Will be looking at your watches in a different light now.

 

Actually I thought the hat analogy was a very good one. What makes you say they were not expensive and no one cared about them?

They were an important fashion item for both men and women for most of the 20th century and like with everything else, items made cheaply were cheap and high end finely crafted items were expensive. Borsalino brand hats were fashionable among some French youth 20 years ago and believe me they weren't cheap.
Ladies hats were very expensive in the beginning of the 20th century, being made from exotic bird feathers.
20 years ago, you could find glamorous 1950s feathered hats for a pitance, that looked straight out of an old Hollywood movie.

 

Not sports models, but the rise and fall of bubble backs is also well documented

 

Just remember if you buy precious metal watches you have the value of the metal to fall back on

 

There are two very plausible reasons they might go either way:

1: vintage watches only became a broad interest for most people in the past 10 years, aided by the advent of Ebay, the internet, and the 2008 financial crisis.
So in historic terms, it's nothing. It could vanish as quickly as it came.
(It would be interesting to do a survey to figure out how many forum users were active collectors 10 years ago, and how many were 20 years ago.)

2/ as much as I like watches as objects of craft and design, no one can ignore they are technologically obsolete, and functionally unnecessary.
What goes into their pricing is that they are pieces of jewelery (and the only ones men wear), and men's fascination for mechanical engines, passed down by their fathers.
You just look at the price of vintage women's watches and you realize there's nothing intrisic about a watch that gives it a high market value.
So as such, it seems illusory to imagine they are immune to trends.

 

You must be joking. Obsolete and unnecessary? I wonder how you came to that conclusion. Just cause cell phones have a watch function, it doesnt mean everyone uses it. 99 out of 100 times I will look at my wrist to get time, and not on my cell. I am willing to bet that once all is said and done, watches (old or new) will outlast fads like smart watches, and even cell phones. They've been only around for over 400 years

 

Smart watches can also be worn on the wrist.... people who are not WISs have already switched to them. You say you are "willing to bet". That is exactly right. It's a bet. And should be understood as such.

 

Yuan isn't in good condition and they love to bet.

 

You forget there is a large group of people that dont even have cell phones, let alone smart watches, but they do have wrist watches. They dont have cell phones not because they dont want them, but because they cant afford them. Also, if you look at sales numbers of watches vs smart ones, you will again see that regular ones are outselling smart by massive margin (in 2015) 1.2B vs 36M. Share of market: 77% vs 23% for mechanical. So again, to say they are obsolete and unnecessary is quite foolish

And to be fair, numbers from 2016: 1.2B vs 50M. Still 77% vs 23% in market share.

 

So people who can't afford a smartphone are going to drop significant money on vintages watches?

 

Smart watch vs mechanical watch is a straw man argument.



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You said watches in general, not vintage. So yes, they will buy a cheap wrist watch.

 

It's quite early to say what will happen with smart watches, for sure -- but I'm not sure where it is that people don't have cell phones because they can't afford them. It may be true in the Western world, but in large swathes of Africa, where there is no running water or electricity people have cell phones because they are so critically essential. I have seen it with my own eyes in remote regions of Sudan and Burkina Faso.

As far as watches having existed for 400 years, I don't think you're talking about wrist watches. There have been sun dials, then clocks, then the wrist watch as far as I know appeared at the end of the 19th century as apiece of jewelery for women. It took military needs and WWI to make wrist watches a tool used by men -- in part because of the need to coordinate and time artillery fire charges.
So functional needs always drove evolutions.
Now how the "timekeeping" and time telling functions are being fulfilled is fast evolving.
I too am willing to bet there will be some watch collectors and watch wearers in 20 years, but it may be a tiny number of wealthy people.
But in 40 years?

 

Purely in terms of keeping old or rare watches running over the very, very long term (setting aside completely the question of how appealing/appalling this might be to collectors), if all else fails in the parts market, 3D printing could play a role. That technology is potentially very disruptive for any industry that relies on the manufacture and distribution of parts and it is just getting started.

 

So what has a 10quid Quartz got to do with vintage mechanical watches?

 

This thread as far as I could tell was not about people who wear cheap watches because they can't afford cell phones. The thread was about "vintage watch collecting". Which is an activity which by definition requires disposable income, and watches believed to be valuable.
People who can't afford cell phones do not collect watches.

 

400 years was in relation to pocket watches. They have been around since 1500's, and in 1670's they became small enough to wear as actual pocket watch.

http://www.historyofwatch.com/watch-history/history-of-pocket-watches/

I really cannot say that number in 20 or even 40 years will be tiny for mechanical watch wearers. I am talking about general wrist watches, not vintage ones. When number of then sold yearly is still in billions and they have massive market share over smart ones, I find it hard to believe that they will just disappear, or go down as drastically as you think. It would take a massive event to see them drop so much in such short time.

 

Had you said vintage, instead of a blanket statement of watches in general, I would agree with you 100%. Vintage is completely different story

 

I'm talking about vintage watches. That's what the title of the thread is about.
And it could be true of some luxury modern watches, I don't know, just look at what's happening in the Swiss watch industry right now.

 

They are fun, cool, beautiful and collectible. They don't require a 19 bay garage. As long as folks appreciate the finer things in life we will be fine. As long as there are independent watchmakers who also do restoration we will be fine.