: Interesting that the financial media (in this instance, Bloomberg)
: keeps publishing this sort of thing.

Jeff,

Call me cynical, but I am always skeptical of two basic things which come up a lot when people write about collecting. The first is when people try to equate collectables/watches as an investment with an investment in the stock market. The second is when the writer of the article on collecting is a dealer or in some other way has an interest in what a collector might buy.

On the first issue there is a huge difference between collectables as an asset and stocks as an asset. Stocks, no matter whether they appreciate or depreciate are liquid assets in that you can sell them for cash at any time. They have an easily determinable market value. Collectables (watches for instance) are not liquid assets. There value is little more than speculation until you actually sell them. Selling them is not like selling a stock. If a collector gets killed by a speeding beer truck his wife/heirs will have much more trouble disposing of the collectables/watches than stocks. There is much more potential to loses a percentage of the value of a collectable asset like a watch as a commission etc upon sale of the asset than with a stock. Stocks can be winners or losers but they can not get scratched and do not have scarce and hard to replace parts.

On the second issue perhaps the most egregious example of a dealer or dealers' interests being incompatible with collectors' interests is the popular price guide "The Complete Price Guide to Watches" by Richard Gilbert, Tom Engle and Cooksey Shugart. These guys are some of the biggest watch dealers in the US. While "The Book" is a valuable asset to the collecting community, any astute watch person can see that prices in "The Book" tend to be low for watches these dealers would like to buy and very high for watches they usually have for sale.

I do not know the people at Central Watch and I have nothing against them but when anyone "in the business" tells me what is good or bad in terms of an investment I try to look at what interests they may have which would bias their recommendations. This goes for stock brokers too.

Call me cynical.

JohnCote