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Broken gold?

phr0stbyte
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phr0stbyte Member

phr0stbyte

Posted
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Newbie to the hobby and I am sitting here browsing broken watches on the 'Bay, looking for a first repair project. I am seriously discourage by the prices people are asking for broken watches.... Are there any more sources you guys look at when looking for projects? Maybe with more reasonable prices?

Bearman WRT Addict

Bearman

Posted
Posted

I share your pain. I stalk ebay regularly. Don't be discouraged the bargains are out there, it takes time and patience. Yes I would agree broken gold a lot of them are.

You'll also notice it's a seasonal thing to. Things tend to pick up, just after Christmas/Easter or around bank holidays.

Depending on where in the world you are you could try car boot sales or charity shops. Though I've had no success there myself.

Is it a particular type of watch you're looking for? If it's cosmetically rough and working/implied working you may stand a better chance. Look perhaps for less prestigious/known brands. Again depends where in the world you are. Good luck in the hunt, all part of the fun. 

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JohnR725 Distinguished Member

JohnR725

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Bearman said:

Don't be discouraged the bargains are out there, it takes time and patience

yes eBay is an amazing place with some amazingly good prices and some amazingly very very bad prices. It just takes time conceivably lots of time.

18 minutes ago, Bearman said:

Things tend to pick up, just after Christmas/Easter or around bank holidays.

unfortunately I'm not remembering but one of my friends who spends a lot of time scouring eBay for certain watches. Commented that is actually a certain day of the week where you're more likely to find good deals than other times of the week. Just can't remember which day it was.

It just takes patience and lock. Part of the reason the luck comes into it is a lot of times people advertise things in a very poor fashion I stumble across non-watch related stuff where they didn't describe the item correctly and because of that nobody bed. So poor descriptions complete the wonderful purchases of course there's the problem of poor descriptions could be something very bad and they don't want to tell you that.

I think somewhere on Nelson the group fairly recently somebody had a problem with a bad transaction on eBay was sold as serviced and it wasn't running and it wasn't's etc. etc.

17 minutes ago, Bearman said:

car boot sales or charity shops

then yes it depends upon where you exist in the world but there are places other than eBay. then yes there's lots of things other than a eBay. Various horological associations might have meetings with sales. Swap meets/car boot sales antique shops charity shops. There is always the story of people that went to Goodwill don't know if that exist worldwide basically a charity shop buying a the last one I heard was Omega chronograph for $50. In the case of goodwill there supposed to rotate the employees in the section of the jewelry to prevent employees from pilfering the good deals but I've heard of ways that they get around that one. But still there all kinds of places out there if you're resourceful where horological stuff can be purchased.

In the UK for instance there is a watch show that appears every couple of months I've heard there's even a tool dealer that shows up there that brings tools which always looked interesting but not practical for me to go to unfortunately.

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HectorLooi Distinguished Member

HectorLooi

Posted
Posted

I trawl eBay regularly for good buys. Normally I'll check on Mondays for newly listed items as people tend to clean house on weekends and then list unwanted items. 

Things used to be a lot cheaper before the pandemic struck. But during Covid, many people had too much free time on their hands and took up watchmaking. 

For beginners, I advise getting some cheap Chinese watches. You can find plenty on AliExpress for as little as $20. You won't be able to find spare parts for them if you break or lose something but they are dirt cheap.

I won't recommend getting watches from India or Pakistan as some of them are cobbled together from junk parts, scavenged from several watches. Most of them will run for awhile but will look terrible when put on a timegrapher. 

I used to get Russian watches from Ukraine but with the war going on, delivery can be really slow. 

Good luck.

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phr0stbyte Member

phr0stbyte

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Good input from all so far. I guess I should have specified that I am looking specifically for automatics that were either not running or running poorly. The prices being asked for something broken and they will probably throw out if nobody bites are ridiculous. I will keep an eye out though. Just looking for something I can troubleshoot and hopefully repair. I kinda like all watches (except some of the funky, bubble body, retro designs.

JohnFrum WRT Addict

JohnFrum

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, phr0stbyte said:

Good input from all so far. I guess I should have specified that I am looking specifically for automatics that were either not running or running poorly. The prices being asked for something broken and they will probably throw out if nobody bites are ridiculous. I will keep an eye out though. Just looking for something I can troubleshoot and hopefully repair. I kinda like all watches (except some of the funky, bubble body, retro designs.

Take a look at https://speedtimerkollektion.com

 

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JohnFrum WRT Addict

JohnFrum

Posted
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4 minutes ago, phr0stbyte said:

You get 2 thumbs up on that one!

Clockboy recommended them to me a few months ago. I had been dismayed at the prices on Ebay for literal rubbish.  I’ve since gotten a lot of practice material (mostly Japanese stuff) from speedtimer.

JDM had recommended using a Japanese bidding proxy service and I’ve gotten a few project watches from Japan yahoo auctions (via the  auction proxy https://buyee.jp ). If you are interested in Japanese vintage watches, take a look there. 

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spectre6000 Distinguished Member

spectre6000

Posted
Posted

Check out the 404 club for some inspiration. Cheap, not-totally-crap watches are out there. Prices have definitely gone up in the last few years, and pickin's have gotten very slim with Russia and Ukraine effectively out. I've been checking out various alternative European auction sites from time to time, but I've found shipping to be very difficult, and generally people go where the market is anyway, and that's eBay. I'm one of those people that took Covid as an excuse to buy a bunch of tools and finally make the leap. I have not had any luck at all with second hand/thrift shop/flea market finds. In the exceedingly rare event I find anything mechanical, it's worse than eBay by an order of magnitude in the price/condition ratio. 

mikepilk Distinguished Member

mikepilk

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, phr0stbyte said:

Good input from all so far. I guess I should have specified that I am looking specifically for automatics that were either not running or running poorly. The prices being asked for something broken and they will probably throw out if nobody bites are ridiculous. I will keep an eye out though. Just looking for something I can troubleshoot and hopefully repair. I kinda like all watches (except some of the funky, bubble body, retro designs.

I'd start out on manual wind, to gain some experience, and they're cheaper. Ignore the name on the dial, and look at the movements. If you want them to run well, I would not buy manual wind with less than 15 jewels. There's plenty of cheap watches out there with movements by the likes of A Schild, FHF etc which are relatively easy to service, well made, and parts are easy/cheap to find.

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