I was just thinking, with the Internet, there's definitely a huge boom in interest because everything is online. Information, pictures, interests groups, Instagram (so many distractions)

how did you collect your watches? Was it a local meet up? What inspired you to choose the models and brands to collect?

I figure if there wasn't Internet, I would be pretty boring and just wear a g shock.

 

I got on Timezone in 1996 when I was 17.

Before that, I trolled classifieds, went to flea markets, antique shows, pawn shops, etc.

Wingates Watches sent out Xerox black and white booklets to a mailing list...

It was very basic.

 

It’s difficult to believe what we considered normal when we were teenagers!

 

There were second hand watch and jewelry shops, plus pawn shops in the late 70’s, thru the 80’s. Maybe a watchmaker might have something. I’d troll at least once a week. I got both my first Speedmaster and my 1016 Explorer that way, by accident. You had to invest a lot more time. For a year worth of visits, I might pick up half a dozen things, most of which was because I was bored; in all that looking, I never found another Explorer or Speedmaster worth having.

I collected vintage fountain pens in the late 80’s and early 90’s; the vast majority of serious trades and acquisitions occurred at regional fountain pen shows around the US, some of which I traveled to. There were also guys who did garage sales, vintage stores and estate sales, only looking special pens they could sell to their known customers; many of those guys didn’t even keep pens for themselves, just to resell.

It’s both easier and harder now. Back in the day, as an old blues song went “I don’t buy nothing unless I’ve got my hands on it”, you handled stuff before committing. Before the store owner was paid for the Explorer, for example, I walked the watch to a known watchmaker to open the back, so the movement could be examined. It is SO much harder buying stuff from photos.



Two hard rubber, eyedropper fountain pens from the decade before 1910.

 

How did you check for stuff if its authentic or what not? also i'm pretty sure back then there were plenty of "Deals" to be made eh?

 

You got burned sometime. But without the resources of the internet, there were dealers who didn’t know the current value of some of their stuff, so you could also get a screaming deal here or there.

 

mmm and how would you know the current value and such?

Sorry i'm still trying to figure out stuff; because pre-internet days, i was into collecting magic/trading cards... and the only reference we have are the magic the gathering magazines. Did some star wars gaming cards trading as well but again the trade value was only determined by people who actually played the game... so it varies.

 

From other places I looked. I also went to a lot of estate auctions myself for a while.


Here’s a Rolex I found at an estate auction in the late 80’s. They had over a dozen of them, nearly all white faced with the date and entirely boring to me. I loved this mercury colored dial without a date. I think it cost me a little over $200. The white faced date watches all sold for more, by about a hundred bucks. I also bought a drop dead gorgeous Vacheron & Constantin size 16 pocket watch from the late 19th century in an 18k rose gold hunter case. That cost considerably more. I’ve obviously done much better on the Rolex. (The Vacheron is in the vault, so I can’t post a picture. Sorry.

 

Because you knew your subject and they didn't. It still applies. Antique dealers have to know about very many different subject fields. Watch dealers have to know about every watch brand. You only have to know about your chosen field, and because you have time to study it, are genuinely fascinated by it, take it all in, and probably socialise with other collectors, after a while you inevitably know more about your narrow field than almost any dealer. You see watches differently from how they do. You ask yourself how original a watch is, is the condition nice, and various other questions depending on the make. Most dealers only ask themselves one main question: How much can I get for it? Everything else is secondary.

 

Thanks. Great post man.

Truly is. I guess certain brands you get attracted to, definitely still "undervalued" as such... should be able to snipe a deal or 2.

 

Yeah, thanks, that’s to the point exactly

 

There have been guide books on everything antique and vintage for a long time. Aren't many of them still available nowadays?

 

Christian Veltman's original iteration of the Vintage Rolex forum circa 2000

 

Yeah I was on TimeZone back in 95/96 and also got those Wingate brochures - still have a bunch of them - the prices on Speedies will make you cry.

 

This!
This is so true. I'm amazed sometimes how little professional dealers know about the watches they sell.
Even more so, as you pointed out, they make their living selling watches, so the foremost question for them is "how much can I get for this?".

But then again they sell a rare variant for the price of a common one because they just don't know better.
I went into a vintage dealer once, asking to see the "Rolex 1603 with the sigma dial" they had on display. The dealer looked at me baffled. "The Datejust with the blue dial in the shop window" I replied.
He just said he's currently stocking over 50 Datejusts and can't keep track of all of them.

When it comes to pricing their watches they often rely on "gut feel" and make up prices by the condition/look of the watch.

I experienced the same when I had an internship at a real estate agent once. A new house was consigned by the seller, I asked how the value will be determined, which method they will use etc as there are several ways to do it.
The agent just looked at the expose and made up a price which he deemed to find fitting for this area and house type/size ...

BTT,
I know some pre internet collectors, some of them still not being into the whole forums/instagram etc thing.
They are pretty much "off the grid" and sometimes have amazing collections.
They mostly sell/trade within their circles, when they meet up at G2G's. Some of them come from the Antiques trade, professional estate sales area, where they acquired most of their watches.
And their pricing may be a tad behind current marked value, but most of the time it's surprisingly accurate.

Cheers,

Max

 

Today’s Speedy prices make me cry.

 

From 1989 to 1999 where I lived it was pure luck to find something good. Most people with watches to sell would usually go to one of the local antique shops, or pawn shops and sell their watches to them, usually for 10% of it's true value.

I'd skim the classifieds in the local papers, the couple of pawn shops we had, a couple of local flea markets we had but invariably whatever came up was grossly overpriced or looked like the watch was used to hammer nails.

Garage sales might turn up something nice, but the local antique shops would usually swoop in before the sale started and buy up anything good.

There was a chain of gloried pawn shops in south western Ontario called The Hock Shop that turned up a few choice pieces completely by accident.

Ashland and Wingates were the only places I knew of at the time to buy better quality vintage watches but the currency difference back then made buying very expensive. And of course Van Rijk in Toronto--if you could afford to get in the door.

The internet really made collecting much easier, for me at least, in 1999 with the popularity of ebay. For the 10 years prior to that I picked up more junk that good pieces.