I think as collectors or dealers, this is a consideration for all of
us. Every buyer enjoys a bargain and all rational sellers want a
profit! In many cases, valuation is pretty straightforward. You can
go to a price guide and get a general idea of the value of your item.
Or you can go to an auction site and see what comparable items are
going for. Judging and rating the condition of your item is pretty
straightforward also. That is the easiest way of appraising the retail
value. I have heard it estimated that valuations for insurance
purposes are approximately 30 percent higher.
Now, what about the rare items? One might think that the price guides
and auction houses prices adequately reflect rarity. What better way
to determine market values than than finding the intersection of supply
and demand? That would be true if the sellers and buyers were fully
informed but in many cases that is not how it is. It wouldn't matter
how rare something was if there were little or no interest in the item.
Of course you have to define what you mean by rare! Serial number 1
would be unique and highly desirable from any company! Variations in
different models can be exceedingly rare and still create little
excitement from collectors. I remember some of the old price guides
used to label items with NESR to indicate that seldom seen items were
hard to evaluate.
Shugart uses a star system to gauge rarity. Without getting into the
accuracy and consistency of the guide, I am intrigued by the fact that
it applies to watches " known to exist" ! Information over the years
has been improving and we do know a lot about production numbers of
various companies, models and grades. Most of that type of information
is readily available to the collector/dealer. It is only recently that
different researchers have been compiling data bases of "known to
exist" or reported sightings of different items. That information is
not always easily available to all. Very little has been done to track
known examples of the more esoteric variations within each model or
grade. Thus the supply side of the equation is very vague.
I have concentrated on 18 sz pre 20th centrury Ball watches. Using
my observations as a random sample, it seems there is a high
probability that between 3 and 10 percent of watches from that era have
been observed. That is a pretty wide range, but still a good tool for
estimating how many watches of a given production number are likely to
have survived. To state it simply, if production of a certain model of
that era was 1000, you would expect between 30 to 100 to be " known to
exist" and of course if only 100 were produced, you would expect 3 to
10 to be " known to exist".
This has been my long winded way of getting back to the statement in
the second paragraph concerning buyers and sellers being fully
informed.
Often
this is not the case, and the party who is armed with the information
has a considerable advantage over the other party. Knowledge has always
been power! Of course one of the goals of the NAWCC has been
dissemination of knowledge and to some extent leveling the playing
field. On the other hand some information is more public than other
information. I can speculate on a few different reasons for that
being the case.
To personalize the issue, I have mostly waited till making my own
acquistions before revealing some pertinent data. Not only does that
give me an advantage when I purchase, but by touting the facts after
purchase, quite possibly I influence future purchases, thereby
enhancing the value of my collection! Calling attention to the lack
of supply can have an impact on increasing demand, therby impacting
both sides of the equation. I don't see it as an ethical issue, just
another example of human nature! A lot of the fun of collecting is
showing off and one upsmanship! Its more than just greed, its no fun
to have something if you can't promote a little envy amongst your
peers! Its reciprocal, there are a lot of you that I am jealous of too!
Happy hunting,
Bill Kapp