E-mail from Reader : Buy New or Pre-Owned?

I have a few blog entries that I intended to write upon, pursuant to the Chinese New Year celebrations. However, I received the attached e-mail from a reader, which requested for some advice on whether to get a piece of pre-owned watch. I thought that I could answer him in a few days' time but he had followed up with another 2 e-mails in a span of a couple of hours, so I thought that I would take a bit of time and have this entry for him up.

Attached was the e-mail as received from Michael :

Well, Michael, I generally loved a good bargain and from my purchases, you could gauged that I was not a snob for pre-owned pieces too. I flipped watches pretty regularly too. Generally, you tend to get a good bargain with pre-owned watches.

In reference to the Armand Nicolet MO2 watch that you forwarded to me, I must add that I have had no prior liaison with the seller; so whatever I posted henceforth was my personal thoughts and not skewed towards any parties. In this regard, I generally thought, "Hmmm, would I buy this watch with my own monies at the proposed RM12.5k?"

Pro :
1) Watch was fairly new and still under lots of warranty.
2) Full calendar with moonphase, was an attractive complication.

Con :
1) Price maybe.

Why the price, you may ask. After all, it was already severely discounted from RM23k to RM12.5k, for an almost new watch.

Well, that's the power of the Net. A simple keying in the model no. and many options came about. Generally, the prices would not differ too significantly for BNIB pieces; although the online pricing may be cheaper overseas as the 6% GST was not factored in as yet. However, I found that both the local and overseas pricing were generally cheaper (for new pieces) compared to the seller's asking price (pre-owned); which had me wondering if the seller did actually purchased at the RRP (in which case, he had not done his homework), or did he get a good discount but was not passing it on. I clicked on a few links and generally, none of the sellers were selling at the RRP prices. A very healthy discount was adhered upon.

I would opine that Armand Nicolet was an under-rated old brand with lots of history and given its design and workmanship, it would seemed to be a good buy at around RM12k. However, if the price of pre-owned was higher than that of the new piece, I would generally prefer to buy a new piece. Unless the pre-owned piece was of historical importance or owned by someone of importance by my reckoning.

So Michael, it's your own choice to make. Perhaps the seller factored in the "rare" rotor in the pricing or otherwise. If you were really interested, Michael, I would suggest that you get in touch with the seller and checked if you could get a better pricing from him.

United Colors of Benetton

No, I ain't getting a UCB watch for today's post. But I thought it was apt as I have been adding colours into my watch collection, and I already have an in-coming burgundy piece going the green piece that I have in my winder. But I digress.

Green
I love the lively colour of green. Nature is all around us and green is the colour of live. For that, I have the Submariner Hulk when I am green with envy :) And the military Rangeman for the outdoor activities, of course.

Orange
Who doesn't love a tinge of orange in their watches? I thought so. And the orange GMT hand on the Explorer ii really does stand out to the contrast of the black dial.

Blue
You won't be singing the blues when you have these beauties strapped onto your wrist. The domed sapphire on the Poseidon bronze piece really made it a very attractive watch. The 50th Anniv Bluefin Tuna was one of the more comfy Tuna as it had a scalloped caseback that followed the contour of one's wrist. And I can't comment on the 125th Anniv Genesis as yet, as it was still pending arrival into my collection.

Pepsi
The re-issued Turtle Prospex was a real beauty and I just added her into my collection. Off went the rubbery strap and in went a thick military-spec Zulu Extreme sourced from overseas. It was really a beautiful piece and I can see her getting lots of wrist time.

Grey/ Black
You won't get many watches with genuine carbon fibre dial, and the Kirium Ti5 had the real deal. No faux CF for this top-of-the-line Kirium, and when light catches onto the dial, it simply looks electric! The Military Camo had not seen much wrist time, but was still an attractive piece in its own regard. Time to put it to more service time then, if you get what I mean. And the PAM0005 with its sandwich dial was just too sexy to describe over words. You simply had to see it to admire it.

Panda
A Speedy Panda, and in colours as per the picture. Picture perfect!

Burgundy Red
An in-coming piece, which I had not seen or touched in person and backed up the Kickstarter project purely based on the design, passion of the maker, and the quality parts to be utilised. Rest assured that a review would be forthcoming when this piece arrives in due course.

There you have it- the United Colours of Benetton in my collection during the interim period (or soon to be, pending the arrival of the ordered pieces).