How does pricing on Vintage watches work please?

[ShiksaGrrrl]

Had a vintage gold Rolex watch but it turned out to be a manual wind when we thought it was an automatic.
There’s no point in my getting into the whole story but suffice to say, when speaking to a vintage dealer and describing the watch, thinking it was automatic, he figured he’d be paying me anywhere from $1,500 - $1,800 dollars Canadian for this piece.

We had to go take it out from a pawn shop and some other jewellery with it first so the bill came to about $1,020.00 but when he looked at the watch, he realized and told us it was not automatic but manual so the price dropped immediately to $900 but since he had paid to get a few things out, he at that point did not feel he owed us any money but had paid an extra $100 he didn’t wish to pay.

At which point because there wasn’t as much value in it as previously thought, I would have given him back his money, all of it and kept the watch but he quickly left holding the watch and just wanted out of there pretending he was angry that he had paid an extra $100, not even giving me time to tell him I was going to keep the watch and give him his money, etc.

As it turns out, the watch did not have the original band but someone had put a 14 carat gold band onto it, but not with pins, but had soldered it on, although it was neatly done I gather.
This person wanted, of course, to take off the band, and buy an original Rolex band and the sell it but he treated me as if I had knowingly just ripped him off for it wasn’t as we expected and he took off quickly without my being able to give him back the money to take the watch back.

So because it was a manual watch and the gold bracelet was not an original and had been soldered on that dropped the price quite a bit but otherwise the watch works.
Because of the manual setting, it dropped from a possible $1,800 to half of that price, only $900 although he had to pay $1,020.00 to get it so he felt that he had overpaid at that point.


So, in the end it weighed 67.2 grams........accounting for about 25 grams for the watch itself, figuring that the told was worth about $642 as it was 14k not 18..........at 26.00 each gram.
If one takes 42 grams at $26 and multiplies it, the figure comes out to $1,092.00 without taking into account what one would pay for the Rolex movement itself, regardless of it being a manual wind rather than an automatic.

When my partner tried to ask him how he came to the figure that he did, $900 which is less than the $1092 plus whatever he would have paid us for the movement, he quickly took off, quite angrily and said that he had over paid by $100 and now having found out that the watch was a manual wind only, he never would have given us more than $900.

Being that this was the case I would have just given him back his money and taken back the watch but he ran away right as my partner was questioning him.

From what information I have given, does this sound right, or not?

I don’t see how we could have gone from just over $1000 to $600 worth of gold without any consideration for the watch itself, whether it be a manual wind or automatic?

I want to understand this first before I go further if anyone here can possibly give me any help with an answer, bearing in mind my information to you is limited.


TIA