Pre-owned watch dealers urged to take more care when buying
Retailers and dealers of pre-owned watches need to be more diligent when it comes to buying and selling.
That’s according to Christopher Marinello, founder of Watch Recovery International, a specialist recovery firm dedicated to tracing, negotiating, and repatriating stolen watches, as well as resolving title disputes down the chain of ownership.
Speaking to Watch Insider as part of a forthcoming in-depth interview about the wider issue of watch theft, Marinello stressed that the onus is on the dealer to carry out all possible checks regarding the provenance of the watch they’re buying.
“You can contact Rolex, Patek, AP, Richard Mille, or you can contact me and I’ll contact them,” he said, referring to the registers that these brands keep of known stolen watches and their serial numbers.
“A lot of the more respectable dealers are doing that, but the guys that are buying and selling on Instagram and Facebook — I call them the ‘watch bros’ because they always call me ‘bro’ — think that there’s a law called ‘finders keepers.’ No, there is no law called ‘finders keepers.’ If you buy a stolen watch and you don’t check it out, you can lose your entire investment.
“It’s just like the art world. You’ve got to look at the provenance of the watch, and not only whether the watch is stolen — you’ve got to do background checks on who you’re dealing with. I have so many clients that call me about scams. They’re about to buy a real watch, but it turns out they end up paying in crypto, they get no watch, they get no money, and they’ve been scammed. You must do due diligence on both the watch and the dealer.
Marinello stressed that even these registers are not always water-tight. “I feel bad for the dealer because I’ve recovered seven watches so far that all had certificates of clearance from one of these watch registers, and they were still stolen! These watch registers don’t have every single stolen watch listed on their database.”
In these instances, the responsibility still lies with the unfortunate dealer. “It doesn’t cover you at all. All it does is say to me that you’re a good dealer that tried to look into the watch you were about to buy and, unfortunately, you bought a stolen watch anyway. I’m not going to treat you the same as somebody who bought a watch from somebody off the street without doing any checks.
“I’m going to say: ‘Oh, you’re a legitimate dealer, I feel bad for you, and I will try to get you your money back.’ And I will ask you as a dealer: ‘Where did you buy it from? Who is this guy that sold you the watch? Where’s your receipt? How much did you pay? Was this a fair price or a red flag?’ And then we’ll go after this guy together for your money.”
The full interview will be published in the August 2026 edition of Watch Insider.
