How we source our data
A confident-looking number with no lineage is worse than no number at all. So every figure on WatchMerit carries a badge telling you what it is built from, how many observations sit behind it, and how fresh they are. Tap any badge on the site to see that breakdown.
The four bases
Counted directly from real data — dealer listings we have indexed, or sale results published by an auction house. Nothing is inferred.
Calculated from observed data: medians, spreads, trends. The arithmetic is ours; the inputs are real.
A third-party fact we are reporting, such as a manufacturer reference price, case dimension or production year.
Editorial judgement, used only where the market is too thin to compute anything. Always badged, never dressed up as a measurement.
How confidence is set
Thresholds are deliberately conservative. A reference with two listings will never be shown as high confidence, no matter how tightly those two prices agree.
Where prices come from
- Published auction results first. Closed sales from major houses are the only prices that record what someone actually paid. When we hold three or more from the last twelve months, the median hammer price becomes the market median.
- Dealer asking prices second. Where there are no closed sales, we take the median of currently-listed prices from vendor sites we index. Asking prices sit above transacted prices, so we label this a ceiling rather than a value.
- A curated benchmark last. For thin references we publish a researched benchmark and badge it as an estimate. It is never presented as an observation.
Currency and landed cost
Non-AUD prices are converted using daily published exchange rates. For overseas listings we show a landed estimate that adds import duty and GST at the rates published by Australian Border Force, plus a flat insured-freight allowance. Duty and freight are estimates; the underlying price is not.
What we deliberately do not do
- We do not invent transaction data or blend in prices we cannot point at.
- We do not index marketplaces and aggregators — only listings published by the vendor selling the watch.
- We do not give financial advice. Ratings describe observed market behaviour, not a recommendation to trade.
- We do not hide a weak sample behind a confident number. Low confidence is shown, always.
Something look wrong?
If a figure does not match what you are seeing in the market, tell us and we will trace it back to the source. Report a data issue.