I've not really been in an acquisition phase for some time for a couple of reasons, but I still get a lot of requests to comment on and validate watches. And some of those phrase the request in such a way that makes it clear that if I also have an interest in the watch discussed, they would be prepared to drop their own interest and give me a free(r) run. Equally, they will get an exhaustive, well-reasoned and honest assessment from me regardless of my interest or otherwise in the watch.

There are a number of words I like in German that either don't have an exact equivalent in English, or require a more convoluted, less elegant translation. One such is "Vorgehensweise". It effectively means approach (or "modus operandi" if you don't mind explicitly importing Latin into your English), but it's really a little bit more than that - it's a way of going about things. And I think we often want to superimpose our own Vorgehensweise on other people and assume their motives, methods and goals are the same as ours. But it's obviously not always the case and the whole package is probably at least subtly different for each one of us.

But what I'm getting at is that this isn't an "if you can't beat them, join them" situation. When I first started using eBay, to buy Autocourse annuals, it was a very frustrating experience and it soon become clear that, unless I also used sniping tactics (I snipe manually rather than using 3rd party software, but the mechanism is more or less irrelevant) then I wasn't ever going to be winning anything. So I had to adapt. As regards watch buying though, it seems to me that there enough people out there still acting in an appropriate manner that we don't all have to strive towards the lowest common denominator. An eBay purchase and sale is a binding contract but the nature of that medium makes it largely unenforceable unfortunately.

But enough to tempt me to change my Vorgehensweise? I'd say not, certainly not as it stands. If literally everyone else does it, then I clearly have to reappraise but until then, I'm happy enough to occupy the moral highground and miss the occasional purchase :)