The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Clearly the auctioneer did not know what he had!

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auct ... 7100992b43

Estimate £500-700

Currently bidding required at £4000 (+ 27% fees)

Don - my personal view is that it is bad form to post links to auctions in this manner. The fun of watch collecting is partly in "the finding", and it looses the fun if you just tell the world where to find them!

My opinion.

Dave - I understand your opinion however you could take the view that if an interesting item comes up and you know there will be many who read this forum who would be interested in it and that the forum partly sells itself on helping others with an interest in such watches then shouldn't they be informed? After all many members publish details of sales asking for advice and are laying themselves open to being outbid by simply asking for that advice.
In any event it's on a very well known auction site, as of now 36 people are watching (more than ebay usually gets) , there are 13 bids already made yet it's more than two weeks till the actual auction -- it is not a well kept secret. I would be surprised if more than a handful of this sections readers don't have alerts set for that site.

I addition you might also consider the point of the Trading Post 'Ebay and Other Deals, Great Finds' section is...?

Thanks for posting @donmenzies. I, for one, am happy for you to post whatever you find, and I will do the same (which is rare). There are no more secret sales if they are posted on the internet, which gives everyone a fighting chance.

Not all collectors have the same advantage as others in the collecting game. Some have an advantage because of where they live, - I do not, so I seek advantages wherever I can get them, and communities like this balance the equilibrium a little. If someone wants to find a bargain, let them walk the streets of ancient little European towns, which I can't do. At least let me have my level playing field on the Internet.

Unfortunately this collecting game can be a bit "sewn up" by a handful of super-collectors, some of whom I suspect then further use their ["foremost collector"] position to their advantage.

PS. For anyone who is interested, here is a recent discussion on this very topic over at Omega Forums:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/lovely-2998-3-with-sub-1k-gbp-estimate-speedyguess.57697/

And that happens too and someone else buys it. On the occasions where I needed advice, I'd just post the image. Its a bit more work because this site isn't comparatively easy to post photos vs Facebook or instagram. It's a simply equation of supply and demand.

Interesting topic
I have to say I'm with Buddman on this.
Not sure what a super-collector is? if it is someone who does the groundwork of keeping up with the market, being aware when items such as this come up and are in a position to buy you can understand that they would hope to gain some benefit from that effort.
Certainly fair to say that a public auction is exactly that, however the number of people poised over the bid button on the day obviously effects the result.
However community spirited I was feeling I would not post a direct link to an item I was planning to bid on.

I would assume that @donmenzies had no intention to buy and feels he is doing a great service to the community, which he has.

The forum does a great job of giving advice, especially on items for sale where someone asks for it, that for me is different to just posting a link to an up coming auction.

Good news is, the seller will get the market value or beyond for their watch and the naïve auctioneer, who I suspect is not so naïve as the reserve was still not met yesterday despite the bid then being double the top of the auction estimate will get his commission.

I've been around here since 2009 and i can't recall us ever having any firm policy/ culture on this one. I wouldn't blame someone for keeping an auction to themselves but i equally wouldn't discourage someone from sharing. Without a culture of generous sharing of resources and info, fora like this one wither and die.

I choose to almost never share, whether or not I am interested I just dont share . unless its a fake to warn ppl about . Why ? because I put a lot effort into finding obscure sites , auctions , marketplaces etc . If someone finds it as well, great , obviously he/she puts the same effort into finding the same auction , but I am not 'giving away for free' sites that took me months to find now to be swarmed with potential buyers . And if its not this auction I am interested in then next month there might be a piece in the same auction I want to buy , and now I have created a lot of competition for myself .

So my own view is : I just dont share auction sites anymore unless its to warn folks

_________________
"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

100% with Rene, I have the same policy . It is like for the mushrooms hunt : you can share the wood you go but not your spots .

I am interested to see the above responses. Clearly the collectors are non-sharers. Every bodies behaviour is their own prerogative, though I would contest that tapping a keyboard is not hard-work though it may be monotonous and time consuming!

Either way the advice this site offers is without rival and I will continue to be entertained and informed by it.

If I have no interest then I usually have no qualms about posting it.

There would be no board if the collectors were not "sharers"!

No they are sharers - they share photos and stories, after the fact, of the many beautiful pieces in their collections that leave us enthralled and green with envy. Their only reward for such selfless work is a small shot of dopamine with every comment in praise.



To be fair @donmenzies, there has been a fair amount of work on piecing together parts of the pre-Schneider Breitling story and knowledge that many of us take for granted, which you can read about in the posts in the early days of this sub-forum - and it involves much more than just searching for watches on the Internet. IMHO the lack of this provenance is one of the reasons Breitling vintage prices lag behind those of Rolex and Omega, although they are catching up, and admittedly to the benefit of those that already hold those watches. It's a bit like Tudor, which was unknown or looked down upon outside of collectors circles until they rediscovered their history back in the early 2010s and started to leverage it.

yes, clearly. this is the reason for countless hours spent to research the brand and trying to support this community in thousands of posts.

No offence was meant - I hope none was taken. @donmenzies indicates that he is a surgeon and I thought he would appreciate the medical humour.

I also said: