Vintage watches

This time we have a guestwriter. His name is Stef and he is working for many years in the watchworld. He is very interested in Vintage watches so he wrote a nice editorial about it.

Vintage watches are sought for, for many years. An expensive hobby, but a very special one that gives a good insight in the world of watch making. What makes vintage watches so sought after?

What is vintage? The word "vintage" is a combination of the Latin of vinum, or "wine," and demere, or "to take off." A "vintage" was originally the field of a season's harvest at a vineyard. In the nineteenth century, "vintage" began to be used to signify in general something being old, old-fashioned, classical, or "from another time." In this way, objects other than wine began to be referred to as "vintage," including furniture, books, cars, clothing, musical instruments and off course watches.

Now we know this, lets define the term “vintage watch”. A vintage watch is a mechanical watch made before the quartz revolution in the 70’s. Because of the popularity of mass produced quartz watches, most watch companies that produced mechanical watches have since gone out of business. Several other companies that were once bold leaders in the watch making industry have consolidated and been absorbed into a few large watch houses that share mass produced parts. This means that a lot of great names from before the 70’s are not known any more only by the vintage watches that are under the many collectors.

It is this old industry that makes collecting vintage watches so “magical”. An industry that’s no longer there, but still excists at the same time. The industry goes back al long time, but in the mechanical watches industry the principle of many mechanical watches is still the same as 50 to a 100 years ago. This gives vintage watch collecting something “romantic”. Remembering a industry, that has changed so much since the 70’s, in its original form.

Next time we will talk about vintage watches as investment.

Sources: Farfo’s vintage watches & Vintage watch company

Written by: Stef