Guardian of Time London: Are they reputable?

marcushogan37

They say that the watch isn't in their showroom but in a safe deposit and they'll ship it to either their showroom or my house here in Ireland once payment is received.........

D danowat

IMO, any seller should allow you to press the flesh if you wanted too, I'm not even 100% convinced many of these sellers on C24 actually have the watches they list.

MRC

Agree on both points. I rather suspect that many watch outlets, especially grey, work the way car dealers do. I ordered an new Audi from the local dealer and was told it would be three months. A week later got a phone call "Your car is here now, another dealer wanted a Porsche 944 we had in stock and they had the Audi in the right color, so we traded." Yes, it was long ago -- and colour was spelled that way there 😗 So when a punter appears [Audio: Grytpype-Thynne "We've found a Charlie"] they phone or email around to find the actual goods.

dtf

You should have bought the 944.

Graham57

Is it just me or is anyone else suspicious of this Guardian of Time. I have a friend who is Omega AD and he says they have 40%in Omega. This chap seems to be selling for -35% off. If you take the Chrono24 Trusted checkout fee off as well then how is that possible? Another poster said he wouldn’t give a VAT receipt which worries me as what if they are avoiding this? Could the watch be seized if fraud is found? Was looking at a Speedmaster 57 and seemed too good to be true.
Mmmm

Calibre11

What some grey dealers could do is to source watches from outside the UK (maybe even claiming back the sales tax on export from the country the watch was bought in). If those watches were then imported into the UK but not declared, then no sales tax or import duties would be paid in the UK...which would mean no VAT receipt. You then compare their prices to the correct UK price which has VAT included and there is 20% price difference instantly.

To be clear, I have no idea about Guardian of Time and how they source their watches, so the above is not a comment on Guardian of Time...just an example as to how a grey dealer could work the system. You should ask them straight out- they may well have a totally different way of achieving low prices (buying aged stock? lower margins?)

dtf

I find it interesting that the watch industry complains about the grey market, but pushes huge amounts of stock through it. It seems like the industry knows it can't move their desired amount of stock through ADs at rrp

Graham57

Is it just me or is anyone else suspicious of this Guardian of Time. I have a friend who is Omega AD and he says they have 40%in Omega. This chap seems to be selling for -35% off. If you take the Chrono24 Trusted checkout fee off as well then how is that possible? Another poster said he wouldn’t give a VAT receipt which worries me as what if they are avoiding this? Could the watch be seized if fraud is found? Was looking at a Speedmaster 57 and seemed too good to be true.
Mmmm

OttoWilliam

I always think that if i known reputable grey market dealer here. The one that is establish with a physical store not just some rich bugger on social media that sells watch (that we have plenty), i might be able to afford more watch. Seriously, paying at retail price every time is getting more and more "taxing".

Aquagraph

My only real experience of this was Iconic Watches they have a proper shop and offer about 20% off. As far as I can tell what they do is buy from ADs in other countries exploiting the exchange rate. My watch came from an AD in Italy.