Watches as Collectibles
Watches have become an utility, sometimes a fashion statement. No longer truly essential - thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones, computers, public clocks - they are desired for more than just telling the current time.
Vintage watches fill part of that desire, but they are still intended to be worn at least on special occasions. Collectibles and antiques however, need not even tell the time to be highly valuable, both in money and artistic worth.
Some items called antiques may be as new as only a few decades old. A Hamilton Pulsar watch from the late 1960s could qualify. One of the first models to introduce a quartz timing mechanism, its crystal vibrated 32,768 times per second and an electronic circuit connected that to the display.
The display itself was a series of LEDs that showed the time in hours and minutes, with a smaller display for seconds, made visible by pressing a button. It had almost no moving parts and could keep time more accurately than anything outside a laboratory.
But many antique watches are much older.
A turn of the 20th-century Railroad Pocket Watch might fetch several thousand at auction. Intended to be carried in the vest pocket of a station master, conductor or other employee it was both elegant and accurate.
Typically made with 14kt gold cases and intricate internal mechanisms they were the state of the art a hundred years ago.
With care, such a beauty might well be working a hundred years from now. The scroll work on the back and on the interior of the case is often a work of art all by itself.
Baroque designs produced by some of the world’s finest artisans made these mundane, utilitarian objects into something more than just a timepiece.
In rare cases, a collector may happen on something still older and more rare. There are antique timepieces that are too small to be termed clocks, that date back to the 18th century.
These delicate, amazingly small pieces (for the time) would be highly prized by anyone who could pay the price.
Whether a 1790 French horologer’s tool or an 1864 Civil War Pocket Watch, these antiques represent the zenith in watch collectibles.
Just as stamp collectors may drool over the mere sight of an 1855 Tre Skilling Banco Yellow, an antique watch collector would be happy just to see one of these examples in person.
But collecting antique watches isn’t just for those with a million dollars to spend. Antiques are available at auctions for moderate prices for those who keep an eye out.
Just as a stamp or coin collector can still find those rare items in the most unexpected places, the collector of the horologer’s art can still get lucky.
Estate sales, eBay or even your great grandfather’s garage might just be holding that golden oldie.