Do members wear their vintage watches every day?

As a new member I'm looking at vintage gold Seamaster and Constellation watches. I plan to wear them often. My thinking is a solid 18c gold case would be a good choice. Although soft it would not scratch like a gold plated case would. I know there are risks wearing a nice watch.

Curious what our experienced members would think? Sorry if this is a common question I did a search.

 

I suppose it depends somewhat on what your daily life entails. If you're a shirt and tie kind of guy, then a solid gold watch should be fine. However if you tend to knock around in the garage and garden perhaps not so much.

Watches don't have to be solid gold to be nice, as a matter of fact stainless steel is the preferred watch, dress or otherwise by many members, myself included.

 

I wore my last Seamaster Chronograph everyday for 25 years and it had a very hard life, warehouse, factory, building site, garage work. When it started acting erratically, I put it in a draw and forgot about it for the next 13 years and wore a Citizen Eco Drive everyday. I finally decided to get it 'sorted out' but whilst looking for repairers I can across a rather nice GP Geneve, from about the same period 1970's which obviously had a much more protected life - I now wear this everyday, but I'm only in the office now, if I'm doing anything more manual, I'd go back to the citizen. But fully intend to use the Seamaster once again as my everyday, all the time watch when it gets returned.
Paul

 

Looking forward to the pics.

 

Pre 70s Constellations are usually gold capped - a thick layer of gold (not plating) so can take a scratch or two.
The benefit is they’re about a third of the price of 18k Connies ( so you can buy three )

 

You can also do like the Brits commonly do and get a solid gold 9k or 10k case. Not only are they cheaper, but they scratch less easily, and still look very nice.

 

A vintage watch in good condition will still require maintenance in order to assure continued reliable performance. And remember, there is a vast difference between USE and ABUSE! The more frequent the abuse, the more frequent the servicing. Even otherwise bullet proof watches will occasionally fail with abuse! It can be a good idea to have a throw away watch for times when you are doing grunt work. An 18 karat watch won’t scratch? Where’d you hear THAT? Maybe go for a tungsten carbide Rado if you want scratch resistance.

 

Great reply's to my vaguely worded question.
I work as a Machinist for a major aircraft company in the States and wear a Orient brand dive watch to work. It mostly sits on my workbench safety reasons.
I'll be retired shortly so my future vintage watches will have an reasonably easy life.

 

I’m still a shirt and tie man, and I really like slim 60s 34mm watches, so I wear them most of the time (Seiko holidays apart) although generally gold/gold plated with a black leather strap with a suit and stainless or gold plated with brown leather for a dress down.

Pretty wild huh?

 

Once made the mistake of taking off my Seamaster and putting on the bench, forgot all about it until I started up with the angle grinder and the stream of sparks embedded themselves in the crystal - kept it on my wrist from that point onward, just covered it with a sweatband.
Paul

 

Not expecting it back for a couple of months - but I'll be sure to post some before and after pics - I'm doing everything a collector dislikes; dial & case restoration (plus service of course) but as it's for my pleasure only, I'm OK with that!
Paul

 

I’ve been rotating between a stainless seamaster from 68 and a cheapo brand new vostok with a dial/bezel from AM Diver. This is kinda perfect in the summer because we live by the lake and I don’t have to think twice about jumping in, worst case it’s a $100 watch that gets ruined.

I’ll toss on my constellation when going out to a nice dinner but I’m finding it hard to wear because I just had a ton of service done on it and I don’t want to mess it up, I’m getting over that fear still. I have a geneve Chronostop that’s getting serviced/repaired right now that I intend to make my daily wearer. It fits my office life perfectly. I work at a desk, jeans and T-shirt/sweatshirt kind of place so gold watches can stand out a bit, a little easier to wear and blend in in the winter.

If I ever save up enough money (and stop buying $300 watches that need repair - ooppfff) and score a nice Speedmaster, I’ll never take it off.

 

Robust Vintage Case

 

Wild only if you live the MADman life. Otherwise sounds pretty classy to me

 

Having only owned vintage watches, generally wearing them everyday is fine! They were obviously all originally intended and built to be daily wearers anyway.

The only issue I've had is primarily with old chronographs, where these fragile movements can have small issues (subdials not working, etc) very easily , and can be expensive to service

 

Yeah I agree there...old vintage chronographs should probably be enjoyed on days off when you're not doing any DIY or garden work.Even clapping your hands can knacker the most delicate of them. Getting a broken vintage watch up and running costs money and time, if you have a few to rotate through you might effectively expand the tool life of all.

 

@Mossback, an 18k case will scratch. Whether that bothers you or not only you can answer.

Here’s my Seamaster, solid not capped 18k.

I was really happy to get it back to near new original condition with each surface correctly brushed or polished...only to get an annoying scratch at 90° to the lug brushed surface on the first real outing after it’s revision.

This one now gets treated with great care, my steel vintage Omegas just aquire additional patina, never scratches.

 

Black lizard strap with gold. Great combo IMO

 

Lots of examples of steel and gold Seamaster sand Connor’s. In WRUW Today -

https://omegaforums.net/threads/wruw-today.567/page-5192#post-1045053

And of course, there SHOULD be something you’ll find that fits your preferences, Seamaster : Constellations 50s - 60s - 70s, and Seamaster day date quite nice IMHO. If a few scratches make you uncomfortable, not sure what to say