Selling used luxury watches isn’t as simple as selling most items. It takes a few extra steps to find the best price for your luxury watch, as well as to make sure you’re selling to someone trustworthy. Want to know the best way to sell your luxury watch? Here are our top tips.
1. Choose Your Buyer Carefully
Choosing where you’ll sell your watch is the biggest decision you’ll need to make when selling your watch. Let’s take a look at the common options:
- Auction Houses
- eBay
- Forums
- Retailers
- Watch Buying Specialists
Each of these options has its own pros and cons. Selling at an auction house is the most traditional way to sell a luxury watch, and it’s definitely a secure option, but it is time intensive and can come with hidden fees. eBay can be convenient, but it can be hard to sell your watch for a decent price on eBay if you don’t have a good seller ranking (plus, eBay carries the highest risk of being scammed).
Forums can be a good option for those who are deeply involved in the watch community, but can be overwhelming for the uninitiated (and are another place ripe with scammers). Selling to a retailer, like a local jeweler, can be a secure option, but you’re often unlikely to get a good price at a general dealer.
Selling to a watch specialist (who may have a physical location and/or an online storefront) is one of the newer methods of selling used watches, but is quickly becoming one of the most popular. Selling to a watch buying specialist such as selltostein.com is a very secure method of selling a used watch and, unlike selling to a regular jeweler, specialists are often able to give extremely competitive offers on used watches.
This is because they understand the value of luxury watches, but also because they can more easily resell your watch than any other buyer, so they’re usually willing to pay more than any other buyer. Joseph Halpert from Stein Diamonds says, “We see that the Rolex, Patek, and Audemars hold their value extremely well and are even appreciating in certain instances.”
2. Include Your Box And Papers
If you still have your original box and papers, make sure to include them with your watch. Original boxes and papers are highly desired by many watch buyers, as they’re an additional way of proving a watch’s authenticity. Because of this, watches that come with their original box and papers often fetch a considerably higher price than those without.
3. Include Your Model Number, But Not Your Full Serial Number
No matter which avenue you decide on for selling your watch, make sure you include your model number when selling. Your model number is important because it helps your potential buyers know exactly what they’re getting.
However, don’t make the amateur mistake of including your full serial number in a listing or correspondence. Your serial number is unique to your watch— if you give it away, you run the risk of scammers using your serial number on fake watches. It is common practice to give part of your serial number, however, so consider giving the first few digits of your serial number, then replacing the other numbers with “xxxxxx.”
4. Take Excellent Photos
Taking high-quality photographs is incredibly important for selling your watch, especially if you’re going to sell online (even buying specialists will usually want pictures). Take photographs of your watch from every angle, including both sides. Make sure that your photographs includes pictures of any scratches or imperfections on your watch.
It may seem like a good idea to hide damage in your pictures, but you actually want to do the opposite. It’s better to make sure your potential buyer knows the exact condition your watch is in. That way, they’ll be less likely to try to return your watch, claiming it was not in as good of condition as the pictures showed.
