Here are a couple of quick vignettes [however you spell the word]:
- the phantom buyer -- you are talking to a seller about a watch; he pressures you to make a decision (subliminally or directly), suggesting that someone else wants to buy the watch; you decline to buy the watch for the $5,000 asking price; then he tells you that it sold to someone else for $6,000; later, you see it offered by the original seller, for $4,500 . . . so there was no sale at $6,000 . . . it was just a ploy to get you to pay $5,000 (or to make you feel bad for not buying at $5,000).
- pass the trash -- you see a watch that should be worth $3,000, with a dealer listing it at $4,000; soon, it is marked "sold", but a few days later, you see it with another dealer, listed at $5,000; two months pass, and once again, it is marked "sold"; then it appears with a third dealer, with a listing price of $6,000 . . . it sits for two years, with no activity. So what's it worth, and how do these "sold" signs affect our perceptions?
So it is often difficult to establish the market value of some watches, becuase we cannot tell whether or not they are actually being sold. These two vignettes are from private sellers and dealers; it gets much worse with private auctions on ebay, auctions ending early, etc. This is not a comment about this Black PVD Monaco, or Monacos in general . . . only a statement that unless you have reliable information from the buyer and the seller, it is difficult to keep track of the comparables / precedents.
Jeff
