Watch Arbitrage Tracker (Patek/Rolex/AP)

Cross-platform price arbitrage tool for professional watch dealers trading Patek Philippe, Rolex, and Audemars Piguet (AP) across Chrono24, WatchBox (now part of The 1916 Company — the 2024 merger of WatchBox + Govberg Jewelers + Hyde Park Jewelers), Bobs Watches, Watchfinder UK, European Watch Co (Boston), and Watches of Switzerland (Mayors / Mappin & Webb / Goldsmiths group). Real-time Telegram alerts when a listing is mispriced cross-platform.

What does Watch Arbitrage Tracker do?

This Actor monitors a list of watch references you care about (e.g. 5711/1A, 116500LN, 15500ST) across 6 major dealer marketplaces simultaneously, computes the cross-platform median price, and fires a Telegram alert the moment any listing drops more than X% (default 5%) below the cross-platform median.

It runs on Apify proxy + Camoufox (a stealthy Firefox fork) so Cloudflare-protected sites like Chrono24 and Bobs Watches are scraped reliably. Schedule it once an hour and you have a real-time arbitrage radar — packaged as a transparent Pay-Per-Event Actor.

Platform coverage (verified 2026-05-06, build 0.1.19)

Source	Status	Notes
Chrono24	✅ Confirmed delivering listings	Largest global marketplace; widest variance — most arbitrage signals come from here
WatchBox / The 1916 Company	✅ Confirmed delivering listings	Premium US dealer (ex-Govberg + ex-Hyde Park merger 2024). Domain: the1916company.com (legacy watchbox.com redirects)
Bobs Watches	✅ Confirmed delivering listings	Rolex specialist, Newport Beach CA. Cloudflare-protected — Camoufox handles
Watchfinder UK	✅ Confirmed delivering listings	UK leader (Richemont Group). Cross-platform median signal validated
European Watch Co (Boston)	⚠️ Discovery in progress (v0.2)	69+ Patek inventory verified but ref-grid filter calibration ongoing
Watches of Switzerland	⚠️ Discovery in progress (v0.2)	Patek pricing hidden ("price on request"); Rolex/AP works when in stock

4 platforms confirmed delivering cross-platform median signals as of build 0.1.19. The 2 remaining sources are wired and run on every scheduled batch — when they return inventory matching your refs, listings flow into the dataset automatically.

Why use Watch Arbitrage Tracker?

• Stop tab-switching: 6 sources (US + UK + EU coverage) monitored on every run, no manual refresh.
• Find spreads other dealers miss: a Daytona listed cheap on WatchBox while three other dealers list it $5K higher on Chrono24 = instant flip. We surface it before it sells.
• TRUE cross-platform median: median is computed across all sources that returned listings for your sub-ref — not single-platform anchoring like Watchcharts or Bezel Club.
• EU↔US arbitrage built-in: simplified import/VAT estimate (+20%) on EU listings so US dealers know the true landed cost.
• Telegram-native: dealers live on Telegram. Alerts land in your group chat with brand+sub-ref, asking price, median, spread % below median, and a one-tap link to the listing.
• Pay only when you win: PPE pricing — you pay $0.05 per ref/day to monitor + $0.50 only when an actual spread is detected and a real Telegram alert is dispatched.

How to use Watch Arbitrage Tracker

Step 1 — Quick Start (just 3 fields)

Pick the watches to monitor + alert sensitivity + alert channel. Smart defaults handle the rest.

Step 2 — Telegram bot setup (one-time, 2 minutes)

Open Telegram, search for @BotFather (verified by Telegram with a blue check):

Tap Message → type /newbot → choose any name (e.g. "Watch Arbitrage"):

BotFather will reply with your bot token (a long string like 8602184201:AAEa...). Copy it. Then paste it into the Telegram setup section of the input form, along with your numeric chat ID (get it via @userinfobot):

Step 3 — (Optional) Filters

Refine which listings count toward arbitrage detection — by condition (new / pre-owned / vintage) and box-and-papers status (full-set / box-only / etc.):

Step 4 — (Optional) Advanced

Defaults work great for most dealers. Tweak only if you have a specific need (e.g. exclude UK/EU sources):

Step 5 — Click Start (or schedule it)

The Actor runs in ~5 minutes. Telegram pings on real spreads with asking price + cross-platform median + a one-tap listing link.

Tip — recommended ref portfolio size: the more refs you monitor, the more cross-platform signals surface. 3-5 refs proves the concept; 15-30 refs catches real flippable spreads multiple times per week. Volume dealers run 50+ refs.

Input

The Apify Console form is grouped in sections (Quick Start, Telegram setup, Filters, Advanced). Smart defaults work for most dealers.

Field	Type	Description
references	string[]	Precise reference numbers recommended (e.g. 5711/1A-010, 116500LN, 15500ST.OO.1220ST.04). Model names like Nautilus, Daytona, Royal Oak are accepted but produce less precise spread alerts (sub-models conflated).
spread_sensitivity	enum string	"3" to "20" — % below cross-platform median to trigger alert. Default "5" (recommended balance).
alert_channel	enum	telegram / dataset_only. Default telegram. (Email digest coming v0.2 — see "What's new" for details on why it's deferred.)
alert_telegram_bot_token	string (secret)	Bot token from @BotFather. Required for Telegram.
alert_telegram_chat_id	string	Numeric chat ID via @userinfobot.
filter_conditions	enum[]	Only include listings with these conditions: new, like-new, very-good, good, fair, vintage, pre-owned, unknown.
strict_condition_matching	bool	When true: exclude listings where condition couldn't be reliably scraped. Pair with Bobs + Watchfinder + European Watch for clean filtering.
filter_box_papers	enum[]	full-set, box-and-papers, papers-only, box-only, watch-only, unknown.
platforms	enum[]	Default: all 6 active. Hodinkee deprecated (acquired by WoS Group, inventory winding down) but kept in enum for backward-compat.
max_listings_per_ref_per_platform	int	Cap to control compute cost (default 25).

Example input:

{
  "references": ["5711/1A-010", "116500LN", "124060", "15500ST.OO.1220ST.04"],
  "platforms": ["chrono24", "watchbox", "bobs", "watchfinder", "europeanwatch", "watchesofswitzerland"],
  "spread_sensitivity": "5",
  "alert_channel": "telegram",
  "alert_telegram_chat_id": "123456789",
  "filter_conditions": ["new", "like-new", "very-good", "pre-owned"],
  "strict_condition_matching": false
}

Output

Three artifacts per run:

1. Dataset — every individual listing scraped (CSV / JSON / Excel export).
2. MARKET_SNAPSHOT (KV store) — per-reference median, min, max, count across all 6 platforms.
3. ARBITRAGE_OPPORTUNITIES (KV store) — only the listings that crossed the spread threshold.

Dataset table view (Apify Console "Output" tab)

Every individual listing scraped, with reference, brand, marketplace, price (USD-normalized), original currency, year, dealer, location, and direct listing URL. Sortable, filterable, exportable as JSON / CSV / Excel:

ARBITRAGE_OPPORTUNITIES (key-value store) — only the spreads that fired

Real arbitrage opportunities from a build 0.1.18 cloud run, formatted as JSON. Includes the full listing object plus the cross-platform median_usd + spread_usd + spread_pct:

MARKET_SNAPSHOT (key-value store) — per-sub-ref aggregate stats

Median / min / max / count + the list of platforms that contributed listings, for every sub-ref detected on the run:

Apify Console run summary

Every run lands in the Console with a clean status header (Succeeded / Failed), runtime, compute units, total cost, and links to the dataset + KV store + live view URL:

Sample dataset item (Patek 5711/1A-010 listed on Chrono24):

{
  "ref": "5711/1A-010",
  "brand": "patek-philippe",
  "platform": "chrono24",
  "title": "Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A-010 - Calibre 324 S C",
  "price_usd": 110982,
  "price_orig": 102450,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "listing_url": "https://www.chrono24.com/patekphilippe/nautilus--id45152307.htm",
  "dealer": "European Watch Co.",
  "condition": "Very good",
  "condition_normalized": "very-good",
  "box_papers": "full-set",
  "year": 2018,
  "location": "DE",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-05T15:55:00.000Z"
}

Sample arbitrage opportunity (real result from build 0.1.18 cloud run, 2026-05-06):

{
  "ref": "124060",
  "brand": "rolex",
  "median_usd": 13988,
  "spread_usd": 3938,
  "spread_pct": 28.2,
  "listing": {
    "ref": "124060",
    "platform": "watchbox",
    "title": "Rolex Submariner No Date 124060",
    "price_usd": 10050,
    "dealer": "1916 Company (ex-WatchBox)",
    "listing_url": "https://www.the1916company.com/.../124060-..."
  },
  "detected_at": "2026-05-06T00:46:42.000Z"
}

This was a real cross-platform spread: WatchBox listed a Submariner 124060 at $10,050 while the median across Chrono24 + Bobs + WatchBox was $13,988 — a 28.2% spread, ~$3,900 below market in plain dollars.

Telegram alert format (real screenshots from a live run)

This is what actually arrived in our test Telegram chat from the build 0.1.19 run on 2026-05-06 — three real arbitrage opportunities on a Rolex Submariner Kermit (126610LV):

Each alert includes:

• Brand + sub-reference (Rolex — 126610LV)
• Asking price + the platform name ($11,900 on Chrono24 — clean platform labels, not raw enums)
• Cross-platform median computed across every source that returned listings
• Spread in both dollars and % below median
• Year + dealer fields when scraped reliably
• Asking price disclaimer — listed price excl. shipping, taxes, customs (varies by buyer location)
• Direct link to the listing on the source platform

The asking-price disclaimer is important: dealer-listed price ≠ delivered price. Add ~10-20% for shipping + import duty + sales tax depending on your buyer's geography. The alert reflects the asking price the dealer typed on their listing page — that's the price you negotiate from.

Note: arbitrage stats are computed per sub-reference (e.g. 5711/1A-010 vs 7011/1G are tracked as separate sub-models even when both come from a Nautilus search). This eliminates false positives where a ladies' Nautilus would flag as a "spread" against the men's median.

Data table — fields per listing

Field	Description
ref	Reference number you queried
brand	Auto-detected: patek-philippe / rolex / audemars-piguet
platform	chrono24 / watchbox / bobs / watchfinder / europeanwatch / watchesofswitzerland
title	Listing title from the source page
price_usd	Normalized to USD via static FX (EUR/GBP/CHF/etc.)
price_orig	Raw price as listed
currency	Original currency
condition	Raw condition string from source page (e.g. "Very good", "Pre-owned")
condition_normalized	Normalized to new / like-new / very-good / good / fair / vintage / pre-owned / unknown
box_papers	Detected box & papers status: full-set / box-and-papers / papers-only / box-only / watch-only / unknown
dealer	Dealer / seller name
year	Manufacture year if available
location	Country code if available
listing_url	Direct link to the listing
scraped_at	ISO timestamp

Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — you only pay for what the Actor actually does. See current pricing on the Apify Store page (live rates and plan-based discounts shown there).

Four chargeable events:

Event	When
actor-start	Once per run
reference-monitored	Per reference scanned across all 6 platforms
apify-default-dataset-item	Per listing scraped
spread-alert-triggered	Primary event — only when a real arbitrage opportunity is dispatched (Telegram or email)

Discounts apply to higher Apify plans (Bronze / Silver / Gold) — visible on the Store page pricing tab.

Spending limit respected: the Actor reads ACTOR_MAX_TOTAL_CHARGE_USD and stops gracefully when your run budget is reached, so a runaway alert spike never blows past the cap you set in the Apify Console.

For light usage, set alert_channel: "dataset_only" to skip all spread-alert-triggered charges and read the dataset directly. For full real-time coverage with Telegram alerts, schedule hourly with a representative ref portfolio.

How spread detection actually works (read this once)

A common question: "Why do most of my alerts come from Chrono24, with only occasional ones from WatchBox / Bobs / Watchfinder?"

That's the mathematically expected behavior — and it's actually the value of cross-platform median:

1. Cross-platform median = the consensus price. The actor computes the median price for each sub-ref across every source that returned listings (e.g. Chrono24 + WatchBox + Bobs for 124060).
2. Outlier listings below median = arbitrage opportunities. A spread alert fires when ANY individual listing on ANY platform sits more than X% (default 5%) below that consensus.
3. Where do outliers come from? Mostly from Chrono24 because:
   • Chrono24 has the highest listing volume per ref (typically 8-12 listings vs 1-2 on dealer sites)
   • More listings = more variance → statistically more outliers below median
   • Independent dealers on Chrono24 have wider pricing dispersion than US/UK retail dealers (who maintain stable floor prices to protect their own margin)
4. WatchBox + Bobs + Watchfinder mostly anchor the median. Their inventory is small but their pricing is stable and trustworthy — they're the floor that defines what the watch is really worth. They occasionally trigger their own alerts when they get aggressive on a single piece (e.g. the 124060 example above: WatchBox at $10,050 vs the $13,988 cross-platform median).

Practical takeaway: monitor 15-30 refs (not 3-5) to catch the 1-2 weekly cross-platform spreads on US/UK dealer sites. Chrono24 will dominate alert volume by design — that's where the inefficiency is. The dealer-site signals are rarer but typically larger when they fire.

Tips

• Use precise references for accurate alerts: 5711/1A-010 beats Nautilus. Sub-models (5711 vs 7011 vs 5990) are tracked separately so a ladies' Nautilus never pollutes the men's median.
• Strict condition filtering: pair strict_condition_matching: true with platforms: [bobs, watchfinder, europeanwatch] (the 3 sources that scrape condition reliably) for clean "new only" arbitrage.
• Anti-bot: Chrono24 and Bobs Watches sit behind Cloudflare. The Actor uses Camoufox + rotating Apify proxy by default — no config needed.
• Watchfinder UK uses canonical brand+series pages instead of free-text search (which returns no-results for raw refs). The url builder maps known refs to the right grid.
• European Watch Co lacks reliable site search — the Actor hits the brand grid (/brand/rolex etc.) and filters cards by ref-digit substring.
• Watches of Switzerland hides Patek pricing as "price on request"; those listings are skipped. Rolex/AP listings show full pricing.
• Hodinkee Shop is deprecated as of 2026-05-04 (acquired by Watches of Switzerland Group, inventory winding down). It's removed from the default platforms array but still accepted in the enum for backward-compat scheduled runs.
• EU/US arbitrage: prices on EU listings are not auto-adjusted in the dataset (you see the raw EUR→USD conversion), but the alert text flags location so you can apply your own landed-cost math.
• Schedule it: the Actor is designed for hourly cron. Use Apify Schedules → "Run every hour".
• Telegram setup: @BotFather → /newbot → token. Add bot to your dealer group → @userinfobot in the group → copy chat ID.

What's new (build 0.1.19 — 2026-05-06)

• Cross-platform median delivering ✅: build 0.1.18 cloud test confirmed real cross-platform spreads detected on 124060 (Chrono24 + WatchBox + Bobs aggregated) and 116500LN (Chrono24 + WatchBox aggregated). Top spread example: WatchBox 124060 at $10,050 vs $13,988 cross-platform median = 28.2% below market.
• WatchBox / The 1916 Company URL pattern fix: previous URL routed to a brand-suggest splash page (0 tiles); switched to /search/?q=REF which returns the real product grid.
• Bobs Watches search endpoint fix: switched from stale /{brand}-{model}-{page}.html catalog URLs to /shop?query=REF (the actual search endpoint exposed by their homepage form). Cloudflare interstitial timeout extended to 45s.
• Ref filter regression fix: brand-grid platforms (European Watch Co, Watchfinder, WoS) now match BASE prefix (5711/1A) instead of full sub-variant (5711/1A-010) so legitimate cards aren't stripped. Aggregator's extractSubRef then groups detected sub-variants for accurate median.
• Honest pricing in alerts: every Telegram message now includes _Asking price excl. shipping, taxes, customs (varies by buyer location)._ to match what the user sees if they click through to the dealer page.
• Platform names in Telegram: alerts now show WatchBox / The 1916 Company (not the raw watchbox enum). Same for all 6 sources.
• Honest dispatcher reporting: email_sent no longer reports true after a silent failure. (Bug D — was masking a real problem.)
• Email dropped from MVP (returning v0.2): Apify's Actor.call('apify/send-mail') requires FULL_PERMISSIONS scope which the sandboxed runtime token doesn't get for public Actors. Rather than ship a feature that fails silently for end users, email is hidden from the input form. v0.2 will integrate Resend / MailerSend HTTP API directly. Telegram alerts work end-to-end today.

Earlier — build 0.1.17 (2026-05-05)

• 5 critical accuracy bugs fixed: strict ref-matching per platform, trimmed median (drops outlier listings), 30% min price floor (skip wrong-watch matches), model-name title matching, and sub-reference grouping (the big one — distinct sub-models get distinct medians).
• Spending limit respect: every charge call now honors ACTOR_MAX_TOTAL_CHARGE_USD.
• Filter by condition + box & papers with optional strict mode.
• MCP server (Apify Standby) for Claude Desktop / Cursor / ChatGPT — see section below.

FAQ

Is scraping these sites legal? The Actor only reads publicly-listed prices (no login, no PII). All listings are pages already indexed by Google. Always confirm compliance with each platform's ToS for your specific use case.

Why only Patek/Rolex/AP? These are the three brands with deep dealer arbitrage — high enough listing volume across multiple platforms to get a meaningful median. We may add Vacheron / Lange / Richard Mille based on demand.

What if a platform changes its DOM? Each crawler degrades gracefully — a broken selector logs a warning and the run continues with partial data from the other 5 platforms.

Can I add more platforms? Open an issue and tag your dealer use case. Adding an additional platform is ~30 min of crawler work using the existing template structure.

Disclaimer Prices are estimates. Always verify the listing manually before any transaction. The Actor is a research tool, not a trading bot — final buy/sell decisions are yours.

Source notes (history & dealer recognition)

If you're new to the secondary luxury watch market, here's the dealer landscape this Actor monitors:

• Chrono24 — the dominant global marketplace (Karlsruhe, Germany; founded 2003). 500K+ active listings; the de-facto reference price for any Patek/Rolex/AP because of pure listing volume. Independent dealers worldwide list here; widest pricing dispersion = where most arbitrage signals come from.
• WatchBox / The 1916 Company — premium US dealer, originally WatchBox (Pennsylvania, founded 2017 by ex-Govberg leadership). In 2024, WatchBox merged with Govberg Jewelers (Philadelphia, est. 1916) and Hyde Park Jewelers (Denver) to form The 1916 Company — the name nods to Govberg's 1916 founding date. The watchbox.com domain redirects to the1916company.com since Feb 2025. Dealers still call it "WatchBox" colloquially. Inventory blends ex-WatchBox + ex-Govberg + ex-Hyde Park stock plus new acquisitions. Strong Patek + Rolex; expanding AP.
• Bobs Watches — Newport Beach CA, est. 1999, Rolex specialist (some Omega/Tudor). Known for transparent buy/sell pricing and long-tenured CEO Paul Altieri. Cloudflare-protected; we use Camoufox + Apify proxy rotation to scrape reliably.
• Watchfinder UK — UK leader (Maidstone, est. 2002). Acquired by Richemont Group in 2018. The cleanest box-and-papers metadata of any source we monitor. Free-text search returns no-results for raw refs, so the Actor maps each ref to its canonical brand+series page.
• European Watch Co (EWC) — Boston-based independent dealer, est. 2010. Strong Patek inventory (69+ pieces verified 2026-05). Site search is unreliable so we hit the brand grid directly and filter cards by base ref prefix.
• Watches of Switzerland Group (WoS) — UK + US retail chain group, includes Mayors (US), Mappin & Webb (UK), Goldsmiths (UK), and the WoS-branded boutiques. Patek pricing displayed as "price on request" and is therefore skipped; Rolex/AP work when in stock.
• Hodinkee Shop — formerly an independent editorial+commerce site (NYC). Acquired by Watches of Switzerland Group in 2024; commerce side wound down through 2026. Removed from default platforms list 2026-05-04 but kept in the enum so any pre-existing scheduled runs don't break.

Why those 6? They're the largest English-language sources for Patek/Rolex/AP secondary listings — together they represent the bulk of pricing visibility for English-speaking professional dealers (US/UK/CA/AU). German-language Chrono24 covers EU listing flow. Asian-Pacific dealer flow is on Chrono24 + private Telegram groups not yet wired in.

Use as MCP server (Claude Desktop / Cursor / ChatGPT)

In addition to the batch crawler (above), this Actor doubles as a Model Context Protocol server in Apify Standby mode. Connect your AI agent and it can query your live arbitrage feed in plain language: "Show me the biggest Daytona spreads right now", "What's the median price of a 5711/1A this week?"

Three tools are exposed over both REST and MCP JSON-RPC:

Tool	Purpose
get_arbitrage_snapshot	Top N current arbitrage opportunities, optionally filtered by ref + min spread %
get_market_stats	Per-ref median, min, max, count across platforms
get_listings_by_ref	Raw listings for a ref, filterable by condition + box/papers, paginated

Data freshness: results reflect the most recent batch run (you should schedule the batch crawler to run hourly or however often you need fresh data). If the cache is older than 60 minutes, the server returns 503 with Retry-After.

Claude Desktop config

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "watch-arbitrage": {
      "url": "https://kazkn--watch-arbitrage-mcp.apify.actor/mcp?token=apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE",
      "transport": "streamable-http"
    }
  }
}

Replace apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE with your token from console.apify.com/account/integrations.

Cursor / Windsurf

Same URL — add it under the MCP section of your IDE settings, transport streamable-http.

Plain HTTP (curl / your backend)

# Top 10 spreads
curl -X POST https://kazkn--watch-arbitrage-mcp.apify.actor/mcp/arbitrage \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"min_spread_pct": 5, "limit": 10}'

# Market stats for two refs
curl -X POST https://kazkn--watch-arbitrage-mcp.apify.actor/mcp/market-stats \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"references": ["5711/1A", "116500LN"]}'

# Listings: full-set 5711/1A only, first 10
curl -X POST https://kazkn--watch-arbitrage-mcp.apify.actor/mcp/listings \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"ref": "5711/1A", "box_papers": ["full-set"], "limit": 10}'

MCP query pricing

MCP queries use the same Pay-Per-Event meter as the batch crawler:

• get_arbitrage_snapshot → $0.50 per call (spread-alert-triggered) — you only pay when you ask for the value-extracting view
• get_market_stats → free read (no event charge)
• get_listings_by_ref → $0.001 per listing returned (apify-default-dataset-item)

Support

• Issues / feature requests: GitHub Issues tab on this Actor
• Custom dealer integrations (private feeds, SMS alerts, …): contact via Apify message
• See also: Vinted Smart Scraper — the kazkn portfolio's flagship recurring scraper.