A

Welcome to the Scottish Watches Podcast. It's been a long time since we've had somebody on the show or more than one person on the show to talk about the intricacies of the pre loved, pre owned market. I remember back in the day we had people such as Jonathan from Edinburgh Watch Company, we had the folks from watchfinder on, but it's been a long, long time and I think the last time people were on it was the heady days of nft crypto free money. Everybody was just loving life. The timepiece, gentlemen, was kicking around, free as a bird, not locked up, incarcerated and in the pen where it belongs. But yes, we got two gentlemen on the line today to talk about the current state of buying and selling watches, not brand new, but pre loved, pre owned, certified, looked after and putting them on the wrist of new people that want to enjoy the hobby as much as we do. So it is my great pleasure to introduce a couple of people that I've worked with recently and briefly before. It is the gentleman from Watch Trader and Company. We have got with us, Harry and Ben. How are you guys doing?

B

Brilliant, Ricky, it's a pleasure to be here.

C

Yeah, great, thank you. Thank you for having us on.

A

No problem at all. I thought I'd return the favour because I was recently down in one of your establishments. You've got one down in Mayfair, London and one in Newcastle. And Newcastle was far easier for a jock to end up down in Geordaland. So I came down with the missus, spent a good few hours with you in the blistering summer heat. I was not used to it, didn't like it, didn't sleep, had a good meal beforehand. But I turned up and we actually did a little bit of work together. And afterwards I thought, hey, we don't know each other, we've never met each other, we've never talked, we've never trialled, never rehearsed, never practiced. But we jumped on live in front of hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people, up to nearly a thousand folks, and did a presentation podcast and we went through all kinds of stuff from Cartier to Omega, right through to Tudor and Rolex. But we will talk about that later on in the show because there's tons to get through and the first thing to tell everybody is to check the show notes. If you look in there, that'll be linked to your podcast player. All the information, the watches, tech spec and links will be there. It'll take you to different areas of the Internet where you can find out more about these watches that we're going to discuss and some interesting topics because behind the scenes, we did a bit of planning this time. Yes, we actually got our heads together ahead of recording. And we have got some interesting tales to tell, including some superstars, some very famous folks, and some interesting diversions with watches, including one time somebody went on a date here with a watch, damaged the watch, and then their date wasn't quite enamoured with the way things went. Who was that?

B

That would have been. That would be me.

A

Oh, it's you, Harry. Right, okay. What exactly happened there then?

B

So I had a very fresh, almost unworn condition. A datejust 41 Wimbledon. Pleated bezel jubilee. Now, this watch only came out with me on special occasions at the time, and I decided to wear it on a date. And the venue that we're in, they. The seat we were at, it was one of those where it was kind of like a rustic barrel, almost like a whiskey barrel with, you know, like a kind of iron rim around the edge of the table. I'm on a date and conversation's going great. And I go to gesture with my. With my hands as you do, and I just hear the ding. Now, at this point, my mind kind of completely lost interest, or not lost interest. That sounds harsh, but wandered away from the conversation. And yeah, my dad actually said to me at the time, she just kind of stopped me. She said, are you okay? It just seems like you're not understanding what I'm saying. And I was like, no, no, I'm good. And I actually had to. It makes me laugh now. But I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and had to do a status check on the watch to see what the bezel was like. Because I was thinking, wow, this is good. I'm going to have to get it recut. It's going to be a disaster. I'm going to have to call the partner. I didn't actually call the polisher. But, yeah, I don't know. It makes me laugh now, the trivial nature of it. But you know what it's like when you get that first ding on your watch.

A

I have questions. So, first of all, am I right in thinking that is a white gold fluted bezel?

B

Correct.

A

And flight gold isn't exactly the most tough of materials.

B

No, it's certainly not as tough as steel or cast iron.

A

How badly was it damaged?

B

It was. It was okay. It was something that I probably. I would only notice. As I say, it cracks me up. When I think back to it now, the ridiculousness of me being bothered by

A

that you want to hear one of my cool stories to do with watches? And funnily enough, it's Newcastle. The last time I was there, before I saw you two gents, I came down, it was Johnny at Williamwood Watches. They do the fire brigade watches. Probably heard of them in the past. Really cool guy, great brand. And he'd recommended some places to visit when I was down there. And it was the second day just before we were coming back home, myself and the new wife. And we were at an eatery outside. I was wearing my, at the time, white gold Daytona and Oyster Flex the Ghost. And I saw this group of individuals and I thought, okay. And they kept looking over at me and I'm wearing this gold watch. Then they kept chanting themselves and kind of looking over at me and I thought, I've got a 5050 here. Are they eyeing up what I've got on the wrist or are they eyeing up what's sitting next to me? So I excused myself from the table, left her on her own, went to the toilet, took the watch off and stuffed it down my socks. Then I came back out and by the time I came back out, they'd left, so everybody was safe and happy. But that's my Newcastle watch story for you guys.

B

Oh, I see. So it was. So you determined it was in fact the watch.

A

I don't know, maybe when the watch disappeared, they lost interest and they left as well. I like the way that looking back on it, like you, I can laugh about it because I just left my fiance to fend for herself out in the open while I went away and looked after the watch.

B

Hey, you gotta get your priorities straight.

A

Yeah, we know, we definitely do. But we should probably do that wrist check thing that we almost forgot. And Ben has been very quiet. We've honed in on the date stories immediately. So, Ben, you can tell us what you've got on the wrist first.

C

Oh, today, Right now? Yeah. No, unfortunately, I don't take a watch home with me. Just out of the security aspect, I think peace of mind. It's a bit easier not to have a watch on the wrist when I'm up in Newcastle. I saw change about a few different watches, but. But not at the moment. The most current watch that I Owned was a 1675 GMT Master II with the Pepsi bezel. And then before that it was say a 116523 Daytona with a white Arabic racing dial, which is like a steel and yellow gold Daytona. And then I've had a few pieces before that I had a Zombie before that, a few times before, I had a chocolate dial, 228235 Rose Day date and some other pieces in the past. But yeah, at the moment in London, I don't actually wear a watch.

A

That's quite a good idea from what we have heard from various different people. Okay, we'll move across. What have you got on the wrist then, Harry?

B

Today I am sporting a Panerai and this is a Luminor Dew. So it's a 38 mil rose gold Panerai and this has been my latest pickup. It's the smallest Panerai that they make. To my understanding, 58 mil then. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. But to me, that's actually the feature that I love about it. I know that it's quite a controversial line because Panerai are known for making rugged watches. So the Paneristi out there probably do not approve of such a watch, being that it's, I think only has 30 meters of water resistance and is way too small for the likes of the famous Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger who made Panerai quite famous. But yeah, that's what I am rocking at the minute. It's on a rubber strap for the summer.

A

That is actually really nice. And there's something in the wind because we have not heard a sniff about Panerai for probably four or five years. Nobody on the show has ever talked about Panerai. We've fleetingly visited the watches and wonders A couple of times this year we saw them, they really impressed us with some stuff. They really did not impress us with our pricing. And then we've actually had a few guests on the show recently who have been risk checking Panerai and it's insane because nobody usually wears them, talks about them, buys them or sells them. So that is a bit of a win there. And I'm wearing a watch because again, we did a little bit of check in and planning beforehand and there's a story about, well, I'm wearing just now and that is my almost MB and F mad one red. It's not the original, it's the second edition, not the blue one that went out to the genuine friends of MB and F, but this is the one that first appeared on the open market. I ended up with an email from Max and co saying, listen, we're doing this thing. The first X amount of people to get in touch will probably get one. And I was within 11 minutes. So I ended up with one of the first batch to come across end up on the wrist and funnily enough, this is the watch I wore my first date with my new wife. So it's a dating episode. You know, love is in the air and all that kind of jazz. So, yes, this one here, it's on an aftermarket strap as much as people hate when I put aftermarket straps and things. But this one's a good one because it's actually designed for the watch and ain't a cheapy. This is from the folks over at Deluxe, Ken and Co. And I think it totally changes the look of the watch and makes it slightly more attractive for summer.

B

I mean, that's a watch that has a lot of wrist presence already, but I think with the white strap on there, it has even more wrist presence. Can I ask, what did your fiance or your wife now, what did you think of it at the time when you turned up with that on a date?

A

I can't remember because I do still have problems with long Covid memory. But she wasn't into watches at all. And I wasn't wearing it to impress. I think I was really wearing it to hypnotize more because if you get the flick of the wrist, just perfect that fidget spinner on the top, which looks like some kind of medieval Viking axe. Maybe it does. Maybe it just kind of got into her mind or psyche and put her into that state of trance where, you know, I could convince her a couple of years down the line to continue the dating process into marriage. But since then, she has gotten the watches, genuinely got into watches. And you know how when you're dating somebody, you kind of pretend you like the stuff they're into? She genuinely did fall in love with the hobby. I took her across to Geneva Watch days introduced her to the likes of Konstantin Chaikin, who she absolutely adores his creative processes and things he produces. And she got to meet Max Busser and Co. So, yeah, she actually saw the guy that was at the helm creating this little device here that's on the wrist. And this is still fetching a pretty penny in the secondary market. It never went to zero. It went crazy. When it first came out, I think it was about 12 grand. 13 grand they went for on the secondary, potentially even more. And they've now come back to retail price. If I was to get rid of this, which I never will, I'd probably get my money back on it. But on that aftermarket strap, it totally changes up. Instead of the leather number with the black and red stitching, this one here is an FKM rubber in white. And then you have to cut it obviously a little bit like some of the other watches that you probably don't like cutting for customers. And it's got that flipping clasp on the back so it's super easy to get it on and off. Well, that's the wrist checks done. Let's talk about you guys then. So I came down, I met you, I didn't really have much of a chance to chat behind the scenes about what is you do day to day because we were there with a purpose and we had a limited amount of time to get things done. But give us the background on the company.

C

So, yeah, Watch Trader was started as an Instagram page first and foremost. It developed of taking photos of nice watches on the beach in certain locations and advertising them for sale. Back then, I think this is around 2015, it was one of the first pages to really start growing, start selling watches actively on Instagram. We've, we still do it to this day, but we moved from, you know, Instagram page to then getting an office. From the office it went to our first shop in Jasmine, which is on Acorn Road, which is the location you visited Ricky. So we've had that location since 2018. It's done us really well into our Mayfair location in I think it was May 2025 was when the doors first opened. But it's, it's. Yeah, we do a lot of business online. We advertise on platforms such as obviously eBay, Chrono24, we've got our own site. We still do a lot on social media. So the likes of Instagram, we post on the stories almost every day. Well, every day we post on the, on the main page almost every day. So yeah, still a popular page. We're just about to hit, I think 200,000 followers. Fingers crossed at some point soon that would be, that would be nice to get it in the next coming weeks. But yeah, we buy and sell ballpark, just over 300 watches a month and then all different brands from Tag, Tudor, Omega, Breitling right up to Patek Philippe and Richard Mille. And we do a lot of Rolex.

B

Yeah, of course. So I think one of the things that makes Watch Trader very strong in the market is that we have so many channels where people can discover us. So for example, we have the Instagram page that Ben mentioned, but we also started the YouTube in 2021 and that's where myself I got involved with Watch trader, started the YouTube channel in 2021. We're currently sat at 110,000 subscribers. So really grateful for everybod watches and tunes in every week gets to see behind the scenes the deals that we do in the Newcastle store and in the Mayfair store. We try to keep everything very organic. We don't script anything, we just capture the, the, the customer interactions, the stock that comes in and out. And yeah, I think that people like to, to see what's going on deal wise, who's trading in what for what. And we, we, we keep it very organic and entertainment based. You know, I don't think people particularly like tuning in to, to be sold to. So we just try and entertain and educate and allows people to discover the business that way. So there's a multiple platforms that people can engage with. Watch trader and I think most recently ebay Live.

A

Well, let me get you to explain in simple terms. I've tried to do this a couple of times, don't know if I'm doing it justice or not. But as somebody on the opposite side of the table who has to deal with the logistics, the technical aspect and juggling a live sh. Shopping channel with customers, real buyers, real sellers, a chat room, everything in a one time. What is ebay Live? When did it come to be? What do you offer people that is different than the normal experience that they had before?

B

So ebay Live is a social selling platform. It's, it's, I think some people would say it's a bit like QVC but for individual people. You know, before you, you had regular TV and then YouTube came about and individuals could have their own channel and space to talk about things. Well, you had shopping channels and now you've got live selling platforms such as ebay Live, which is one of the biggest in the uk. So we go live for around, you know, a few hours and we auction luxury watches and we get people tuning in from all over the UK and bidding on these pieces. So it's quite a new concept in the uk. It's only been around for just over a year now. It's very early days. To me it feels like, you know, it could be compared to what Instagram was like in 2013. You know, I think we're on a, I think we're at the very start of the adoption curve for this. Social selling or live selling is huge in Asia. It's also, it's more mature in America as well. So over here in the UK and in Europe, it's, it's a growing space and it kind of, it kind of still blows my mind that you've got something like a luxury watch, which I would categorize as a considered purchase. You know, something you'd often want to go to a boutique and get hands on with and try on. And then you've got live auctions which are a fast paced, a fast paced environment where you're bidding and you can get caught up in the, in the action and you know, they're on the opposite sides of the spectrum. But ebay live brings that together and we sell lots of watches every stream. We're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of watches each Sunday, which is the, the day that we normally do the stream. So yeah, it still blows my mind that that's possible, but it's a growing space and it's a very exciting place to be at the moment as well.

C

Very interesting platform to, to work on to provide a show on a Sunday. It's totally different from our usual, you know, let's say YouTube where you can edit and put things together. Although again, they are all organic interactions. Being live on camera while selling watches for three hours, it's very different. I think people can see watches that maybe they didn't consider before and the way that we display them, we show the condition. It almost feels like you're here, you can see the watch and see exactly the condition, what it comes with. I think for a buyer it's very, it will be very different but you probably have a bit of peace of mind. You will have the opportunity, I guess let's say you were looking for a batman, you could go and try one elsewhere and maybe pick up a good deal. On our ebay life, we'll show you the condition and hopefully the buyer will be happy.

B

During a live stream there is a live chat. So the customers can not only view and tune in and watch the auctions happening, they can engage with us as sellers, ask questions about the products. You know, if somebody wants to see the condition of a certain part of the watch, we can show that up close. If somebody wants to ask us a question about, you know, how, what, what size is the watch? Does it come with extra straps, you know, what, what's the material of the bezel or something like that, they can, they can engage with us and get to know us as sellers as well. So I think there's an entertainment element to ebay live. You know, I feel like we have a good, a group of viewers who tune in each week. Fortunately we also get a lot of new viewers who hopefully convert into regular viewers as well. And yeah, it makes it a lot more interactive than as I mentioned previously, shopping channels in the past where you're just a viewer, this is something that you can get involved with. And the chat not only talks to us, but they talk to each other as well. So it's it, there's a community around ebay live, which really brings it to life.

A

Well, it was through ebay live that this episode happened because we get introduced, we didn't know each other and as I said at the beginning, we don't interface too much with the pre owned section of the community or the industry because it's always new brands sending us press releases. Watch traders don't send us press releases or blow our phones up because they're super busy doing what they do. And I thought, okay, what's this all about? Obviously we know Keith, he's been on the show for forever in a day. He's a great guy and he comes on and he always sends me WhatsApp messages. But the thing for me was I went on to ebay life. I had a look at it before I even came to see you guys. It was quick fire. It was like, it was like Dragons Den, it was like Shark Tank. That's how fast things went. And I saw in the comments, the comments are really funny. It reminds me of the Internet maybe 20 years ago when it was the wild west and people could type any username they wanted. But the funny part was there were occasional folks that were in there trying to troll and obviously you've got moderators, you look after that. But there was some hilarious comments saying, oh, these guys are just selling nothing but fake watches. And I thought, well, hold on a minute, this is going to go to the ebay authenticity guarantee center, checked in 4K video recorded. Then they're going to use inquiries. They're going to send that serial number off to a database to check to make sure it's legit, not stolen or lost. And then it's going to go to the customer. So this is the most and safest platform to use at all. Whenever we have the police on the show, they're very quick to tell us that they're not allowed to officially say which preferred platforms are the ones to use because many are available. But they give us the nod and they love what the guys at ebay are doing, obviously the ebay sellers, you guys at the other end of things. And the thing that got me was the absolute bargain prices because you start them off at a quid, you don't take a Daytona and say, ron, we're going to start this at 15k. One pound is where it begins. And I saw some crazy prices, absolutely mind boggling crazy prices that to me was less than trade, almost cost. Because people look at secondhand dealers and they think, ah, they've all got Lamborghinis and Ferraris. It's just money, money, money all the time. They forget you've got to warranty what you sell, you've got to check what you sell, you've got to service, polish, make sure that everything is the way it should be. And then you've got to pay all the taxes so it's not straight profit in your bank account obviously. Hmrc, get their dibs on it. VAT corporation, tax staff, wages, advertising, marketing, security, security through the wazoo. When I came to your place you had that airlock system so you had to go in, count to three, the next door opens as the last one locks. There's so much behind the scenes that goes on that sometimes I forget because I'm bewildered with the pre owned market because I just look at new stuff all the time. So this was a bit of a leveling for me going back in time. Like when I speak to Jonathan at Edinburgh Watch back in the day and he would tell me what it was like for him, you know, burning the shoe leather out there, making sure that everything was proper because all it takes is one mistake and one person to leave some bad reviews on the Internet and then it's game over. So I was absolutely blown away with the level of professionalism you guys had when I came down. And you're right, for between an hour and a half to three hours, you guys don't stop. No toilet breaks, no going for a pee out the back, no grabbing a Lucas Aid. It was just start to finish all the way through and that was phenomenal. But let's talk about the industry a little bit here. I mentioned Lofty Heights 2021 to maybe 22, 23 and then it has been on a bit of a decline. I don't think it's gone past maybe 2018 prices and things like that, but you can definitely pick up some bargains. So you guys have been involved, the company's been going for quite some time. How have you seen things developing, price wise, customer wise, product wise over the past few years?

C

So we, we had, as he said we had, where everything was, let's say £100,000. You had watches that traded so far above retail and I think we had the price realization they've come down in the market and certain watches where there's genuinely that became then underpriced have gone up Back up. If we look at the likes of popular Patek Philippe models, they are moving up and up every week. I think the main point is a lot of people are priced back into buying watches when you know, Blue sky dweller isn't 30 odd thousand pounds, a sprite isn't over 40,000 pounds. And these watches are now probably more achievable. Again, you'll have a lot more buyers who want the same watch. We have a 2022 Blue Sky Dweller in steel. That watch is going to be £15,500. That watch was £35,000 back then. So you could, you know, if you were a buyer and you like that watch, you can now get it a lot easier. It's a lot, you know, the price point's a lot lower. Yeah, there's a lot of value in the models. So for example, we've got, as you said, you look at new prices a lot, Ricky, the likes of a precious metal Daytona. They're very expensive new. Now a lot of them that don't have the super attractive dials, they're still a beautiful watch, don't get me wrong. But they don't have the likes of the John Mayer dial, the meteorite dialogue. They all trade quite far under retail. And it's an interesting market. You can get some really good value from money watches now the likes of a blue Daytona in white gold. You can pick them around low 30s to mid-30s, maybe £32,000. That watch new is mid-40s. Now there's a lot of pieces that look very attractive in the market. We're having a better time. Well, I don't want to say a better time than them but we're selling a lot more volume than them because a lot of people are probably again price back into buying watches that they couldn't before because the prices were so much higher.

B

On some of those high priced precious metal watches. There isn't very many new 20, 26 dated pieces or examples available in the market because they're so high at retail price. There's nobody buying them to flip them as it is because there's no money in it. You would, you would lose potentially five figures on you know, a full precious metal white gold Submariner. I know that's been recently discontinued. You know, again with the full precious metal sky dwellers or Oyster Flex sky dwellers. They have such high retail prices. The market price does, the market doesn't value them at that. So to find, you can find very good examples. But they're normally, you know, a few years old maybe 20, 22, 23, 24. I think the watches that had the biggest, biggest spike in value have also saw the biggest fall. Watches that have always been quite steady. You know what we call bread and butter pieces like Submariner Dates, gmt, Batman, that kind of thing. They didn't spike up in value as much as for example a Panda Daytona. And therefore there's been less, they've been more constant over the last few years. And I think that gives people more confidence to buy if the price isn't changing so much over time.

C

Sorry to, sorry to jump in, but just to add to your point, exact perfect case, a steel Submariner now Black subdate is £9,500 from Rolex that only trading a smidge above that we talk about obviously cost, price, trade price, retail price. They're only trading a smidge above that. And that's a watch that you're certainly still waiting on a long wait list for to. You've got to register your interest for that piece. So it's very tricky where, because they have gone up in price new there's not actually that much room for someone who's waited that long to go and make a profit. So I feel like less people are probably, I'm saying less people will still be a lot of people flipping them because we still buy a lot of them in. But compared to this, this heyday of 2021, 2022, those eras, there's probably a lot less people who are looking to flip the likes of a Wimbledon datejust and Mint Green Datejust Steel Submariner Date, that sort of thing because there's just not as much room as there was before.

A

Well, here's a quick question for you. Not to do with Rolex and I know that Rolex is your bread and butter, but other brands are available. When I was there with you, you had a Cartier go through at ridiculously low figure. My wife's eyes just opened up and my wallet did not open up. So she wasn't happy that night. But you had all kinds of cool stuff. You had Speedmasters, you had Seamasters, you had a tutor. There was even a bumblebee kicking around, which I don't think went to auction, but it was in the safe. And a question I've got here is the Snoopy from Omega, the Snoopy, I think it was the 50th silver Snoopy, blah, blah, blah, that one. There is a watch that I got at retail and then when I was buying a house I sold, but I didn't sell it at the peak So I got it for about nine grand. I sold it for around about 15, 16, but at one point they were sitting at 21, 22. What are they sitting in the market

C

just now for a 2026 model? You could pick one up from us for £12,950. There's a little bit of room in that price, but yeah, it's a watch that's still again, another watch where the retail price has gone up, as with everything in the world, to be fair, but I think the retail figure sits around £10,000 today. To buy a new one you could from, from Omega if you do get offered one, if you wanted one today, 2026 on one it would be 12, 9, 50, which is again great comparison compared to where they used to be, it's a sharp drop. But is that because more of them were supplied? Who knows? I mean, what's your thoughts, Ricky? Why do you think the price has changed?

A

I think everyone has calmed down. It's not as crazy as it was the tariff stuff last year. People don't think of what happens in the world and how it directly influences things, but you have to look at what's happening. Got to be careful with words on podcasts and YouTube videos because it's very easy for the powers that be to restrict your audience. If you mention certain things that happen geopolitically across the world, but think of things made the cost of petrol go up, things that have pushed the cost of energy to go up. And then look at the cost of living and people's wages and their salaries, they have not increased to the same amount. We're not in furlough anymore. The government ain't putting money in our bank accounts for sitting at home. So things have dramatically changed in certain aspects, but they have not followed suit in other aspects. I don't think there is much free cash. People aren't spending as much on this and the other people aren't buying as many new cars because the depreciation, hitting electric, the tax relief in electric, various things, nothing seems to be going extremely well. So to be in a privileged position where you've got spare pennies to buy a watch, that is something we don't see as much. But it also means the craft that was in the community. Obviously we're community based, not industry based. They've moved on to other things. It could be sneakers, it could be Pokemon cards, it could be something else that they're collecting. And when I bring it full circle back to the Snoopy that we spoke about a minute ago, that's not the latest, greatest, brand new thing that has just come out and everybody that's an influencer wants to have on their wrist and on Instagram that week. So I think that's where the polish has come off slightly and it is a fantastic watch. The back of it. The little animation is great. I would still have it in my collection if I hadn't bought the house. But that is when I cleared everything started afresh because you have to grow up sometime. But I'm slowly working my way back as I've mentioned recently and I wore it down to see you guys because I felt safe. I got myself the Daytona that I'd actually been after for half a decade that I'd stopped off along the way when I was offered a white gold one that I didn't really want but ended up liking. And the one I've got just now, as much as yes, it is a lot more expensive than perhaps the white gold one was back in 2022. It's a watch I wanted, it's one I want to keep, it's not one I want to flip. Unfortunately for you guys, not going to be trading that one in anytime soon. But speaking of customers and trading this and that and other, you've had some star studded players, musicians, actors, etc. On your Instagram over the years. Who are the big heavy hitters that I've seen on there?

B

Yeah, so we've had some bigger names, we've had Stormzy, we've had Tyson Fury.

A

What did Tyson Fury come in for?

B

Well, actually this was back in my experience with him personally was back in 2021, I believe it was only the third episode of the YouTube series that we had started and before you know it, I was on a road trip and we went to Tyson Fury's house.

A

Not Caravan,

B

it was a house house. And yeah, I was ended up sat in Tyson Fury's living room with pretty much the whole family there. Filmed a section where we presented him with a watch box which had been customized by an artist. And we were, I believe we were buying a watch from him. So. Which was a very, very nice piece. I'm not sure if I can mention exactly the one it was, but it was a very special Daytona, I will say. Yeah, so that was. That was an unexpected encounter to be literally sat in his living room, kids running about. I believe Tommy Fury was there, Paris was there. I mean he's had some pretty successful shows now on. I believe it was on Netflix and some other ones where it's like at home with the Furies. So my own little slice of that which was the third episode of our channel in. But yeah, he's done quite a bit of, of business over the years with Watch Trader with the, the Premier League footballers. That's probably the most, you know, we've had a lot of the Newcastle stars in. Some of them are more flash than others. Some of them like to display what they've got. And if you go back to the early episodes of our YouTube channel, you can actually see a few of the familiar faces that you'd recognize and that they're on camera and they're looking at watches, buying watches. But then on the other side of things we get a lot of, of high value or VIP clients who like to, you know, keep the deals private. They might be buying or selling a very rare or identifiable watch that they want to, yeah, keep out of the public domain. And I think that's one of the benefits of shopping with Watch Trader for those kind of clients that they trust that we can keep the sale, the purchase or sale discreet for them and that suits them, you know. So I would say though, most of the time the customers that we have that are repeat customers who, you know, we have some customers who buy a very nice watch I will say every single month. And a lot of the time it's business owners, it's entrepreneurs often in businesses which aren't particularly glamorous, like this isn't a real example, but it would be something like, you know, you find out what they do and they'll be like, okay, I've got the biggest PVC drain pipe supplier in, in England or something like that. And you'll be like, right, I, I didn't know that that would be, you know, such a lucrative business. But there you go.

C

A lot of the time when we deal with, I don't know, maybe more public, high profile clients, it would be the likes of footballers who we deliver

A

to, not the Mexican football team.

B

Then they all were gifted watches by Rolex watches was by Steve will do it over in America. He often shops with tpt. I think he's one of their like star customers over there. But I don't know the full context of it but I know that he bought everybody a Rolex but then they, they decided to give them back because they weren't allowed to accept gifts of notable value.

A

Pretty much, yeah, you could be a host on this show. That's pretty much what happened. And I think Hublot being the primary sponsor of the World cup were really off with it. And yeah, they had to hand them all back. But hey, that, that's how the cookie crumbles. But it's good to hear about the celebs. But let's not forget as I mentioned earlier on the stuff that you guys do, it's Tudor, it's tag, it's all kinds of stuff. That car taste still sticks in my mind. What is the average customer that comes in, what are they looking for in this day and age? 20, 26, somebody comes in off the street. What do they ask for? More often than not, I would say

C

steel sports Rolex is probably the highest request. We do sell a lot of Tudor and a lot of Cartier Santos in the large size that there's many watches. For example, a Cartier Santos with the white dial in either the medium or the large size we couldn't buy enough of. Like there isn't enough available for us to buy because. Because that watch goes for under the retail value and there's so much demand for it. I feel like it's very clean watch, very classy. We just simply can't get enough of them. Every time we get one in, it sells within the first 24 hours. If it gets put on Instagram.

B

I think the Datejust41 from Rolex comes in a lot of combinations. It's probably the watch that we have the most stock of in, you know, any of the combinations. And it's probably the watch that we buy and sell the most of in terms of volume. Fantastic watch. I'm not surprised. Why? I think there's, there's, there's a combination that you know, fits the specification for or fits the criteria for anyone just about. But then yeah, it's mainly the, you know, Submariner Dates, GMT Master Batmans, you know I would say the sport. What are the sports models? You know Daytonas of course are popular. We see far, far less steel Daytonas than we do GMTs or submariners. Like I think Rolex produced them in far far fewer numbers. So yeah, I think those are the watches that we buy and sell most often. I mean the majority of our stock is Rolex. Rolex have the biggest market share in the new market and they're also the biggest in the pre owned market. You know, therefore the demand for them is the most.

A

And what would you say then are the watches that people are now keeping away from? And this is a strange question to ask against. We're on a Panerai.

B

Well, I'll touch on Panerai there. Panerai on the pre owned market really don't hold their value very well compared to the cost of them new. That's something that actually I think is if you're a smart shopper, you can find some fantastic value in brands like Panerai, like Zenith. Like we've had some amazing, I mean precious metal pieces, steel pieces, all sorts that come in where they're heavily discounted from retail. Even brands like Omega, which are probably much more mainstream. You know, a Speedmaster Professional, which is an absolute classic watch. I believe they're over £7,000 now, brand new, but you can reliably pick them up for, you know, a bit over half of that. Probably 5, well 4,5000 depending on the age and whatnot in the, in the pre owned market. So there's some great value to be had in the non Rolex and even in Rolex, if you shop smart and you look outside of the most popular models, there is value to be had.

A

But we had a chat about the Air King and the Milgauss and things like that. They seem to be a bit of a hidden gem at the moment. People aren't quite as looking at them in the peripheral vision. It's a watch that a few years back was quite hyped up, disappeared. And I think I've seen a couple of them going through your streams when I've logged in and had a look.

B

Yeah. And I will just quickly note about the streams at the minute because it's so early days on ebay live.

A

Is it so early days that the first one you did, you couldn't actually sell anything because you locked the keys in the safe.

C

Wow.

B

Okay, okay, we'll get into this one first because this is a good story. So Ben, I'm gonna let you set the scene for this one.

C

So obviously two locations. We were doing a special event for ebay live. It was a, it was a very live special. Yeah, it was ebay live day. We had a special guest. We had Harry Potero streaming with us. It was a big, big event. Lots of preparation. Ricky, as I'm sure you can see how he does, all went into it. We made sure everything was there before the day. So, you know, everything could be in the safe, put away, checked, ready for us to just put it into the armored car and take it. Obviously they take it to the, to the studio. So Harry's coming down from Newcastle and this morning, that morning, I think it was on Friday, the morning of the Friday I came into the shop, put the code in to unlock the safe. Didn't do anything like nothing. It normally BEEPS or this or that, Nothing. So I'm like, so try it again. Doesn't work. I think, oh, maybe just leave it a couple of minutes, go back to it. Still not working. I ring the safe people, they say, oh, the battery's just probably died. So run to Sainsbury's, get some batteries for the safe, lock itself, plug this in. Nope, still not working. Harry's coming down. I've not told Harry because I know Harry would get very stressed over this. I've called the safe guy, called him around. He's two hours away. He's like, in a totally different area. Two hours away. So Harry arrives and I've still not told him. I'm like, harry, don't worry, the watches are very secure. They're all here. The only issue is they're so secure, we can't get them out the safe. And yeah, yeah, that was. That was the definition of to the wire that day.

B

Oh, 100. So this was our first big event with eBay, this eBay live day. It was at a studio in London. They'd just got talent in Harry Panero, who's a YouTube and general influencer. We were doing this big show. We had £400,000 worth of watches that were going to be in it. There was a whole production team. We had Ahmed transport arranged. Obviously, I'd come down especially. We'd shipped all of the products to London, securely transited. Transited them to London and we have to be at the studio. We had to leave at 1 o'. Clock. So, yeah, we couldn't get in the safe. And I was just going. It was going through my mind that I was going to have to call ebay and be like, listen, I know this sounds like the ultimate dog ate my homework excuse, right, but we cannot. The new safe that was only installed in 2025 and normally lasts for like a decade with no issues, has decided today of all days that it was not going to open. And the guy who can access it has to drive two hours to get here. So, yeah, we had the safe guy out two times. One on the evening where we were in the shop till I think about half eight and then we had to get there in the morning to re attempt it. It didn't work. We had to call him in again and I think we got the watchers out at 1 and we had to leave at 1 to get to the studio for 2. So it was very, very tight. But we did get it done and we did a fantastic show in March with where we. We went through Rolex through the decades. So the idea was we had a Rolex from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s all the way up to modern day. And we went everything from 1970s double red writing sea dwellers all the way up to full rose gold land dweller 40 and they went for some crazy prices as well.

A

Wow, that's the kind of story it sounds like it's made up but in this case it wasn't. Well, let's wind the clock back a little bit. Not quite as far back as the 1950s, but maybe back to 2021 because I believe you kind of got your intro to watch events at the London Watch Show.

B

Yes. So Ben and I had quite different perspectives of the London Watch Show. So this was the first kind of big event in London where we had to take a lot of stock down there, set it all up in a huge exhibition stand. We had all of our staff there. It was all stations go and there was, there was, there was loads of people. This was a brand new event that hadn't taken place before in 2021. Ben actually came down as this was before he worked with Watch Trader. So yes, I was creating content video wise for the, for the YouTube in early days and the, the show, I mean the show was fantastic. It was the first time I'd seen so many pre owned luxury watch dealers in one space and there was, I want to say thousands of watch enthusiasts who attended the show. We had so many brilliant conversations, met so many new people who turned into customers. We sold a lot of watches there and then also put our, you know, got our awareness of the brand out there for, for people to convert to customers in the future and we still speak to just to a lot of them today. But Ben, how was your, what was your memory of the London watch show in 2021?

C

Oh, it was what a great show. It was absolutely. It just blew my mind to see that many again Watch dealers there and, and the amount of watches and I'm talking the world's rarest pieces there like frosted purple dial, AP Royal oak chronographs. Like that was a watch I always, always wanted to see. We saw that there, there's a full range. There was loads of different dealers. It was great to meet loads of different people.

B

I think I remember was it, is it David Khalil from Watch Collecting that I'm sure he had like these old crazy like oyster quartz day dates with full factory gem set dials and bezels. Like there was some crazy stuff I'd never ever seen before but yes. So, Ricky, I understand that you actually attended that event yourself, along with actually attending.

A

I'm gonna set the scene a little bit here. There's a couple of things you brought up that I need to address. First of all, David Kahlil is an og, right? I think of Archie Luxury. I think of Tim Mosso. It was David Khalil's videos that made me buy a watch from him off ebay. And that was the second watch I ever bought. The story goes, and it's a truthful story. I bought my first luxury piece back in January 2017 and returned it within a couple of days because it was a piece of and it didn't work properly. It maybe need service regulated, demagnetized. It went back. But I'd been watching his videos for a few weeks, learning about stuff, and I actually put my money where my mouth is, went onto ebay and genuinely bought a watch off ebay. And this is back when 5 grand was insane money to me to buy a watch. It's still insane money to buy something that you don't really need. But it was completely perfect. Everything went silky smooth to the point where years and years later, as I mentioned, when I was buying a house, I sold my gold Daytona through ebay because I felt as if, hey, these guys know what they're doing. There's backup, there's support. And I did all this due diligence on David Kalil watching collectors.co uk. I was looking through Companies House, downloading their billing, their accounts, their overviews, the people, the profile, googling everybody, checking everything to make sure it was all legit. And it was. This again, was back 2017, nearly a decade ago. But fast forward to the London Watch Show. I think the reason, and you guys didn't mention it, the reason it was such a huge critical success is because we didn't have any shows for years because of COVID This was the first thing round about August, September time, 2021, when we were actually allowed to congregate in groups larger than maybe 20 people. And you know what it was like. People couldn't go to funerals, people couldn't go to weddings. We seemed to forget quite quickly what happened, but this was phenomenal. It was hyped up, it came right at the proper moment in time where everybody could actually meet up in public. And, well, it was actually a super spreader event. You probably forgot that as well. Everybody came home with COVID But there you had all kinds of folks. You had Paul Thorpe, you had people coming across, Nico Leonard came across. I Think it was a private jet. He actually came across to that one. And there were all these influencers, people from here, there and everywhere. That was around about the time the timepiece gentleman was riding high on YouTube. And I think we both agree some of his content was pretty good. It was engaging, it was entertaining, it was educational. Marco was behind the scenes doing all the tech checks, the spec, going through the back of the Daytona, showing you this, that and the other, how to spot a fake, a fraud in a Frankenstein. Shame he couldn't spot a dodgy business partner, but we'll leave that to the side. But the London Watch show was great. I ended up meeting up with tons of people that became friends, that became guests of the show. I did a bit of a live thing with Adrian Barker from Barker and Jack on Tim Wright's livestream as well. There was just a lot going on. And then the next event, that one didn't go quite as well because that was the one where Guy we mentioned earlier, good friend Jonathan from Emerald Watch Company. I can't remember the specifics, don't want to say anything out of school, but there is an episode where he goes through all the information of what happened, but long and short of it was he was ripped off for nearly half a million pounds worth of watches. He put them into what was supposedly a secure room handed to supposedly a secure person and then they just evaporated, disappeared and vanished. And from what I can gather, nobody that was running the event wanted to get involved in it and he was given the runaround. So yeah, there is an episode that you can go back, Mizi, I will link that in the show notes where he comes onto the podcast a good few years ago now to recount the tale. I think that led into eventually him deciding to leave the industry when he had that sort of epiphany that he's getting a little bit older, he's done his time. Could it go this way, could it go that way? Let's go. And he was a one man band. And for anyone that doesn't know about Jonathan, he's actually in a wheelchair, so he doesn't have the use of his legs. So being in a precarious situation with very expensive luxury timepieces and nefarious folks out there, here, there and everywhere. It's not like I mentioned with you guys, where you've got an airlock, you come in your premises, you have to stand in the middle. One door locks, one door opens, nobody can just grab and run. And that's unfortunately not the case. With Jonathan, obviously what happened down at London Watchall. But let's go move things back into the positive. What's next for you guys?

B

So we have big plans with ebay live. It's still very, as I say, early days.

A

Are you going to have one of those amazing 45 minute auctions again?

B

Oh, the 45 minute auction. So yes, we did our first live from ebay's office. They have a very nice office in Richmond. So Ben and I went over to the office and we did a live show in front of of for the first time a live audience who were the ebay staff. And we were also of course streaming to our online audience. And yeah, we, we had a very short time frame, it was only half an hour and we did a 45 minute auction instead of a 45 second one. And yeah, you can't cancel the auction once it started so we just had to make a, a flash decision to let that person get a very good deal. But I think what I was going to say earlier was that because it is early days on ebay live, your competition for who you're bidding against is lower now than probably it's ever going to be going forward. So some of the prices people are getting watches at genuinely blows our minds. I mean you'll see some of the reactions from, from Ben and I when we're on the show. But Ben, what do you think is the craziest steal that somebody's had on a watch so far?

C

I've got, I've got it in my head already. It's a rose land dweller 40 and that watch, and this was back a couple of months ago but even then that watch consistently traded quite a way over the retail price. From Rolex being a new release, precious metal, there's genuinely not that many out there in the market. That watch went for, I think it was around £37,000 which was like over £10,000 under what it was, was like worth as, you know, what we would sell it for as a secondary dealer. And that blew my mind because they're generally quite popular pieces when we get them in stock and for it to sell that far under market, well, I'm sure the only reason that the case was is because there wasn't enough people in the room, if that makes sense, to bid on a watch that is that expensive. But we've done some big pieces already. We've done the likes of a 116508 the Greendale Daytona, the John Mayer year. That was a lovely watch to auction that. That went For a great price. But not, not as crazy as the land dweller. We've done some. Some lovely, lovely, lovely. Other watches, more solid yellow gold Daytonas. Different pieces. Harry, I'm sure, is going to mention.

B

Yeah, I think that data, that John Mayer one, it went for £50,100. So I think that's the highest. We've. The highest price item that we've sold so far on ebay live. We do get requests to put Patek Philippe on. We will, I'm sure, get to that at some point. Maybe one day we'll have the Aquanaut or Nautilus available starting at a pound, which sounds crazy. One pound, no reserve on ebay live.

A

Well, when you actually get one of those orange aquanauts and you throw it up on ebay alive, that's the day that I'll make sure to DDoS all the servers. I'm the only person in the chat. No, when I was standing there with you guys, I could see the text running past on the screen in front of me because you were juggling. You're keeping so many plates spinning. You were taking a watch out. You were talking about it. You're putting it on this special tool that would tell you the centimeter of wrist that it would fit, how many links are in the box, how many warranty cards it comes with, if it's got previous service history. You're doing all this while looking at the next one that's coming in, seeing how long this auction has got to go. Telling information. It wasn't just facts and figures. This is the dimensions, this is the weight, this is what it's made of. There was story, history, heritage, as the thing was progressing along, as the story was developing. And then you were keeping an eye on the chat for people posing genuine questions, of which there was a lot. Oh, can we see the case back? Oh, is there anything wrong with it? Is there a chip on the crystal? This and the other. And obviously, again, because it's going through ebay systems of checking the serial number, checking the condition, making sure it's genuine. You are telling everybody up front, this is getting Nick on the clasp, and we're talking minute things that people could not see unless we're using a macro lens, which you do, obviously. But the prices were insane. And I was trying to work out in my head, how are you guys still in business when these watches were going through at ridiculous numbers. And if you're getting a trade in of a watch, you're paying somebody for it and then you're putting it through that. The only way I could fathom you could possibly keep the lights on is the fact it was almost like Costco. It was almost like wholesaling. The fact that you were putting watch through every couple of minutes, every couple of minutes that you are making such a tiny sliver on some watches, lose money on other watches that at the end of the day it probably balanced out that it's equivalent to the amount of people that maybe come through the door on a daily, weekly basis.

B

You're right. You know, we do lose money on some of the watches, we make money on others and overall it's a positive. But also the awareness that the ebay live has brought to the business. It's another channel for people to discover watch trader. So I think there's benefit in being on the platform in the early days.

A

It's a bit of a loss leader almost in some of these ones and people are getting genuine, genuine amazing deals.

C

Yeah, they're buying under the market value at this point. Yeah. But I think exactly as Harry references throughout this podcast, it's early days and as we consistently do do this stream every Sunday again, it's more. We try and be as entertaining as possible whilst also selling the watches. More people will hopefully tune in as they do every week. We get new people and as Harry said, hopefully more people will stay, will build up bigger viewership and more people will be bidding at the end of the day. That's the idea. We have lots now where we have over 200 bids on them and that's under, you know, that's. I know it starts at a pound but we used to get 60 or 50 so it's definitely, there's definitely a lot more people.

B

We've got a lot of buyers who buy on almost every stream as well. So there's traders, there's traders in the stream who are buying them at prices where they can then sell them on for a profit. So that just goes to show some of the prices that they go up. But then we also have retail customers who've bought multiple. Probably some of them have bought, you know, over five, maybe over 10 watches from our streams since we started. So which is fantastic. Fantastic to see that there's a returning community that's getting stronger week on week

A

and we will be returning because this wasn't a one night only affair. We are going to be back, we're going to be doing this is our like prelim. This is our checkup ahead of doing the next show because the first one was really good and we had a Bit of a debrief afterwards. It was only then that we all kind of thought, hold on a minute, we went into this without having a clue it was going to go on. Three people have never worked together. Two different pre owned and a podcast mixed them together, throwing them in at the deep end. And it worked damn well because we got some really good feedback. Obviously we talked about it in the podcast ahead of time. We'd promoted it on our Instagram channel. We talked about it in our YouTube as well. And the folks that listen watch, follow us, they came in to check things out. Then after the fact, obviously, with the video content, we could share to let people know because it was a bit of a tricky ask. It was at a certain point in time, on the hottest day of the year, when people probably didn't want to be sitting on a laptop, bidding on things or even using their mobile phone, The World cup was happening. It was just the wrong time. But it was still phenomenal. The amount of people that I saw in the live chat that was watching bidding. And these auctions, they run thick and fast. We've been in the room with the guys from Philips, the guy that sold the most expensive Daytona. We know the guy, we've actually seen him many, many times in Geneva. This was rapid fire. It was like watching American auctions where you can't even deduce what the people are saying. And it's like it was all the way through. It was just crazy, crazy stuff. And you guys kept a lid on it. People got absolute bargains. So when I actually come down, I'm going to have Simona sitting with my ebay account on my phone in the corner bidding on certain things. Because genuinely, go look at the history. Go look at the history, compare the prices to the sold prices on other platforms. It's insane. And people can pick up a genuine bargain and if they wanted to, they could resell it and make a profit on it. So that is phenomenal value for anybody that wants to tune in. You will see some cool stuff, stuff. And it ain't all the same. Like we mentioned there, it's Tudor, it's Panerai, it's Tag, it's all kinds of stuff. It's not just Richard Mille, Audemars, Piguet, Rolex and Patek. But yeah, we do actually have a date for the next show where we're going to combine forces again. So you're just going to have to follow us. Listen to us Mondays, Thursdays. Follow us on Instagram cottagewatches. Check us out on YouTube obviously at the weekend. We're hopefully going to be doing two shows a week on YouTube from this week forward. And we are at the end, end of this episode. We have run out of time. So before we go, do you want to let people know how they can find out more about what you guys are up to, when to tune in and where to visit you in real life?

B

Of course, yes. So we are planning by the time this episode goes out, I think the next live will be technically when the World cup finals on. So we're going to one see if England are going to be in it. Fingers crossed. But yes, that's going to be tbc. So you can check out Watch Trader on Instagram, you can go to watchtrader.co.uk and find out when the auction's going to be. You can also head to our ebay live page where you can see the upcoming auctions. You can follow us as a seller and if you feel like it, you can hit the notification bell so you get notified when the auctions happen. If you want to see us in person, you can come to Newcastle, we have a store in Jesmond or we have a store in Mayfair in London and you can call us up, you can speak to us over WhatsApp. Speak to us on the phone. We love chatting watches and doing watch deals.

A

You can always ask these guys for solid reliable advice and recommendations and watches. Just don't ask them about which hotel to stay in,

B

especially not in 30 degree heat. But Ricky, I've got to say this is another absolute scorcher of a day up here in Newcastle. I'm sure it looks quite nice where Ben is in London as well. So it seems to be that when we meet up we have great weather so. So that's a fortunate thing.

A

We bring the sun. But yeah, I did tell the story in the podcast about you recommended one of the most glorious, beautiful country manor style places. It was very economical but it didn't have any aircon and it was 30 plus degrees in that bedroom overnight. Not fun. But yeah, we'll fix that. We'll just drive down the next time. I realized it's probably quicker just to drive down during the afternoon when there isn't rush or traffic. Yeah, avoid all that stuff. And I've got air con in the car so it's absolutely fine. So yeah, tune in and we will obviously give you details of when we will be back. Thank you so much for joining us today. Know you're super busy. I know you've had to take time away from the showroom floor to actually come on here and have a quick chat with us and to maybe demystify the pre owned markets. It's been a long time since we've had somebody on to chat about this stuff. And I think you have removed a lot of demons from people's minds because we've been through a lot of stuff there. It isn't the crazy days, as I mentioned, where everything is crazy, crazy prices over list. It is very more sedate. It's very more attainable. You can always pick up a bargain if you walk in off the street or if you check out the ebay life, where the real bargains live. So, guys, thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you again soon.

C

Thank you for having us.

B

Thanks a lot. Ricky, it's been a pleasure.

C

Sam.