Who we are
What it's about
Somebody wore it first
A watch that has been running since 1968 has been places neither of us will ever know about. It sat on a wrist through a phone call that changed somebody's life. It got caught on a car door. Somebody wound it, set it, took it off at night and put it back on in the morning, several thousand times, without once thinking about it.
That is the part nobody can manufacture, and it is most of what we are actually selling. Steel and a movement you can buy new, and new will be better made. What you cannot buy new is fifty years of somebody's ordinary mornings.
So we write down everything we know about a watch before it goes out. You are being handed something that already belonged to someone. You should know as much about it as we do.
Meet the team
Who you are dealing with
I have spent the last five years building Biel Watches into something I am proud of, selling modern watches and a growing handful of vintage pieces to collectors who care about getting it right. Vintage was always the part I actually cared about. A mechanical watch that has been running for fifty years is doing something a new one cannot do yet. Every scratch on it, every dial that has faded into a color the factory never printed, every movement still ticking since before I was born. All of it happened to somebody first. A new watch has all of that ahead of it. These already went and did it. After years of wanting to go deeper into this, I am finally in a position to do it properly, and that is where Biel Vintage came from. If you are after something specific, tell us. We will go find it.
I was never gifted a watch. At twenty five I bought my first one myself, a gold-plated Gruen Precision, because I thought James Bond was cool and I could not afford the solid gold Omega Seamaster my grandfather wore. Everything since then has been hours. Reading, researching, arguing with other collectors and dealers, trading up, and slowly working out what I actually liked rather than what I was supposed to like. Collecting is equal parts difficult and rewarding, which is most of the appeal. It keeps pulling me further into the houses that made these things and the decades they came out of. JLC, IWC, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Universal Genève, Patek Philippe. If you are working out your next piece, or something meant to outlast you and get handed down, I would rather talk it through than sell you the first thing available.
Why deal with us
Authenticated in house
Every watch is examined and condition graded before it earns a place here.
Insured transit
Fully insured and tracked, both directions, door to door.
Real buyers
A network of collectors who know what they are looking at.
One clean payout
It sells, the buyer clears, you are paid in full in a single transfer.
A watch deserves the right next owner.
Consign with Biel and reach collectors who understand it. One rate, quoted up front, and one clean payout.