Posted by Watch shopping on Chrono24 has always carried a sense of danger to it. The sellers are often in far-flung places and the listings are less well-policed than even eBay, a site many collectors won’t even bother with due to the potential for fraud.
It can still be a decent place to source less common vintage pieces, but my advice is to thoroughly vet the seller before contacting them.
Having said all that, DO NOT BUY THIS WATCH. Without contacting the seller, I can assure you he doesn’t actually possess it. How do I know? IT’S MY WATCH AND MY PHOTO! I still own the watch, and it isn’t for sale.
First off, my photos kind of suck. That particular shot was taken shortly after I bought a light tent when I was experimenting with apps that manually adjust the camera settings on my iPhone. The lesson learned is I’m not gifted at photography and I now know to let the camera choose the settings.
Second, the watch in the other two photos is not mine. That watch clearly has a different dial and hands (mine has dial A1 and a stick hand, the other one has dial A2 and a needle-hand). Maybe the seller has the watch depicted in the other photos, but they certainly don’t have mine.
The seller appears to be a brick and mortar store out of Italy, which makes this even more maddening, if they even do have the other watch. How lazy can they be?
I’ve reported this to Chrono24 but please, do not buy from this guy if he pops up elsewhere using my photo to try to sell anything.
Update: Oct. 24
Shortly after posting this article, I sent polite but cranky emails to both Chrono24 and the seller (my initial email was written in shaky Italian with the help of Google Translate, his response is below fed through Google back into shaky English). The seller responded within minutes with this:
And shortly thereafter the listing was updated. My photo was removed, and they added more pics that were more in line with the other shots they had originally included that weren’t mine. My assumption is that they did actually possess the other watch, but stole a pic from a Google search to ‘spice up’ their listing.
Chrono24 eventually responded as well, saying that the seller removed the listing. And when you click the link, it appears as if the watch was sold. So I don’t know if my report to Chrono24 did anything, or if the seller really did sell the watch quickly.
There are lessons here – both about Chrono24 and buying watches online in general. Be careful out there, and always require the seller to prove they actually possess the watch they show you in photos.