- So what's funny, is that on the He Spoke Style website
or, well, in the Dashboard section of WordPress
on the He Spoke Style website,
there is a draft of a post
that I started writing on August 22nd, 2018,
so just over two years ago.
And the title of that post is
The Unbelievable Story Of How I Got A 5711 At Retail.
I never finished writing that post,
and if you consider the title of this video,
you're probably wondering, "What happened?"
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So everyone knows that the blue dial 5711
is an almost impossible watch to find at retail.
It's extremely desirable.
Everyone wants it.
If you haven't watched my watch collection video already,
and you don't know the story
of how I came by 5711 at retail,
I'll just kind of recap here really quickly.
So when my wife and I bought our house
about two and a half years ago,
there's a Patek AD just around the corner.
So the first time I went in there,
the owner asked me what I wanted,
I told him, "What everyone wants," he laughed at me.
I said, "Go ahead, put my name on the list."
And by the way, I live pretty much right around the corner.
Some time goes by,
I stop in occasionally just to remind him
that I'm interested
and that I do live pretty much right around the corner.
Some more time goes by, like maybe two or three months,
and then I'm driving and I get a phone call.
He's got the watch and it's mine If I want it.
There was a little agonizing going on
because A, it's a lot of money,
and B, we were going on our honeymoon not long after that.
So long story short, I did the deal.
I traded a couple of watches and paid the rest in cash.
I love that watch.
I wore it a lot. Very versatile.
And I know a lot of people are probably wondering
"Are you worried about wearing it
and scratching it up and stuff like that?"
And honestly, no.
I feel like if you don't wear your watches,
regardless of the price, I think that's the wrong approach.
I think you should enjoy the things you have and use them.
Of course, I take care of it,
but I never really had any fear when I was wearing it.
So, okay, yeah. I loved it.
I had this crazy watch that nobody could get their hands on.
So what exactly happened to prompt me
to consider selling it?
Well, I'll tell you.
So I have the Chrono24 app, and in that app,
it has a section where you can put in your watch collection.
You choose the exact watch you have,
and you put it in the purchase price,
then what it does is it basically tracks the market,
the demand for that particular watch,
as well as what they are trading
or selling for on the secondary market,
and then it will show you the percentage increase
or decrease in value based on all of those factors.
So I had put the 5711 in my collection in that app,
like pretty soon after I bought it,
and that was kind of the last I thought of it.
Until one in day in mid-2019
when I happened to open up the app
and looked at how much this watch had appreciated.
I knew that secondary market prices were really high
for the 5711, but I guess I wasn't aware
of just how out of control that it had gotten.
Now, I want you to understand
that I do not buy watches as investments.
I buy them because I love them
and I buy them because I want to wear them.
Having said that, when I saw what that watch was going for,
don't worry, you will find out the price,
for the first time I started to consider selling it,
and here are three reasons why.
As I mentioned,
I had been kind of peripherally aware of the value
of the 5711 on the secondary market.
It had been going up and up and up,
and literally from the day I bought mine,
people were trying to buy it right off my wrist.
It's kind of insane, the hysteria around this watch.
And the price that it was valued on the secondary market,
I thought there can't be any way
that this thing goes any higher.
A basically brand new steel sports watch,
and if I ever wanted to sell it, now was the time.
So I checked around with some collector friends of mine
and they basically share the same opinion.
Second, the watch started to take on a different persona
in, let's call it, the broader watch universe.
Because it is so ridiculously impossible
for just a normal person without a huge history
of spending a lot of money at an AD to get one.
There was a lot of negative energy,
not directed at me personally,
but just for the watch in general.
So it became this sort of really ultra elite,
middle finger to the world,
and I just didn't really like that whole connotation.
I loved the watch.
I don't choose things based on what people think of them,
but that was just a little something that I had in my mind.
Third, there was a lot we could do with that money.
As you'll remember, we had just moved into this house
and there were definitely
some improvements we wanted to make.
We had probably a year or so left on our vehicle loans
so we could pay those off,
any little credit card debt we had,
we could just get rid of.
So between the timing,
the negative sentiment around the 5711,
all of the things that we could do with the profit
and the fact that I didn't really have
any kind of sentimental attachment to the watch
really kind of helped me make the decision.
The craziest part about this whole story
is how this deal went down.
Now, what I want you to know about me
before we get into this part of the story
is that I am not fabulously wealthy.
I've worked very hard for the things that I have.
I've probably spent a little too much money
on things I shouldn't have like 5711.
So what I want to say is that if you are shocked
by the numbers you're going to see, I am too.
This is not just another day in the life of Brian Sacawa.
Anyway, so understanding the timeline here is important.
It's a Saturday, it's about 10 o'clock in the morning,
I'm at the gym, I texted my friend,
Eric Wind of Wind Vintage.
He's a vintage watch dealer.
Told him the deal, told them the price
and asked if he'd be interested.
It's not really his market because he is more
in the vintage watch world, and this is a modern watch,
but he said he'd definitely helped broker the sale.
So it just so happened that he had a client
who was looking for a 5711, blue dial,
and he was gonna reach out to him for me.
Literally, 30 minutes later, I'm still at the gym,
Eric texted me back and says he got one yesterday,
but I might have someone else
that I can reach out to on Monday.
So I texted another friend,
really big figure in the watch world.
Tell him what I'm doing when I'm selling it for,
would he be interested.
Definitely had some friends who'd be interested,
but he didn't feel comfortable offering it to them
for what I was asking.
Okay, so now it's noon, I'm sitting at the pool
and I reach out to a guy who's been trying
to buy this thing off my wrist since I got it.
Again, here's the deal.
It's yours for this price.
Of course, I tried to rip his eyes out a little bit.
He countered it, wasn't insulting.
It was actually more than a fair price, and that was it.
Within a two-hour time span, sitting at the pool,
I sold this watch.
All right, so what everyone wants to know,
What did I sell it for?
Let's go over the numbers.
So the price of the 5711 at retail was 29,980.
I traded a couple of watches and I got $5,000 for the trade,
which made the final purchase price 24,880.
I know it's ridiculous and a ton of money for a watch.
So I sold the watch for $68,000,
which gave me a total profit of $43,120.
Do I miss it? Sometimes, but not really.
Do I regret selling it? Not at all.
And honestly, it was one
of the best investments I ever made
even though I did not approach buying this watch
as an investment.
I wore it a lot. I had my fun with it.
It was quite an experience
and my collection continues to evolve.