Eric Ku, Vintage Watch Expert, San Francisco, California
September 9, 2020
For the first time in the history of the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), the September 2020 lecture was broadcast via Zoom to more than 400 participants hailing from the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. As the title shows — “Collecting Watches in the Time of COVID-19” — the watch industry is going through a challenging phase.
Vintage watch expert Eric Ku displayed the breakdown of sales from March 2020 to the present and how COVID-19 has affected watch brands such as Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Rolex. The pandemic has also touched upon authorized dealers (ADs), the grey market, and the auction houses of Sotheby’s, Phillips, Christie’s and Antiquorum.
Of the trends resulting from the pandemic, Ku gave the following summary:
Bored people sitting at home = a lot of watch sales online
Sellers have been adapting to the “new norm” and have been re-tooling strategies to cater to the needs of their customers
Finding good watches to sell is not easy for auction houses, authorized dealers and grey market dealers. Restricted supply during this period has further exacerbated demand for watches which is already strong
Everyone is still waiting for their Aquanauts, Nautilus, Daytona, GMT or Submariner
People looking for that great “COVID Deal” have been sorely disappointed
To conclude the lecture, Ku gave his thoughts on collecting tips and observing the market. A few gems that were mentioned were “The changes brought to the watch market by COVID are 99% on the seller’s side and only 1% on the buyer’s side” and “There’s no such thing as a good deal. You get what you pay for.”
When it came to Q&A, there were 38 questions on the Zoom queue and Ku got around to answering 15 of them before the lecture had to come to a close. HSNY followed up with Ku to answer a few more on the Society’s Instagram.
HSNY thanks Eric Ku for joining the lecture from San Francisco and for hosting the first virtual lecture in HSNY history!
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Submitted by Melody Benloss, Recording Secretary & Associate Librarian