John:

I am glad that you were successful with your sale last year.

When I read Nic's message about the bad weather in London, and other negative factors, it reinforced my view that these "local" auction houses can be bad platforms for these sales.

So I have owned a watch for 40 years; decide that March 17 will be the sale day; then wake up and realize that it's St. Patrick's day (which had been on the calendar for a long time) and rainy in London? Well, at exactly that point in time, I realize that I have chosen the wrong guys to sell my watch!! Yes, anyone can have a bad day, but the better the platform, the fewer these bad days.

We saw a couple of nice old Heuers sell on eBay over the weekend . . . at full prices . . . the photos were excellent and the information was comprehensive. And the sellers weren't complaining about St. Patrick's Day or the rain in London. And the buyer's weren't multiplying by 1.25 to get from the hammer price to the final price.

Perhaps the one word summary for these local auction houses is "inconsistent"? And when I am selling my precious watch after owning it for 30 or 40 years, that's not what I want to see.

Jeff

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In response to your question. I sold my 2446 at a WOK auction a year ago and got what I thought was a very good price. At that time it was the highest price that WOK had got for a 2446. The reason I chose an auction house to sell my watch was that it was a very safe route to take, bearing in mind there are now so many scammers operating in all fields. There were no hidden agendas and the sale and payment were completed with the minimum of fuss. I believe, as one of your fellow contributors has said that on the day London was quiet, the weather was against it and generally there are more and more 'specialist' watch auctions around. The auction houses can only sell what is offered for sale and prices will reflect their collectability.