Ebay seller who melts down watch cases.

[Veritas]

I recently saw a auction on ebay where the seller openly admitted he melted down the gold cases of pocket watches.I emailed him and told him what i thought.To me that is the worst thing someone can do.To him money means more to him than preserving timepieces.
I wont mention the name of the seller but if you email me i will let you know.
Why do people do these things???????? :redface:

[Jim D.]

Unfortionatly this has become a very common practice with the price of gold and silver as high as it is and has been. I have bought a number of moements from a dealer I met that does this with any old gold or silver and makes a fair living out of it. I basically get the movements for next to nothing because they do him no good, often Waltham 15 jewels and up. Saving the movements is about the best I can hope for. Hope he never realizes that many of them have gold in them! He would start tearing them apart!

Jim

[Fred Hansen]

There are active buyers on eBay who I've heard do a lot of this as well.

As long as it makes a profit some people will do anything to a watch.

Fred

[RON in PA]

Unfortunately this is nothing new and occurred long before E-Bay. When gold prices go sky high due to speculation or limited supply and high demand the price will go up as long as a profit is made. There is no way of preventing it so long as we have free markets.

[Jeff Hess]

Ron is correct.

Look at it this way. If you were to buy a huge colleciton of watches for a huge sum of money.
Say 1.5 stillion dollars. And you squirreled away 10 percent of it for you own collection and then sold off the rest of it except for 20 junk brassy gold filled ones with broken staff's and another 20 solid gold watchs with dents and bad hinges (Usually 10 sizes and 6 sizes with heavier cases)

No matter how you slice it and dice it, those 20 solid gold watches with problems MUST go some where. It is an economic reality.

If no one wants them, even at below scrap value, what are you to do?

I have been guilty of this and suggest that almost everyone has at one point in their collecting career.

Do not get me wrong. If someone melts an 1872 model heavy case (one of those big 70 to 90 gram ones in 18k) in even worn condition, that person should be hung from the highest tree!

But there are many watches out there that are just not (sadly) savable.

As a collector I abhor it. As a dealer, I understand the economic reality of the laws of supply and demand. And that reality is that beat up dented bad hinged heavy 6 to 10 size watches often go to the scrap heap.

JPH

Plus ebay is a horrible place to sell common watches these days. I know many dealers who sell watches at no reserve. They often sell for BELOW scrap value on ebay!