FeelGoodWatches

Tell us about your business? Where are you located?

I am Ira Schneider, and have been buying, trading and collecting watches for nearly 40 years.  I started collecting watches with a single Vacheron & Constantin in the 1960’s, which I still own, and my passion grew from there.  My trading activity increased over the years, and, with the Internet and eBay at my fingertips, I was able to create my own online presence.  Since then, I have increased my Web presence to Chrono24 and other luxury watch sites.

My private office is located in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I pride myself not only on being a purveyor of rare, collectible watches, but providing high-quality timepieces at reasonable prices with outstanding customer service.

I named the business and web site “FeelGoodWatches” because I believe owning and wearing a classic watch truly makes you “feel good”.

Since when have you been in business?

FeelGoodWatches was formally incorporated in 2000, but I traded independently for many years before this.

What kind of watches do you sell?

At FeelGoodWatches.com, my inventory consists of both new and pre-owned watches with a wide range of brands, models and prices.  I also have jewellery, art pieces and accessories available.

Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Sohne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breguet, and Audemars Piguet are some of the brands I carry on a regular basis.  I have the ability to obtain any brand for you, including Cartier, Breitling, TAG Heuer, Officine Panerai, Omega, Graham and Ulysse Nardin.

What makes you unique?

One of my biggest strengths is that I actually sell watches and not simply pictures of watches; what I advertise, I have in stock.  I also have world-wide contacts to acquire new stock.

Do you also buy watches?  What kind of watches are you looking for?

Yes, I buy watches and will consider most of the high-end brands, but buy mostly Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Sohne and Vacheron.

What payment methods do you accept?

I always prefer wire transfer and international transactions may only be paid by wire transfer.  For my U.S. Customers, I will also accept personal, business or certified checks drawn on a U.S. bank, with up to a 7 business day hold.  I will also accept U.S.-based Visa or MasterCard up to $5,000 USD with a  3% Handling Fee added and shipping only to the U.S. billing address for that card.

What kind of warranties do you offer?

Most of my watches carry a minimum 1 year warranty.  If there is factory warranty longer than 1 year, that will supersede my warranty; if less than 1 year, I will warrant beyond the remaining factory warranty up to 1 year.

Do you attend trade shows? Where could a potential buyer meet you?

Yes.  I try and attend all IWJG shows during the year and have occasionally attended shows in Munich.

Are you a member of any watch related organization?

Yes.  I am a member in good standing of the International Watch & Jewelry Guild (IWJG) and the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC).

What was the most interesting watch that you have ever sold?

Probably a Vacheron Constantin 4261 Minute Repeater that was only 1 of 2 known to exist cased in a 36mm platinum case.

What do you think is the internet’s impact on buying and selling luxury watches?

The Net allows the “average” buyer to look at high-end watches and opens the market up to people who might not necessarily get to stores.  At the same time, if someone has a high-end brand, and wants to sell it, they often get an inflated view of what it might be worth.  Either way, the Net has opened up whole new markets, for both buying and selling.

What are in your opinion current trends in watch making?

One trend, that we’ve already seen, is sizes are retreating from the extreme sizes we were seeing the past few years.  One of the things driving this is the high cost of precious metals and, I feel that by 2012, we will see significant decreases in case =mass= (i.e. how much precious metal is used) as well as physical size.

What watch would you recommend to someone who buys his or her first watch?

It all depends on what type of watch they’re wanting (i.e. a sport watch, dress, casual, etc.), their age and their financial situation.  The two brands that hold their value the best are Patek and, even though I sell very few of them, Rolex.  I like to recommend simple Calatravas for a first good watch as they can be dressed up and down and can be worn daily to work and after work.

What watch model or watch brand do you think will mostly likely increase its value in the future?

Patek, as a brand, is still #1 and will continue to do well for the foreseeable future.  I think that Lange will start coming up more, but will lag Patek for a good long time.  Good used Rolexes always hold their value, as well.  Vacheron does well for specific models.

How did you get involved with watches?

Just by enjoying buying and wearing a nice timepiece.  After a while, I started researching and reading about the top brands and this fueled my interest.

What was your first personal watch?

A Vacheron Constantin gold manual watch I bought when I got married.  I still have it.

What is your grail watch?

Probably a Patek 5016 Perpetual Calendar Minute Repeater Tourbillon.

What do you like about Chrono24?

I like its worldwide reach and how easy it is for my customers to contact me.

Finally, what advice do you have for Chrono24?

Keep building your reach to draw more and more people in.  Also, become informed and aware of the not-so-nice people in the business, both buying and selling, and try and police them to keep Chrono24 an honest marketplace.

Frank Miquel

Tell us about you and your business? Where are you located?

Our company and our classic Jewelry- and Watchstore are located in Upper Franconia in Bavaria in the city of Teuschnitz. Since more than 14 years we are specialized in selling high class watches for watch collectors and enthusiasts. Since 1999 we also offer our watches online. Most watches come from stock sales, jewelry store close downs, or private trade-ins so that our customers can benefit from these bargain deals. We are also an authorized dealer for several brands. Within the last years we built up a great reputation for pre-owned and vintage watches in and outside of Germany. We accurately check every single watch that leaves our store in order to provide the best possible quality.

Since when have you been in business?

Since February 1997

What kind of watches do you sell?

Luxury and collector’s watches of all brands.

What makes you unique?

Customer service before and after the purchase. Quality with a local jewelry store. Trade-in. Payment by installments through our own company.

Do you also buy watches? What kind of watches are you looking for?

All kinds of luxury watch brands. Just offer me any watch. Depending on the condition and its current demand I will make you on offer..

What payment methods do you accept?

Paypal, EC Card, wire transfer, cash.

What kind of warranties do you offer?

24 months for new watches. 12 months for used watches.

Do you attend trade shows? Where could a potential buyer meet you?

No I don’t attend trade shows. Buyers can meet us at our jewelry store.

What do you think is the internet’s impact on buying and selling luxury watches?

The internet makes price, commercial value and most notably the demand of different brands transparent. Exactly as it should be!

What are in your opinion current trends in watch making?

Trend? Rather not trend but intrinsic value and leading models of classic manufacturers are the best choice!

What watch would you recommend to someone who buys his or her first watch?

A classic watch from a notable watch brand which is stable in value.

What watch model or watch brand do think will mostly likely increase its value in the future?

Rolex, Rolex, Rolex!

How did you get involved with watches?

As a little child when my grandmother showed me her regulator

What do you like about Chrono24?

The worldwide audience.

Sylvie van der Vaart wears Rolex

One of the most popular activities amongst watch enthusiasts besides collecting watches is spotting watches on the wrists of actors, musicians, sportsmen and women and all sorts of other b-scene artists. As long as they are known to the public and wear watches we – as watch enthusiasts – can identify ourselves with.

I’ve been blogging for a long time now on Fratellowatches, and have covered several famous – and less famous – actors, singers, sportsmen and soccer wives and the watch they were wearing. On a daily basis, I receive a lot of visitors that have been querying, “which watch is actor X wearing?” and at the time of the Wimbledon finale, I can expect a number of people that have been looking for Nadal or Federer and their watches.

Years ago, in 1998, a watch collector named Ed Heliosz put together a website listing movies and the watches that could be spotted. It still exists and I’ll bet it receives a huge number of visitors each month. Since then, a lot of similar websites and lists appeared on the Internet. Coincidentally, the German Rolex Forum reached 6,000 posts today with pictures of famous Rolex wearers.

Although we do not want to admit it in public, we are sensitive for what other people are wearing on their wrists. Not that we care about the choice of a celebrity, but it has become our natural habit of looking at someone’s wrist because we love watches and want to see as many of them as possible.  There is even a hash-tag on twitter called #womw, translating as ‘what’s on my wrist’.

If a celebrity wears one in public, we seem to get even more excited, even when it’s sponsored (George Clooney wearing a Speedmaster Professional by Omega). The real treats are the pictures and videos of people wearing a watch that they chose by themselves, like John Mayer wearing a DLCed Rolex, Jerry Seinfeld and his Breitlings, Steve McQueen and his Rolex Submariner, Charlie Sheen wearing and losing a Patek Philippe and so on.

A harmless sub culture of collecting watches in my opinion and one can easily join!

Diego Maradona wearing two Rolex Daytonas.

Interesting places to see what celebrities are wearing:

http://members.optushome.com.au/heliosz/movielist.html

http://watchesinmovies.info/movies/

http://www.watch-id.com/

http://www.r-l-x.de/forum/showthread.php?17-Sammelthread-Rolex-und-Legenden-Stars-Sternchen (German)

http://www.famouspeoplewatches.com/

Robert-Jan Broer

Robert-Jan:”I am thrilled to join the Chrono24 team and am looking forward to be of help to the visitors of the biggest watch market place on the internet and sharing my watch expertise with them. The number of watches offered for sale at Chrono24 by private sellers and (authorized) dealers is mind-boggling. It will be a real challenge to provide potential buyers with a fast and correct answer to their questions, which I gladly accepted!”

Robert-Jan lives in The Netherlands. Besides working with Chrono24, he has been blogging about watches at Fratellowatches since 2004. With a professional background in information technology, combined with his knowledge about watches, he fits perfectly in the Chrono24 team.

Tim Stracke, one of the owners of Chrono24: “We are extremely happy that one of the world’s most renowned watch bloggers has joined our team. We are experts in running Internet market places and we love watches. Now we also have the expertise in mechanical watches in our team.”

About Chrono24
Chrono24.com was founded in 2003 and is the worldwide internet market platform leader for the exclusive specialized luxury watch trade sector. More than 600 professional dealers, as well as thousands private clients, utilize the platform to transact successful sales of a wide selection of high-end, brand-name luxury watches, such as Rolex, IWC, Breitling and Audemars Piguet. Customers have access to more than 80,000 new and previously-owned timepieces, from the traditional Omega costing a few hundred Euro, to the exclusive Patek Philippe collectible in excess of a million Euro.

LindeWerdelin SpidoSpeed Chronograph

Ever since we discovered them as an interesting and refreshing new manufacturer of sports watches and instruments, we are excited when they introduce new models. Last year’s introduction of their first moon phase watch (Oktopus Moonphase) was very interesting, and it seems that they have continued their work on creating complication watches. This year, LindeWerdelin announced their first timepiece with chronograph complication, the SpidoSpeed Chronograph. Based on their popular SpidoLite models, the SpidoSpeed Chronograph has a light weight skeletonised case and dial.

“The most intriguing part of the SpidoSpeed is what is missing from it.”
Morten Linde

The multiple-layered dial of the SpidoSpeed is most interesting and winks at the racing car industry. Just take a look at the sub dials, resembling the braking discs of a racing car. LindeWerdelin designed a case for their first chronograph model that consists of 32 components that perfectly fit together because of the ultimate precision machinery and tooling they used to realise their design.

LindeWerdelin SpidoSpeed Chronograph

As always, LindeWerdelin uses uncommon designed straps (remember their brown calf track strap for the limited edition brown 3-Timer?) and so is this SpidoSpeed strap. The round cut out holes remind us of racing gloves and of course about the straps we’ve seen on chronograph watches from the past. Think vintage Heuer.

LindeWerdelin isn’t tied to a specific movement manufacturer and just picks what they think fits best or is right for a certain model. For the SpidoSpeed, LindeWerdelin has chosen a custom-made movement. A high quality, modern, well-constructed, well-finished calibre engraved with LW03 (the SA vintage movement in SpidoLite being LW01, and the Frederic Piguet in Oktopus Moonphase & Tattoo being LW02). This movement has the classic chronograph lay-out, sub-dials on 6, 3 and 9 o’clock and ticks 28800 beats per hour and has a 48 hour power reserve.

Like all LindeWerdelin timepieces, the SpidoSpeed Chronograph is only being produced in limited quantities and the first (A) series will be restricted to 100 pieces only. During BaselWorld 2011, LindeWerdelin will introduce the final version and will take orders from May.

Price: €11,760.-

Numbered Series A, XX/100

Movement:
Chronograph / Power reserve: 48hours /
Balance frequency: 28800 Alt/H /
Number of components: 237 / LW designed oscillator

Case:
Three part construction steel microbille / Number of parts:
32 / anti-reflective sapphire crystal / Back case: see-
through sapphire crystal, spider web & chronograph sub-
dial engravings / Screw in crown with LW logo /
Chronograph pushers at 2 & 4 o’clock

Dimensions:
44mm (w) by 46mm (l) by 15mm (h)

Dial:
Two- part black galvanic dial: perlage surface base part,
opalin top dial part / chronograph sub-dials for hours,
minutes & seconds / Hands: Six diamond cut hands /
Grey SLN on main dial and sub-dial indexes

Water Resistance:
100m

Strap:
SpidoSpeed textile strap with steel ardillon buckle

We are happy to announce that we acquired our Australian competitor WatchChoice.com and welcome all of its users and dealers to our site.

By taking over the Australian watch marketplace WatchChoice we will strengthen our international market leadership, especially in Asia and English speaking markets.
We are also excited to have more than 500 professional dealers now offering more than 60,000 new and pre-owned timepieces – a 50% increase since February this year when we, Chrono24’s new owners, took over the company from its founders.

WatchChoice was established in 2007 by watch lover Glenn Palmer and gained traction especially in Asia, Australia and the US. Currently more than 30,000 luxury watches can be found on WatchChoice. Glenn is not only a successful Internet entrepreneur but also a watch collector, watch blogger  and author of the book “Buy the Watch and the Seller“, which will soon be available on Chrono24 as a free download.

WatchChoice.com will be maintained as an individual platform for some time. All of its dealers will be offered to automatically co-list their watches on Chrono24. In the long term both platforms will be merged into Chrono24.

We are particularly excited to be working together with WatchChoice’s founder Glenn Palmer who will support Chrono24’s sales activities in Asia and Australia. Through our headquarters in Europe and our Chrono24 representatives in San Diego, USA and Melbourne Australia, we now cover all major luxury watch markets.

Ariel Adams

As a popular watch writer online (aBlogtoRead.com), I get to see the entire landscape of the watch Industry on the internet. Always popular is the ability for people to buy and sell watches online. Chrono24 is one of the largest, if not the largest peer-to-peer, and dealer-to-customer listing site around. For years the site remained almost exactly the same even though its popularity increased. Now under new ownership, I talk to Tim Stracke who is one of the enthusiastic hands-on owners of Chrono24.

Ariel Adams: Chrono24 has been popular for years, what was necessary to fix or enhance in the redesigned site?
Tim Stracke: Chrono24 has been popular because of its large number of luxury watches from all around the world offered on its site and its clean and simple usability. It was for sure less popular for its design and search functionality. Both have been improved significantly now.

AA: Watch brands are often hesitant about online watch sales, but sites for dealers and private individuals to sell watches to interested people are booming. Just how popular is the Internet when it comes to buying and selling watches?
TS: We assume that today the online sales volume is around 10% of the total new luxury watch market volume. It is probably twice as much (20%) for pre-owned watches. And it’s still growing fast. Watch brands approach the markets twice: first by building the brand, second by selling the products. They know that watch lovers spend a lot of time online – but they are hesitant about using the internet for brand building. They also know that many people want to buy their watch online and again they are hesitant to sell directly and rather give that market share to grey market dealers.

AA: Are watch brands who don’t currently sell online missing out by not offering an e-commerce component to their business?
TS: Watch brands are in a complex situation. On the one hand side they need and want to support the network of authorized dealers (which by the way helped them to become what they are) and on the other side they miss out a direct e-commerce opportunity. I would suggest as a first step they should support their dealers in their own e-commerce activities. Maybe we should all meet and discuss the issue of watch brands and e-commerce. I invite any watch brand executive for a dinner at BaselWorld to discuss that question.

AA: What new tools or features for Chrono24 are going to be most useful for people buying watches?
TS: The most powerful new feature is the completely revised search including several suggestion options and the possibility to refine the search result. We are also happy to offer our users the new Chrono24 blog including its guest contributors.

AA: What about for people selling watches?
TS: Selling watches is still a free feature for private people. Improving the consumer-to-consumer selling is one of our next projects. Soon we will offer a trust service on Chrono24 that makes buying and selling watches even safer.

Tim Stracke

AA: How can people know that dealers who offer watches can be trusted?
TS: We are very careful in our decisions which merchant will be allowed to offer watches on Chrono24. If they fail to show us all relevant papers about their business we won’t let them on our site. Also after one single unsolved complaint any merchant will immediately be excluded from Chrono24. We will also integrate ways to rate a merchant’s trustworthiness.

AA: Does Chrono24 plan to interact more with the people buying and selling watches on the site?
TS: Yes, we are definitely planning to increase the interaction on our site to make buying and selling on Chrono24 even safer. We are currently developing a tool to facilitate all email communication on Chrono24. Also, a trust and escrow service will be offered on our marketplace.

AA: What advice would you offer to someone who is hesitant about buying a large ticket item (very expensive) watch online. Any tips or things to watch out for?
TS: If the watch on Chrono24 is offered by a trusted dealer that has been listed on the marketplace for some time without complaints of our users then I would do a transaction. We always suggest a personal meeting at an authorized dealer when buying from a private seller if there is no opportunity for an escrow account.

AA: Out of all the new features on the redesigned Chrono24, what are you most excited about?
TS: The very powerful search and our international expansion: We are now having individual versions for 25 countries around the globe!

It sounds like Tim is making sure that Chrono24 will not only maintain its venerable position when it comes to online watch sales, but will stay on track to meet a demanding future of increased luxury watch buying and selling online. I feel confident about the site’s new ownership, and am sure that they will preserve what people have come to enjoy and except from the site.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com and writes for a number of other sites and publications on watches and the watch industry.

Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A

Some time ago, when there was no Chrono24, you had to look at all these different sources – both on-line and off-line – to buy a watch. If a certain brand was not being offered at your local watch dealer, you probably had to take the car out for a drive to another city, even if you only wanted to take a quick glance at a watch. Also, if you went on-line to look for a particular watch, you had to keep control over all these bookmarks of watch dealers, forums and market places.

As I am always on a quest for that perfect watch that would be able to replace all my other watches – I understand that this always be something utopical – I need a transparant and global resource to keep track of watches and their pricing.

My current Perfect Watch is an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo ref.15202, not to confuse with the Royal Oak ref.15300. I longed for this watch as soon as I got into this watch collecting thing about 12 years ago. Since it was far out of my financial league back then – and it actually probably still is now – I started out with other Perfect Watches. Omega, Chronoswiss, Rolex, IWC and so on. When I just started out, the Omega Speedmaster Professional was my Perfect Watch and there is still nothing wrong with it to be honest. However, after owning the Speedmaster Professional for some time, I thought a Rolex GMT-Master would be the Perfect Watch. And it is. It really is. But after owning the GMT-Master…. You catch my drift.

Fast forward 2010, now that I have the Royal Oak Jumbo, my next Perfect Watch would be a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A. The design, the Patek mechanical movement, the stainless steel integrated bracelet and the beautiful green/blue-ish dial, it is all perfect to me.

Robert-Jan Broer

Thanks to Chrono24, I am always able to track them down and do a price check, so I know what to sell or how much I have to save up. Unfortunately, Chrono24 doesn’t tell when list prices increase again. Yet.

Robert-Jan Broer from fratellowatches.com

Chrono24

Welcome to our new Chrono24 BLOG and to our new Chrono24 website. This relaunch has been a great challenge to all of us. When we talked to our users we often heard two kinds of answers – one was:  “Chrono24 is great. We love the simple and intuitive usability. Please don’t change anything.” The other was: “Chrono24 is so ‘2001’ – wouldn’t it be time for a facelift?”

So that was the challenge: modernize it without changing too much! Finally, together with first class usability experts and web designers we developed a new Chrono24 without changing the navigation too much. We hope you like it!

Another important step was the development of the new search. From now on you can enjoy our brand new “suggest feature” during typing in your search query and you have the opportunity to refine your search results. We also included “Similar Watches” and “Similar Searches” features to further improve the search experience.

We had a lengthy internal discussion whether or not we should put ads on our site. We finally decided to include display and text ads and want to invest the proceeds into the development of Chrono24. We think that this in all of our best interest.

We know that design and usability are a matter of taste. And we know that it is impossible to meet more than a million people’s taste that visit Chrono24 each month. But it’s our experience that design and usability are also a matter of familiarization. So give us chance – we are optimistic that you will like it. And if not, let us now. We are willing to learn!

The “new” Chrono24 will launch as a beta. After removing all bugs – hopefully in a few weeks – we will remove the beta status.

Chrono24 will also have its own BLOG now. We are very happy welcome some of the worldwide most influential bloggers to become Chrono24 guest authors. We are looking forward meet Ariel Adams (ABlogToRead.com), Robert-Jan Broers (fratellowatches.com), Tom Mulraney (TheWatchLounge.com) and Benjamin Clymers (hodinkee.com) on our site. They will contribute their own watch related posts as well as comment interesting offers from Chrono24.

Your Chrono24 Team.