The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi All, been a Zippo collector for a while and am a member of several lighter collector clubs. Over the years I have met great collectors that have the same interest and made many friends, for me and others it's fun of the game. Another fun part of it, is buying, selling and trading, makes it possible to keep your hands on many pieces and moving on to others (well, of course there is this thing in collecting that makes me want to keep every piece for the collection, but sometimes I just have to let some go). Anyways, in every collecting community there are some sharks. Ebay being the source of finding cool pieces 80% of the time, some are killing the game for other collectors. What I mean by that is the find people posting a regular auction style listing, and they see the seller is not really sure about what he is selling and talk them into putting a what seems to the seller as a "reasonable BIN price", but in most cases it ridiculously low, which doesn't give other interested parties/collectors a fair chance.

There are other situations, where the seller has a higher BIN price than the buyer wants to pay for and the buyer negotiates to lower it, that I think is fair, if it's within a reason, it's the same as a "manual" best offer option. Again, I am sure many of us love the hunt of a good or even excellent deal and the excitement of finding a great BIN deal and I don't think there is anything wrong with getting those, but in a legit way, where the seller doesn't do research of what he is selling or just wants to sell and item for a low price and initially puts a low BIN price without any "shark's" manipulation.

I am new to watch collecting and the community, the above is solely my personal opinion and would love to hear other's opinions.

-ZippoGuy A.K.A Henry

Doesnt bother me. I dont see how its any different than going to your local shop or swapmeet and doing the same thing. Its just that ebay is the swapmeet that we all go to. Sometimes you catch the deal first, sometimes you dont. I was at the golf store a couple of days ago and found a nice club for what I thought was a great price and it had an additional 30% off as well. I picked it up, looked it over, and put it back while I looked at a few others and checked my phone to see if it was the deal that I thought it was. Within 10 seconds some other guy picked it up and never put it back down. I wanted to hit him with it but it was fair game. The guy walked around the store for like 30 minutes with it in his death clutch while I followed behind waiting to see if he put it back. Anyway, I lost out. Big deal.

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-RJ

But surely having access to a worldwide sales point is far better than trying to ease your addiction only in your local area, it can be used for research, trending prices of items you would like to buy, (and buying items you never even knew you wanted).

There are bargains to be had, and if the seller has no idea what the value of an item is, then an auction is the best way to find the price that two people think the item is worth on that particular day.

You will see folks on BS snapping up "bargains" if the price the seller wants for the item is paid, then the seller is happy. But if after the sale is completed 10 other members say they were sorry they missed the sale then its an indication that the seller should have done a little more research, perhaps on EBay

Ian

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Navitimer World, Callistino.
Omega Speedmaster Moon, Hamilton 992B, Steinhart BS LEII #2, B&R 01-92 Heritage

I think eBay is a great tool - virtually all of my watchmaking equipment has come through eBay and without it I just wouldn't have been able to find half of the stuff. It also helps researching prices as mentioned and is a great way to match up buyers and sellers from all over the world.

There are items that go too cheap and some that go too high - same thing happens in local farm auctions around me every weekend in the summer, that's the nature of the game.

I personally prefer the auction side of eBay than the common (for watches) listed prices with BINs, but that's a valid sales method as well.