20 Vintage Watches From $-$$$$
4 different price-points, 5 watches per, and some helpful tips.
The vintage watch world is a tricky, mysterious, opaque space with as many rules and quirks as the classic car market. Crystals and straps can be replaced, but the hands must be original. You can clean a dial but by god don’t get it refurbished. But if you get it all right, you do your research, and buy from someone you can trust, it can be one of the most rewarding purchases you make. But what the vintage watch market lacks in consistency and transparency, it makes up for in intrigue and value. $500 might get you a dime-a-dozen entry level Tissot in the new market, or you can go vintage and pick up a storied piece from decades prior.
Obviously there are pros and cons to buying vintage watches. You could get stuck with a frankenwatch if you don’t know what to look for. You could enjoy the watch for a year, then get stuck with a service bill that costs more than what you paid for the watch. Or, you could get lucky and end up with a reliable piece that you can pass down to your kids. One thing I can say for certain is that the market changes a lot at different price-points, so it’s important to consider your budget before you start your hunt. In this newsletter I’ll be breaking down what you can get for each price-point, along with 5 watches I’d recommend for said budget. Of course these are centred around my taste, so consider doing some hunting on your own (Chrono24, Instagram, Pushers).
$500 and Under
For me, $500 is the starting point budget for vintage watch collecting. Yes, you can find some decent vintage Seikos, Hamiltons, Bulovas under this amount, but $500 really affords you some of the variety you might be looking for. This is a very tricky price-point to shop in, so beware. You’ll find lots of tempting listings which seem too good to be true, and that’s because they are. Tons of vintage Omegas and Universal Geneves with cheaply refinished dials, mismatched hands, and junk movements. In this price range there’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting yourself a quartz movement. You could easily spend 50-75% of the value of your watch on servicing every 5-7 years, whereas a quartz will be far cheaper to maintain.
Omega DeVille by Andrew Grima
This is a really cool option which I’m surprised still trades under $500. Omega and Andrew Grima’s collaboration started in the 70s with a series of precious metal and crystal pieces fabricated by Grima’s jewellers, and powered by Omega movements. They followed this collaboration with a more commercial collection characterized by octagonal shapes and faceted emerald-cut crystals.
King Seiko Hi-Beat
A reliable automatic steel sports watch that rivals the Rolex Datejust for looks at 1/10th the price. You can find these with a few different complications, personally I prefer the date version. With a hi-beat movement, the seconds hand beats in quicker intervals giving an even smoother sweep across the dial.
Tissot PR516 Visodate
Consider me biased, but this is the first watch I ever bought when I was 12 or 13 at St. Lawrence market in Toronto. It’s a nice mid-sized case, automatic, with a really gorgeous teal dial.
Seiko Sports 100 Chronograph
Like I said before, nothing wrong with a quartz watch, especially at this pricepoint. This Seiko Sports 100 is jam packed with features: a rotating bezel, three register chronograph, tachymeter, and a sleek integrated bracelet.
Longines Mirage Gold Plated
Finally, if you want that Miami coke dealer swag without having to spend thousands of dollars, the gold-plated Longines Mirage is not a terrible option. White suit and Persol shades are, unfortunately, sold separately.
$1,500 and Under
This is a really nice price-point to start out in if you can manage to squeeze your wallet a bit more. There are a lot of trusted, reputable dealers that start off their assortment in the $1,000-$1,500 range, often including a pre-sale service and 1-2 year warranty. This range opens you up to some pretty sweet 60s-70s sports watches, well sorted examples from IWC, Longines, JLC, Omega, and Zenith, along with some pretty interesting and quirky niche pieces.
Zodiac Seawolf
So popular that they re-issued it in the modern day, the Zodiac Seawolf is one of my favourite dive watches ever made. The dials have super cool markers at 12, 6, and 9, the dials often have a nice deep gloss, and there’s some very cool bezel colours in bakelite and metal.