https://robbreport.com/style/watch-c...es-1234761182/
Its interesting and well done:
“I (Stern) will never be able to stop the whole process [of flipping], but we have been tracking quite a few pieces, and for the retailers, if they don’t give me the right answer, if I see that he was part of the game, too bad for him because he may lose Patek Philippe,” he said. “And I think that today they know that it will be sad to lose Patek Philippe.”
“We are buying a few hundred pieces every year from the market, from Chrono24 and all of those websites. We look at the numbers on the movements and we know who bought them and which retailers sold them. So I will go and see the retailer and say, ‘Hey, by the way, I found this watch on Chrono24. We delivered this watch two weeks ago to you. So tell me now who was the client to whom you sold this piece?’ And then we will have a discussion.”