Selling your luxury watch

Make sure you don’t get caught out, here are David Duggan’s top three tips to ensure that you make a sale you’re delighted with, equipping you to go out and search for your next investment.

Even in the most turbulent of financial times, pre-owned luxury watches tend to keep their value due to their rarity, enduring craftsmanship, and a buoyant marketplace full of enthusiasts looking for their next special purchase. There are all sorts of reasons you may choose to sell a luxury watch – but whatever the reason, it’s important to make sure that you secure the right price for an item you have no doubt cared for and cherished over the years.

So to make sure you don’t get caught out, here are David Duggan’s top three tips to ensure that you make a sale you’re delighted with, equipping you to go out and search for your next investment.

 

1: Make it personal

A quick search will throw up numerous online auction and sales sites, all claiming to get you the best price for your timepiece. But this a path that should be trodden with extreme caution. The dangers of selling online include: a lack of protection should there be a dispute over the sale, lack of control over the bidding process and potentially limited communication with the buyer. In short, selling online carries considerable risk and you may not end up with a result that both you and the buyer are happy with.

It’s far better, in this discerning community, to entrust your sale to an experienced luxury watch seller who can take care of the whole process for you – from marketing your timepiece to ensuring that all sale documents are in order. Plus, of course, your chosen specialist will have the expertise to know precisely what your timepiece is worth in today’s market.

"For forty years, David Duggan Watches have been very proud of our buying procedure.  If our client produces a preowned quality watch we are interested in, in most cases we make an offer for payment instantly. So you have the peace of mind of knowing that you’ve commanded a fair and competitive price and walk away away with your money.  Most transactions take place in ten minutes."

- David Duggan

 

2: Be clear about condition

All vintage and pre-owned luxury watches will require maintenance and repair during their lives. If the watch you’re looking to sell is in need of care and attention, it’s well worth considering investing in any necessary maintenance or repair before you go to market. For a comparatively small outlay, the restored condition of your timepiece may well make the difference between an average selling price and a price you’ll be genuinely delighted with. Your buyer will be delighted too – and that’s important when you’re dealing in circles where quality and transparency are such important buzzwords.

 

David Duggan Watches also has an in-house workshop and swiss trained horological expert who can recondition, repair and service most of the leading brands.

 

3: Keep your paperwork in order

As we saw with the recent astonishing sale of Eric Clapton’s vintage Daytona 6263, provenance and verification can add a huge amount to the value of a luxury watch. Your buyer will naturally require certification of the watch’s pedigree. Over and above that, any proof you can offer of an interesting history, intriguing past ownership or idiosyncratic details of the watch’s rare or unusual features will only help to push that value up.

That means that it’s just as important to care for your watch’s paperwork as it is to care for the timepiece itself. So before you put your timepiece on the market, make sure your paperwork is in order and that your dealer is aware of any tantalising extra details you can provide. A good luxury watch specialist has an intimate knowledge of their customers and what they’re looking for, so those finer details can be invaluable in matching the right timepiece to the right buyer – one who recognises your watch’s value and is willing to part with a fair sum to take possession of it.

David Duggan currently has a number of customers seeking luxury watches for sale. If you are planning on selling a Rolex, Patek Philippe, Cartier, Vacheron or similar, please contact us. We can offer full support throughout the sale process – from helping you to establish the correct value to liaising with the buyer and providing care and maintenance to prepare your timepiece for the market.

David Duggan Watches is always happy to take back any watch previously sold, in a part exchange against another watch in the shop.

“Variety is the spice of life.” – David Duggan