About The Watch Vault

There is no official cutoff. In the trade, vintage generally means a watch made before about 1980, before quartz and computer-controlled machining changed how watches were built. The collection here runs from American pocket watches of the 1880s through Swiss and American wristwatches of the 1970s, with a few later pieces listed separately as modern. Antique is the older word and usually means more than a hundred years old, which now covers most pocket watches and the earliest wristwatches.

Most dates in a listing come from the movement serial number. The large American factories kept production ledgers, and the records for Elgin, Waltham, Illinois and Hamilton survive, so a serial can often be matched to a production year and sometimes to a grade and a run. Several Swiss houses keep archives or published serial tables that give a year or a narrow range, and whenever a movement can be looked up, it is. Case serials, case-maker stamps, hallmarks and dial printing fill in the rest. When the evidence gives a range rather than a year, the listing says circa and gives the range.

Running means the watch ticks. It says nothing about how it keeps time or how long it will keep going. Serviced means the movement was taken fully apart, cleaned, inspected, lubricated, reassembled and regulated, with the seals replaced where a case has them. A service history is stated in a listing only when it can be verified; a previous owner's word is reported as exactly that. A recently serviced and regulated vintage movement can hold time well, often within a small number of seconds a day on the wrist. One that has not seen a bench in decades will usually drift and may stop, and should be serviced before it is worn daily.

The parts most often replaced over a watch's life are the crystal, the crown, the mainspring, the hands and the dial finish. A crystal or a mainspring is a consumable and does not affect value. A refinished dial does, and so do replacement hands or a later crown, so each listing names what is original as far as can be determined and what is not. Lume that has aged to tan or brown is original; bright, even white lume on a 1940s watch has been redone. Fine scratches inside a case back are the marks of past service openings, and a worn hallmark is honest wear, not damage.

Solid gold is marked by karat, 9k, 10k, 14k or 18k, or by the European fineness numbers 375, 417, 585 and 750. Gold filled is a thick layer of gold bonded to a base metal, marked with the karat of the gold and often its proportion, as in 10K GF or 1/20 12K GF; by American law the gold had to be at least one twentieth of the case weight. Rolled gold plate and gold plate are thinner layers, and gold electroplate thinner still. Sterling is marked 925, Swiss silver cases are often 935, and American pocket watch cases in coin silver are 900. Stainless steel cases appear from the 1930s and are usually marked; a case marked base metal, or with a chrome or nickel finish, is plated brass. Brassing, where the base metal shows through a gold filled case at the corners and edges, is reported in every listing where it exists.

Nearly every vintage chronograph is manual wind; automatic chronographs arrived in 1969 and are the exception. The movement families that come up most in the collection are the Valjoux 23 and 72, the Landeron 39, 48 and 50, the Venus 170, the Lemania 15TL and the Pierce 134. Column-wheel movements such as the Valjoux 72 and Venus 170 cost more to build and to service than cam-switched movements such as the Landeron 48, and both kinds can run well. The listing names the caliber, the number of registers, and what the dial scales are for: a tachymeter reads speed over a measured distance, a telemeter reads distance from the gap between a flash and its sound, and a pulsometer reads heart rate.

American pocket watches are described by grade and jewel count, and the best of them by the word adjusted, which means the movement was regulated at the factory in several positions and often for temperature. Railroad grade is a specific standard, not a compliment: from the 1890s most railroads required an open-face, lever-set watch of at least 17 jewels, adjusted to five positions, and the factory ledgers show which grades qualified. A hunter case has a hinged cover over the dial; an open face does not, and the two take movements built with the stem in different positions. Movement and case usually carry separate serial numbers, because the factory made the movement and a case company made the case. A case with a different maker's name is normal, not a sign of a swap.

Wind a manual watch once a day at the same time, until the crown stops. Set the date on a calendar watch only when the hands are in the lower half of the dial, since the date mechanism on most vintage calibers is engaged between roughly nine at night and three in the morning. Keep it away from water, magnets and hard knocks; the gaskets of the era are long past their working life, whatever the case back says about being waterproof. Have it serviced about every five years, sooner if it stops, gains or loses badly, or the crown feels gritty. Treat the strap as a consumable.

Before buying from anyone, ask for photographs of the movement, not only the dial; ask for the caliber and the serial so you can check the date yourself; ask what has been replaced and when it was last serviced; and ask whether the dial has been refinished. The listings here are written so those answers are already on the page.