How to Buy Your First Vintage Watch, According to Dealers

This story is from an installment of In the Loupe, our weekly insider newsletter about the best of the watch world. Sign up here. Adam Golden, the owner of Menta Watches, a vintage watch dealer in Miami, wasn’t always into old timepieces. “I started my life as a watch collector and enthusiast through modern watches,” he says. “For several years, I didn’t consider or even think about vintage watches. It was only modern stuff because it was a natural entry point.” Then, when Golden was living abroad in Russia, he discovered his first “proper” vintage watch, a Rolex Daytona reference 6262 from the 1960s with a black dial. “It was like a light bulb went off,” he says. “I sold all of my modern watches and focused strictly on collecting vintage because of the emotions they brought. It’s similar to when I drive a vintage car. It takes me back to a simpler time. It makes me think of what was going on in that era, the story that it’s lived, the aesthetic of it. And for me, quite frankly, it just boils down to an emotion—how it makes me feel.” Golden realized that the narrative he’d told himself about the kind of watch collector he was had shifted in the wake of that discovery. “I knew that this is where I needed to be in my collecting journey, and this is what I liked, and this is what I was going to do moving forward in terms of collecting,” he says. If you’ve found yourself curious about the wide world of vintage watches but aren’t sure where to begin, we’ve gathered some tips and tricks to keep in mind as you consider your first vintage purchase. (First things first: Most dealers categorize vintage watches as those manufactured prior to the 1980s, when the advent of computer-aided design contributed to the introduction of standardized collections. One of the many reasons people are drawn to vintage is because watches manufactured before this period are, effectively, one of a kind.) Buy What You Know To Eric Wind, founder of Wind Vintage in Palm Beach, Fla., and co-author of the forthcoming Vintage Watches: The Modern Guide (due out in November), the most timeworn piece of advice about buying vintage watches (“Buy what you love”) is both obvious and unhelpful. “Of course you’re not going to buy something you don’t love,” he tells Robb Report. “But I always say, ‘Buy what you know.’ It’s good to get educated first and foremost. Of course, you can go on windvintage.com or buy something at auction, but you need to understand what you’re doing first. “If you’re not an expert, you can’t just go on eBay or Chrono24 and expect to find the best example of a watch,” Wind adds. “You have to buy it from an expert and understand what you’re buying. Ideally, you’d have a conversation with the dealer before you purchase.” That’s because the vintage market is rife with nuance. Take Rolex, the brand that dominates the category. Simply learning about the progression of dials on vintage GMT-Master and Daytona references could take years of research. Once you find a piece you love, you then have to assess its condition: Chiefly, to what degree has it been polished or restored? The great paradox of vintage collecting, Wind says, is that “usually the person who took great care of a watch, bringing it in for service regularly, means it’s overpolished. “The vast majority of vintage watches, over 99 percent, are polished because it was standard practice,” he adds. “That affects the value. A huge percentage have replaced dials, which can reduce value by over 90 percent. Even today, if you send a watch to Rolex, they’ll propose a new factory dial.” That leads to what may be vintage watch collecting’s most important takeaway . . . Originality Is Key At Collectability, a watch education and sales platform specializing in vintage Patek Philippe timepieces, cofounder Tania Edwards says collectors are well aware that the desire for watches with original, unrestored parts is what keeps the vintage watch market humming. “We’re always asked the same question: ‘Is it polished?’” she says. “If you’re buying a watch that’s 50 years old, of course it’s polished. If someone has owned something and loved it, it’s going to have been serviced, polished and that’s okay. Obviously, if it’s overpolished, that’s a different story. “And has the dial been restored?” she adds. “Dials will often have had something done to them. They’ll have been cleaned. We love aged dials. We don’t restore anything we have unless it’s been requested by the person who’s bought it. We love watches in their original condition because that shows time—and that’s the whole point.” Finding a piece in tip-top condition that has never been restored is possible but highly unlikely. “We say, ‘Be open minded about what you’re looking at,’” Edwards says. “If something looks worn, that’s because it was worn and cared for. You also want it to work. We service everything.” Budget often dictates what level of originality you can afford, Wind says. “Say you’re looking for a four-digit Rolex Submariner, a 5513 or 5512, made from the ’60s to the ’90s, no-date examples,” he says. “If your budget is only $15,000, you’re probably not going to find an unpolished mid ’70s- example. You will probably compromise and get one with a replaced bezel insert. You have to understand and assess values.” He adds that an original Rolex bezel insert from the 1960s typically costs around $3,000, which you’ll have to factor into your budget. Buy the Very Best Example You Can Afford Time and again, dealers emphasize the importance of buying the very best watch within your budget. “Get the best example of whatever you can afford rather than compromising and getting a B or C example that isn’t as exciting,” Wind says. “There’s a difference between a watch collector and someone wanting a wrist accessory. The latter will go for the compromised example.” Given the growing appeal of vintage watches, the good news is that anything you buy—especially Rolex—is virtually guaranteed to have liquidity. “The best thing about watches is that there’s such a strong community around them that you can enjoy a watch for six months, a year, two years, sell it relatively easily, and get something new,” Golden says. Keep Market Trends in Mind Vintage Heuer chronographs from the golden age of the 1960s and ’70s are excellent buys and can be found for less than $10,000, Wind says. Other trending brands in the vintage space include Universal Genève, which has seen a bump in interest since it was acquired by the House of Brands, and pre-Royal Oak Audemars Piguet. “And vintage Cartier has been unbelievably strong—anything pre-1970s, but a 1990 Crash just sold for $2 million,” he adds. Wind says he’s had success with the Rolex Explorer II Ref. 1655, which was made for spelunkers, and the Rolex Milgauss Ref. 1019 (’60s-70s) and Ref. 6541 (1958). Just remember: The watch market has always been cyclical. “In the ’80s and ’90s, the early days of collecting vintage wristwatches, the popular and expensive watches were your early Cartiers, your Rolex Bubbleback, certain Movado wristwatches, certain Patek and Vacheron, but not sports watches at all,” Golden says. “No one cared about a Paul Newman Daytona. It was a $500 watch. No one cared about an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. Certainly, no one cared about a Patek Philippe Nautilus. They were 1,500 bucks, two grand at most. And even for the brands, when those watches came out, they were not commercially successful. So it was a very different style. Now, obviously, the market has shifted into sports watches. And now we’re seeing a resurgence of Cartier. We’re seeing a resurgence of vintage Movado.” Beware of Pitfalls Mistakes are part and parcel of the vintage buying process. But one common blunder dealers see all too often is when buyers obsess over original box and papers. Golden at Menta Watches considers these assets essential to sales of modern watches because they are additional signs of authenticity, and the pricing reflects that. “For example, if you have a box and papers modern Rolex Submariner, you could sell it for $12,000,” he says. “Without that box and papers, it might be $8,000 or $9,000.” But the expectations for vintage pieces are much lower. “I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday,” Golden says. “And if you’re asking me where I left box and papers that have been on a watch from the 1960s, I kind of understand if they’re not around anymore.” Wind, too, considers a quest for box and papers to be misguided. “I’d say the majority of vintage Rolex out there with box and papers are not the original,” he says. “There’s a huge trade on eBay in spare boxes and fake papers. Just because a watch has the ‘original box and papers’ does not mean it’s a good watch or that those are original papers. Usually those that do have box and papers are not in great condition. “People who go around saying, ‘I only want a box with papers’ have a ‘rip me off’ sign on their back,” he adds. “Most vintage watch dealers are sharks and if they see prey, they’ll pounce.”