When selling your watch, you want to earn as much money as possible and avoid getting ripped off. In this article, we’re going to share the best places to sell your watch and tips on getting top dollar.
Quick answer: the best places to sell your watches online are active watch forums and FaceBook groups, as watch enthusiasts are typically willing to pay a fair price, and you won’t need to pay a marketplace fee like you would on our next suggestion.
Online marketplaces such as eBay or Chrono24 are great places to sell watches due to their large user base, but they take a cut of the profit. And finally, watch dealers will typically buy watches quickly and easily but often pay you a fraction of what you could get if you sold the watch elsewhere.
If you’ve come this far, we assume you’ve already appraised your watch and figured out exactly how much to sell it for. If not, don’t worry, we have an entire article dedicated to determining exactly how much your watch is worth.
Once you determine your watch’s worth, look at this list of the best places to sell your watch online. We’ve sorted them by earning potential. The methods that will typically earn you the most are at the top, while the methods that take the biggest cut of your earnings will be lower on the list.
Let’s get started.
Watch Forums and Groups
To get the most money for your watch, we suggest selling it in buying and selling forums and groups.
These groups are filled with enthusiasts dedicated to buying, selling, and trading watches and are typically willing to pay a fair market rate for the watch.
Note: We suggest you avoid trading watches, as it’s much easier to get scammed than in a simple buy or sell.
Best of all, these groups often don’t have any fees associated, you’ll only have to pay a fee for whatever payment method you use to accept payment. PayPal, for example, charges a standard $0.30 + 2.9% fee for the completed sale for each transaction.
This may seem like a lot, but it is much less than you would pay selling your watch anywhere else online.
Some of the best online watch forums to sell include:
Reddit r/WatchExchange
Reddit r/WatchExchange is my favorite buy-and-sell group. I have used it to successfully buy and sell dozens of watches. The group has over 250,000 members and is one of the top 1% largest Reddit groups.
Inside is a large group of active and passionate watch enthusiasts looking to buy just about any watch: from affordable Casios to expensive Rolex and beyond.
With such a large user base, almost any watch you list for a reasonable price will get snatched up nearly instantly. Just be sure not to overshoot the price of the watch, or the enthusiasts there will downvote your price and reduce the post’s visibility.
Be sure to follow the group’s rules, and always post a timestamp, a picture that includes a piece of paper with your username, the day, date, and year, along with the rest of your watch’s pictures.
WatchUSeek
Watchuseek is one of the oldest and most reputable watch forums. Naturally, they have a thriving marketplace in their sales corner.
Selling on this forum is very easy, though you must have an account at least 90 days old and with over 100 posts. While this might seem like a harsh barrier to entry, it goes a long way in preventing bots, scammers, and spammers from joining.
Just find a couple of topics you like in one of the many sub-forums, and add your input. Don’t worry, you don’t need to write an essay, just engage. You might even learn something new along the way.
They also have various sub-forums dedicated to different aspects of watch collecting, like one for straps and bracelets and another for tools and accessories.
Rolex Forums
If you specifically want to sell a Rolex, there are few better places than a dedicated group of hungry buyers actively searching for that watch. And that’s exactly what the Rolex Forums Classifieds section is all about.
They also allow buying and selling Tudor, and they have a separate section for non-Rolex watches.
While the other forums we’ve mentioned have a lot of diversity in the types (and price ranges) of watches being listed, this section tends to have more expensive timepieces from luxury brands like Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Zenith, Panerai, Cartier, and more.
That doesn’t mean you can’t find an affordable Seiko or Tissot here, just that it’s not quite as common.
Omega Watch Forums
The Omega Watch Forums has a marketplace that is, surprisingly, not dedicated to just Omega watches.
Sure, they have plenty, but there’s also a healthy variety of other brands, such as IWC, Jaeger LeCoultre, Glashütte, and more.
The forums are active and, aside from buying or selling, are a great place to read up on rare or new Omegas.
Vintage Watches For Sale Facebook Group
Reddit isn’t the only thriving watch forum community. There are plenty of vibrant FaceBook groups about watches, like our Affordable Mechanical Watches group (shameless plug!).
If you’re specifically looking to sell off a vintage watch, what better place than a group dedicated to them?
The Vintage Watches for Sale Group has plenty of enthusiasts lined up for the right vintage watch. Be sure to include clear pictures, and a price, as well as a detailed description of the condition and history of your vintage watch, and you should be good to go.
Marketplaces
Your next option for selling your watch is to use a marketplace such as eBay or Chrono24.
If you choose this route, you will need to pay commissions and fees. But sites like these receive a great deal of traffic, which means your listings will be visible to a large audience of prospective buyers.
eBay
We are likely all aware of eBay, the online marketplace with hundreds of millions of visitors each month.
Although it’s not limited to just watches, there are plenty of watches bought and sold here every day. I’ve had success buying and selling from eBay for reasonable prices.
They have more selling fees than if you were to sell the watch on forums like those shared above. But, their platform is quite streamlined, making it much easier to list your watch in the first place, and the convenience might be worth the tradeoff.
They also recently started offering an authentication service, where they will authenticate any watch above $2,000.
Chrono24
Chrono24 is an online marketplace dedicated to watches. They charge a selling fee of just 6.5%, which is still more than you’d pay if you sold it on a forum, but it isn’t that bad overall.
Depending on the watch, you might struggle to make a sale until you’ve built up some reputation and have gained some seller feedback. Start by selling your most affordable watches to build your reputation before selling your more expensive timepieces.
Online Watch Dealers
While not nearly as popular as marketplaces or forums, another way to sell your watch is directly through a dealer. Dealers will primarily only buy luxury watches, as the profits are thinner on more affordable watches.
Generally, this will net you the least profit, as the dealers need to undercut how much they can pay you to sell the watch at a profit. On the flip side, this is usually a very easy process. Many dealers already have price ranges for particular watches, although there’s often (but not always) little wiggle room for the keen negotiator.
You should work only with trusted dealers with solid reputations in the watch community. Here is a couple:
WatchBox
WatchBox is an online watch dealer that gives you the option not only to sell but also to trade or loan your watch.
You can quickly get a quote by filling out their form.
They deal with luxury watches like Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet.
Crown and Caliber
Crown and Caliber is the dealer partner of Hodinkee, the biggest watch publication on the web.
They only deal with luxury brands like Rolex, Omega, and Tag Heuer, so if you’re trying to get a few bucks for your old Seiko, for instance, you’ll have to resort to the other options on this list.
They provide a free quote, and the process is quick and easy.
Summary
Selling a watch isn’t always easy, but picking the right place to sell, it can make the process a lot smoother.
Here’s a quick recap of some of the key points in this article:
- Selling a watch on a forum will have the fewest fees and get you the most profit.
- Online marketplaces have some fees but have a broad audience and a generally simple selling process.
- Selling to watch dealers online will likely result in the least amount of profit but possibly the least amount of headaches when dealing with high-ticket luxury watches.
Is there a forum, marketplace, or dealer we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
