Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Auctions Have Spoken, But What The Hell Did They Say????

Well, the big auctions went off over the last few days, to alot of "rah-rah" on the forums. I keep hearing "quality rules", "Europeans need someplace to stash money", and the like. Overall, numbers were down, but certainly not out. In fact, lots of really questionable crap was sold for heavy money, IMO. What does mean to the "real buyer" you know, like the one reading this piece?? A gold plastic daytona sold for well over $50k, yet I turned down one at $35k. Steel plastics are fetching $30-40k in "the room", but what dealer will pay $20k, hand to hand?
There is a phenomenon here. A while back I dubbed the term "two tier market". The folks at these auctions are not your average buyer. They are collectors, brokers, speculators, and for the most part not concerned about the economics involved. These auctions are a place for dealers/collectors to "prove" the market still has legs. Now, I am not saying there was not money in the room, but whose money was it? The average collector and dealer these days cannot sell anything at just about any price. Look at the forum markets, which I believe to be a much more accurate picture of what is happening. There are just plain unrealistic prices for average stuff, with phrases like "reduced" all over, and still no action. Granted, the "reductions" are a joke. The prices are so jacked up to begin with that no one in their right mind would pay them. There is a liquid price, but not many are willing to accept it. I am sure, many who are selling paid way more and cannot take a loss. I have posted some "test cases", and not much interest. Does this mean the market is done? Not at all. It just means no one is spending at this time. But hold on here, when will spending re-occur? Remember, the big boom in these watches over the last 4-5 years was "fad like" in some regard for certain buyers. The steel watch became the "new bling" for the hip young urban professional. With many now looking for work that demo is slowing, creating a vaccum where lots of these watches are out there, with no real buyers, except dealers. Dealers like to buy cheap, at least this one does! So what happens?
WHAT HAPPENS???

1 comment:

Unknown said...

As always an excellent analysis of the current trends, "Two Tier" market :-), I have to remember that :-)

Cheers JB,

S