I must make this message quick, but wanted to add my two cents about what I am seeing:

• Over the last year to 18 months, the high end has exploded!! I am hearing about private sales of the Big Four -- 1133B Chronomatic, 1163MH Chronomatic, 1163T Chronomatic and 74033 Black PVD Monaco -- at and above the $20,000 mark. This is a huge break-out, from the $10,000 that we saw before the explosion. Missing from this list are the Chronomatic Carrera and 1158 18 Karat Gold Carrera, or perhaps it would be the Big Six.
• I see the good original watches drying up. Everyone has observed this, and they also observed it two years ago. This has been a gradual process . . . we have a big community (people who post and the lurkers), we are all chasing the same watches. We are not able to wake up in the middle of the night and take turns grabbing the $300 Viceroys and $800 Sifferts, from eBay. I should add that when we were in this mode, we did not even know what we were buying . . . no developed online community . . . few Heuer dealers . . . no books, blogs, forums, etc.
• I have not seen any real softness or weakness in the prices. People tell me that Speedmasters are soft; I hear that the Daytonas and Comexes crashed a couple of years ago . . . I have not seen any Heuers crash, and if there is softness, it is very minor.

: OK guys after all these bank and invetsor and also paper guys did
: talk us into a recession, I do the wave really comming.

: so do we already see affects? Here are my obsevations of the last
: weeks

: 1. Naturally people tend to sell 2nd row watches as well as all
: watches they dont want to keep:

: - so do we see all these heuer helmetes sudenly on the markets?:
: YES !
: - and are the many automatic carreras and Vics on the market?: YES
: !
: - do we sudenly see on the OTD forum we have more sales of
: non-Heuers?: YES YES !

: 2. As you first sell the group above, people tend to NOT to sell so
: hard the core of their collection

: - so lower number of Sifferts (apart from rookies who think its a
: watch from section 1.)? - YES nothing seen from collectors !
: - lower number of real high end Heuers: Monacos especially? YES
: YES!

: ------------------------

: So strategy this time ?

: YES collecting now can be a lot of fun BUT I expect a much longer
: dip now....may be a sort of dip that step by step further sinks.
: This means be prepared to longer keep your collection (the core)
: and be prepared that selling (of category 1.) watches and stuff
: might be harder in the coming times. And yes I expect (again) a
: price dip and on the other hand a relaxation back to increased
: prices afterwards.

: ------------------------

: So what do you think and hope you follow these indicators with me
: so we can see if there is some pattern for the future

: rgds
: ape