months. But still inventory only increased slightly.

Good quality English watches continue to be in very short supply, I have not had a restorable English Benson or a Rotherham in since November and the next level down is almost as bad. I have therefore been buying a lot of railroad and other high grade Waltham watches from America and probably now have the best selection of these watches available in UK if not in Europe. More are on the way but anecdotal evidence suggests that the US market is also tightening which suggests a worldwide shortage of good quality pocket watches and a general increase in prices of watches for restoration, as I have seen here in the last 4 – 6 months.

With the Salmon and Trout fishing season starting shortly in this part of the world I will “only” be working 4 or 5 days a week (this is meant to be a “retirement” business!), so the current level of demand would be about right for me but enquiries are starting to increase again with the approaching spring wedding season so I anticipate that availability will not improve significantly in the medium term.