Buying vintage on ebay

[alexbartman]

Have seen a couple of "Rolexes" from 1940s and 1950s...neither have box or papers, but both have signed movements and are from sellers with plenty of positive feedback....am i mad to even consider them? The sellers have told me that this age of eatch very rarely comes complete - and if they do they would sell for seversl thousand pounds (£)......

[Andad]

Well Alex, some owners can't find their box and papers from only a few years ago. For a wis this would be a deal breaker but for a very old vintage watch having no papers is not unusual.
Provenance on old watches is sometimes difficult to establish and service changes to bezels, dials and hands can significantly affect price for some buyers.
If I were going to buy any vintage watch (Rolex or others) I would ask the TRF data file (members) for their input. The information available here is second to none.

[Tunacan26]

Most here know WAY more than me, but I'd NEVER buy a vintage piece on Ebay. Or any watch for that matter.

[HL65]

Well--there are actually some very good sellers that put up vintage pieces on Ebay like the Patent Pending DRSD that is up there now-belonging to a good collector from NY. With that said-they are few are far between--so unless one of the good collectors or sellers--ie. Comexfan - is selling-I would not recommend buying on Ebay. If you want a Vintage piece-check with Andrew Shear of Sheartime in NY, or Eric Ku of 10PastTen.com.
Those are two of the very best in the business and will take good care of you. I also recommend Mark Lerman-Comexfan--but he does not have a website. One has to be careful out there and the best way to be careful is buy the seller!!!
PS--Since you are in London- you can try Mike Wood too of Theoldwatchshop.com

[slcbbrown]

Back to the "buy the seller" thing. If these are excellent sellers, on ebay or anywhere, don't worry about a swindle. How you determine the seller's pedigree is another subject.

However, if you're buying without first seeing the watch, you need to be enough of an expert to ask questions and determine whether or not you're getting what you want. There isn't much room for disagreement with new or newish Rolex, but vintage allows for lots of misinterpretation on the buyer's part. Really good pictures can reduce the room for disagreements, too.

[RolexWatcher]

Originally Posted by alexbartman

Have seen a couple of "Rolexes" from 1940s and 1950s...neither have box or papers, but both have signed movements and are from sellers with plenty of positive feedback....am i mad to even consider them? The sellers have told me that this age of eatch very rarely comes complete - and if they do they would sell for seversl thousand pounds (£)......

Word of caution. Sellers with plenty of positive feedback on ebay may still not be good sellers of Rolex.

Like other people said, buy the seller. Do some research on who the seller before giving the cash to them.

Vintage Rolex + Ebay = BE VERY CAREFUL.

[renfield33]

steve mulholland sells a lot of vintage rolexes right here on the forum.