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What Is My Watch Worth? People frequently want to know how much their antique or vintage watch is worth. Unfortunately, determining your watch's value is a hard question to answer. These web pages covers many of the general ways to try and find an answer to this question. Table of Contents There Is No Single Dollar Value The Most Accurate Method The Quickest Method The Price Guide Method The Online Elgin Database Method The eBay Completed Auctions Method The Appraisal Method The Evaluation Method     (General Overview) The Evaluation Method     (Detailed) The Email the Webmaster Method The Evaluation Method     (Detailed) As mentioned in the general overview of how to evaluate a watch, there are four general aspects of a watch that effect its value and three major parts of a watch to evaluate, plus a lot of minor things. Since you have to consider all aspect of all parts of the watch, it is easy to see that there are a large number of things to judge. Some things, such as "beauty" depend too much on the individual watch collector's tastes to discuss, but most of the rest can be debated for hours. The following is an outline of some of the details that an appraiser must consider. The more important and more common items have added descriptions. Even the ones without a description will give a new collector an idea of what needs to be learned and will remind an experienced collector of what to look for. Quality The quality of a watch refers to the physical properties and technical details of the watch as it left the factory. This includes functional aspects, such as the time keeping ability or the ability to show the date, but also things like how finely the watch parts were finished and how good the raw materials were that went into the watch. The quality of the watch forms a baseline for the value of a watch, which the condition and demand modify. What has happened to the watch after it has left the factory is considered part of the "condition", while today's opinions about what people like in a watch is considered part of the "demand". Compared to Contemporaries vs Absolute Some people are more interested in the quality of a watch as compared to other watches made around the same time, while others are more interested in how well the watch was made compared to all watches ever built. Most people seem favor the absolute quality of a watch. Most 21 jewel watches are prized, while 15 jewel watches tend to not be, even back when a 15 jewel watch was considered to be near the top. Movement This is the actual machine that keeps time with gears, springs, levers, and the balance wheel. As a general rule, pocket watch collectors are more interested in the movements than the cases, but the reverse is true for wrist watch collectors and for women's pocket/pendant watches. Remember, most American made watch movements were made by completely separate companies than the watch case companies. You can't tell much about the movement by looking at the case or vice versa. See the Watch Serial Number Information web page for details. Adjustment Adjustments refer to how well a watch company made a movement run consistently and accurately under various situations. For a more details, see the Watch Adjustments web page. Design Escapement Compensated Balance vs Solid Balance Free-Sprung Micrometric Regulator Safety Pinion and Safety Barrel Shock Protection Interchangeable Parts/Manufacturing Tolerances Even the best designed watch won't perform well if it can't be manufactured with small enough tolerances. One way to make a high quality watch is to manufacture all the parts with such small tolerances that the parts are effectively interchangeable. If a company can do this, then the quality of a watch is more a function of the design and materials than anything else. Another way to make a high quality watch is to have a skilled watch maker adjust the parts as the watch is being made. A deviation in one part may mean another part must be moved or changed. While a truly great watch can, with enough effort, be made this way, it will probably require a truly great watchmaker to fix it. Materials Jewels Wheels (Brass, Steel, Gold) Plates (Brass, Nickel, Gold) Non-magnetic hairspring Invar and Elinvar Gold Parts (balance screws, Jewel Settings) Finish Gilded Damaskeening Two-Tone/Gold Trimmed Flat/Matte Complications Sweep Seconds Wind Indicator Chronograph Repeater Automaton Calendar Moon Phase Automatic Winding Fusee Tourbillon Remontoire Standards Railroad Grade Swiss Chronometer Kew Certificate Marine Chronometer Style Plates (Bridge, Full Plate, 3/4 Plate) Exposed Winding Wheels Pierced Balance Cock Case Watch cases server two functions, first they protect the movement and dials from dust, water, knocks and secures the watch to the owner. Secondly they have the same decorative appeal that most jewelry has. As a general rule, pocket watch collectors are more interested in the movements than the cases, but the reverse is true for wrist watch collectors and for women's pocket/pendant watches. Remember, most American made watch movements were made by completely separate companies than the watch case companies. You can't tell much about the movement by looking at the case or vice versa. See the Watch Serial Number Information web page for details. Style Open Face Hunter Case Demi-Hunter Pair Case Display Muckle/Reverso Material Probably the biggest single impact on the price of a watch case is what it is made of. Cases made of solid precious metals such as gold, silver or platinum have an inherent scrap value that the case price will usually not drop below. Generally, people prefer solid platinum cases the most, followed by solid gold (aka karat gold), gold filled, silver, brass, silveroid, and then base metal. This is not always true, however. I personally prefer the solid metal cases the most and would choose a silveroid case over a gold filled case if the later has any brass showing at all. The only guaranteed way to determine the gold/silver content of a watch is, unfortunately, to melt it down and assay it. There have been many cases of manufactures, jewelers and watch dealers altering the cases to make them appear as solid gold when they aren't, or to appear to be higher karat than they are. While no other method is certain, the next best way to determine if a case is solid gold or gold filled is to look at the case manufacture trade marks or, for European watch cases, the hallmarks. Most watch cases have a design and a few words that let you determine who the watch case manufacture was and what the case is made of. For American and European watch cases, the Heart of America Press sells a book on watch trademarks for only around $25. This book will pay for itself with correctly identifying a single watch case. For English watch cases, you can use the Online Hallmark Database. Another easy way of telling if a case is gold filled is simply to look very carefully for places that the gold has worn through to the brass. The vast majority of gold fill cases are showing at least a little brass somewhere, especially around the pendant, on the bow or on the bottom edge. Many gold cases have have parts that were cut or turned down while manufacturing, such as lever cuts, latch and case spring holes, or where the movement sits. You can often tell a gold filled case, after cleaning off the dirt, just by seeing the difference in color between the gold and the brass. The better the gold filled case was made, the fewer places you will be able see brass, so you can only rule out solid gold, not prove that it is. The worst way to try and figure out if a case is solid gold is to damage the case by scraping, filing or grinding off the gold in some spot on the case to see if it has brass underneath. This greatly reduces the value of the case, it is very rarely need, and it doesn't guarantee that parts of the case that you didn't destroy aren't gold filled. Using acid tests and such on a gold filled case will generally show that the watch is solid gold, even though it isn't. This is because a gold filled case is made with a layer of solid gold over brass. Only if there is a scrap or hole in the gold that reaches down to the brass will the acid react. Another surprising method of testing to see if a case is gold filled is to taste it. Your mouth can pick up very small amounts of the brass flavor and even if you can't see the brass, you can often tell. You may well get some strange looks if you do this in public though. Many experienced collectors can tell a gold filled case by just feeling the watch case. Gold filled cases will be less dense, but they will also be stiffer. There have been fake solid gold cases made that are designed to be soft and flexible, like a real solid gold case, so this isn't a fool proof method. While there are now laws about how solid gold and gold filled items must be marked, this hasn't always been the case. If you buy something today and it is marked as just "14K", that is supposed to mean that it is a solid 14k gold or someone is breaking the law. However, it is quite easy to find watch cases made before around 1920 that are gold filled, but are marked only as "14K" and have no other words or indications that it might be gold filled. Likewise, there are many solid gold cases that are not marked "14K" at all. Solid Gold/Platinum As the above notes indicate, you really need to look up the trademark to find out if a case is solid gold or not. When in doubt, always assume that a case is gold filled, you will save a ton of money that way. Cases that are marked "To US Assay" or "585/1000 Fine" are usually, but not always solid gold (aka karat gold). It should be noted that the US government never had assay offices the way the European countries did, so the "US Assay" marking could legally be meaningless. Gold Filled/Rolled Gold Plate See the above notes about gold filled vs solid gold cases. Gold filled is very similar to gold plating in that there is a thin layer of real gold on top of some base metal. The process of creating a gold filled item is different than gold plating. Gold filled is made with two bars of gold which are soldered to a bar of base metal and the resulting bar is rolled out into thin sheets. The result is a thicker layer of gold than gold plating, and the gold is much harder and denser so it wears better. If the case says anything about being "guaranteed", especially for some number of years, then it is almost certainly gold filled. This includes cases that are marked "permanent" or talk about how they are made of "two solid gold plates over a fine hard metal". Also, being marked "Warranted" generally means that it is gold filled as does markings about being "reinforced gold". Rolled gold plate is similar to gold filled, only thinner. It is still thicker than gold plating though. Silver Most silver cases have either the terms "Sterling", or "Coin" on them, or they have European hallmarks. Be sure to read the following section about "silveroid" cases. Silveroid Starting, I think, around the 1880's, a nickel composition metal was used in watch cases. This metal looked very much like silver, but it was much cheaper, harder and it tarnishes much less. Different case manufactures had their own trade marks/brand names, but most of the names include "silver" as part of their name even though there is no silver in the case. Example trademarks include silveroid, silverine, silveride, silverode, ore silver, alaska silver, and nickeloid. I personally like these nickel-silver cases since they will never show brass like a gold filled case will. Brass For a while before around 1890, some companies made solid brass cases. Base Metal Starting around 1920 or so, base metal cases with a plating of chrome became common as a cheaper replacement for what people had been using silveroid cases for. Like gold filled cases, these cases wear through to the brass or other cheap metal that is underneath the chrome. Material Thickness Heavy In the 1800's, many people judged the quality of a watch by its weight. Jewelers and case makers responded by making some very heavy cases in all types of material. An extreme example was an 9 oz silver hunter case from the 1880's that sold for $700 on eBay. Normal The vast majority of watch cases, obviously, had a normal amount of metal in them. However, the "normal" amount for earlier periods tended to be thicker than later periods. Light Starting around 1910, some solid gold cases were made very thin so that they could be made cheaply, but still advertised as solid gold. While these thin gold case wouldn't wear through to the brass like a gold filled case, they are very easy to dent and feel "cheap" when you handle them. Finish Plain Engraved Engine Turned Fancy Additions Jewels Enamel Multi-Color Gold Inlaid Pictures Shape Octagonal Barrel Shaped Rectangular Wire Lug Tank Asymmetric (Wrist Watch) Size Must match movement size Oversized cases to make movements look larger "Opera" watches Crystal Style Thick Beveled Thin Beveled Bulls Eye Crystal Material Glass Plastic "Scratch Proof" Sapphire Bow/Pendant Short Stem vs Long Stem Bar Over Crown Stirrup Bow Dial Watch dials, like watch cases, have both strong functional and artistic qualities. You must be able to read the time, and in the case of railroad watches, you must be able to read it quickly in dim light. But the dial and hands must look nice because they are what you look at the most and often what other people will see of your watch. As a result, the watch dial effected by the condition much more than the case (which is expected to wear a little) or the movement. Even small chips, cracks and blemishes can greatly effect the value of the dials and hands. The dial and hands were usually supplied with the movement, although a customer could often order special dials or hands. Material Enamel Fancy Metal Paper Style Flat (Unsunk) Single Sunk Double Sunk False Double Sunk (Ground Center) Seconds At 3:00 Numbers Roman Arabic Ferguson (with correct hands) Montgomery Canadian Luminous Applied Gold Numbers/Markers Hands Blued Gold Styles (Spade, Whip, Moon, Louis Xiv, Etc.) Dual Hour (Timezone) Luminous Beauty Watches have always had a artistic aspect to them and they are often the only kind of jewelry that men will wear. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what one person will really like another will find to be too gaudy, too plain or simply ugly. Condition The condition of a watch refers to how close to factory new the watch is and what has happened to the watch since then. If the watch was heavily worn and poorly repaired, the condition will be much lower. However, if the watch was used by someone famous, the wear is often more than offset. Some people consider the condition to be the most important thing. Even common low quality watch can bring in a fair amount of money if it truly is in new-old stock condition, while even a rare high quality watch that is rusted beyond repair may be close to worthless. How good the watch was when it left the factory is considered part of the "quality", while today's opinions about what people like in a watch is considered part of the "demand". Grading ("Mint", "Average") When discussing the condition of a watch, many people and books will use terms like "mint", "average", or "excellent", while others use notations like "g-7" or "g-5", while still others will say "80%". There is no universal standard on what these terms mean and their usage can differ widely. It is very important to understand how the watch is being graded. Many times, I have seen a watch described as "mint" by a seller that you can also see brass on the gold filled case. It is generally much safer to ignore any written comments about the condition and judge the condition directly for yourself. If pictures are not available or too blurry, assume the worst, it is much more likely to be bad than good. Originality Most people would prefer a watch to be exactly like the how original owner bought, with nothing added, removed or changed. Some collectors consider this to be the most important part of the condition of a watch. The American watch industry was founded on the principle of interchangeable parts. As a result, it is quite possible for people to replace cases, crystals, dials, and to assemble a "working" watch out of a pile of scrap parts. This kind of fixing and replacing of parts was considered quite normal when the watch was used by the original owner. Cases wore out and were replaced, crystals cracked, parts in the movement broke and a watchmaker wouldn't think twice about replacing them. The problem with replacing and swapping watch parts is that there is little information known about many watch companies. It is only by studying actual examples of a watch can people discover how these watches were originally made and sold, how the company faired over the years, and how their watches evolved over time. More often than not, the replacement parts are of lower quality than the originals. Plastic crystals are used instead of glass, gold gears are replaced with brass, plain screws are used instead of the blued or gilded screws. Once a watch collector knows how to detect cobbled together watches and knows what is appropriate for a watch, it is hard for them to look at a non-original watch without thinking about it. Many people will say "I don't mind swapping parts as long as it isn't obviously wrong", but the problem is that as people learn more, they start to see more things as being "obviously wrong". The more the watch appeals to a knowledgeable collector because it is rare or an important piece, the more important it is for the watch to be in the original condition, even if the case is worn, and the dial has hairlines. Case Swapping While replacing a worn out case with a new one was fairly common and acceptable practice when the original owner had the watch, many collectors and watch dealers try to swap cases to increase the value of their watches. Swapped cases can be detected by several means: First, watch movements have screws to hold them into the case and the locations of these screws varies by model and manufacture. So, if a watch case originally held a Waltham, and an Illinois watch is placed in it, you will see two sets of screw marks. Secondly, while owners might put a new case on an old movement, it is very rare to have a older case placed on a newer movement. Since watch case styles changed over time, you can often tell if the case is from the wrong era. Thirdly, once watch companies started to sell cased watches, there was often only one or two cases that were sold with a give grade of watch during a certain time period. Wrong Dial or Hands Most watch movements came from the factory with a dial and hands already attached. In general, the higher the quality the movement, the nicer the dial and hands. Many important watches are expected to have a certain dial on them, with the right labelling, the right style of numbers and maybe double sunk. For example, Elgin was originally called the "National Watch Company" and all dials on Elgin watches made before 1874 should be marked "National Watch Co". (Well, except for the smaller ladies' watches, which just have a logo.) A watch with a dial that says "Elgin" is obviously a replacement. Even for watches made after 1874, you can often detect a dial that has been replaced by the style of writing on it. Mismatched Hands One of the quickest ways to tell if a sloppy watchmaker has worked on a watch is if the hands don't match. Not only does this look bad, it also means that the watchmaker probably cut corners in worse ways on things that aren't so obvious. Wrong Hands (Too Long/Short) Sidewinder Crystal It is not clear when the first plastic crystals were made for watches, there are some reports of plastic crystals from as early as 1906, although Germanow-Simon's website claims they made the first plastic watch crystals in the early 1920's. According to Kathye Simon of G-S, the very first plastic crystals were used during WWI because of shortages of glass crystals from France and Japan. Further more, plastic watch crystals didn't really take off until 1924 when G-S introduced their line of "G-S Flexo Lentille Chevee" line of crystals. No matter when plastic crystals were first produced, it seems pretty clear that they were rarely, if ever, used on anything but the lowest quality watch cases. The plastic crystals were used for replacements, not as original parts. The plastic "unbreakable" watch crystals were general not allowed on railroad watches. They generally have an inferior look/style and are much easer to scratch. Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, it is pretty safe to assume that any plastic crystal is not original. Replaced Bows Bows would often be pulled off the case when the watch chain got caught on something, or they simply wore out from rubbing against the end clip of the watch chain. Either way, bows were often replaced with something that was the wrong size, style or color. Repaired Enamel dials and "Redialed" metal dials Enamel dials would often be chipped by careless handling and attempts to repair the chips were often made. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible repair an enamel dial without the repair being quite obvious when you look at it. Pictures of a watch dial can often make the repair seem much less glaring since the repairs are often more noticeable at some angles or in some lighting conditions than others. Metal dials just don't' hold up as well as enamel dials and will often show age spots and in some cases, make the dial almost unreadable. If the metal dial is bad enough, people will often have them redone (called "redialing"). These redials are usually less noticeable than repairs to enamel dials, but they are very rarely as nice as the original dial and an experienced collector can usually spot them fairly quickly. One tell tale sign of a redial is if there is a very small notch cut at either the 3:00 or 12:00 positions. You often have to remove the watch bezel to see this though. Movement Running Poorly Scratches Dulled Damaskeening/Two-Tone Wrong Screws Wrong Replacement Parts (No longer has gold wheels, Regulator Springs not chamfered) Broken Jewels Case Brassing/Wear-through Dents Scratched Crystal Yellowed Crystal Tight Hinges Tight Snap Tight Bow Worn Winding Crown Modifications Key Wind Holes Lever Cuts Cut Hunter Cases Engraving Dial Hairlines Edge Chips Repairs Tarnish Logos Private Label Railroad Loaner Watches Age ("True Antique") Watch History/Famous Owner Interesting Additions Original Box Papers (Timing Certificates, Guarantees, Sales Receipts, Etc.) Photos of the Original Owner, etc. Photos Applied to the Dial or Case. Abbott's Stem Wind Upgrades for Keywind Watches Teske's Micrometric Regulator Upgrades Demand vs Rarity The demand for a watch is determined by how many people are interested in a given watch. The rarity is determined by how many similar watches currently exist. An economist will tell you that the value of a watch depends solely on the supply vs the demand. They would say that quality is always in demand and that condition effects supply. While this is largely true, it over simplifies things to the point that you can't make any evaluations other than by selling the watch. It also hides the fact that supply and demand are connected somewhat like a string. Demand can pull the supply, but supply can't push the demand. The demand for certain watches causes people to create fakes in order to create a supply, but no matter how much or how little the supply is, it is hard to create demand for a watch that people just don't care about. How good the watch was when it left the factory is considered part of the "quality", while what happened to the watch after it has left the factory is considered part of the "condition". Every Watch Is "Unique" When it comes right down to it, every watch is "unique" in some way. No two watches will have the exact same case, with the exact same amount of wear, owned by the same person, and besides, the two watches will almost certainly have a different serial number. When people talk about a watch being "rare" or "common" they are trying to separate watches into different groups. People rarely agree on which watches belong in which group, or even what those groups will be. Sellers tend to highlight the things that make a watch "unique" or "rare", buyers tend to scoff at those "differences" and claim the watch is really in a much larger group. Even simple things like a serial number can make a watch "unique" and "rare". A watch with a serial number of 3,492,105 might not be that interesting, unless someone else has two watches with serial numbers 3,492,104 and 3,492,106. The "Star" Rating Many guide books will use some sort of rating system for how "rare" a watch is. In general, these rating systems should be taken with a large grain of salt. For example, Shugart's "Complete Watches" book uses stars to show how rare a watch is, the more stars, the rarer. For example, a watch marked with two stars (**) is said to have around 1,000 known to exist. It is not entirely clear what these numbers really mean. Are they how many serial numbers a watch company allocated for a grade of watch? That can be quite different than the number that were actually produced. Could the number be how many it are still around in reasonable condition? Maybe they are a measure of how many will show up in the market in the near future. While Shugart says that they are measuring the number "known to exist", that number is almost impossible to determine and it is fairly clear that numbers that are used in the "Complete Watches" book are measuring something else. It is also not clear how these rating systems are grouping the watches. After all, every watch is unique in some way, so they should all be marked with 5 stars, right? Many grades of watches had slight variations, sometimes people consider those variations important and sometimes they don't. If you added up the number "known to exist" by the star rating system of all the different variations listed, you will often have substantially more than the total produced, but sometimes you will have substantially fewer! "The Question Isn't `Is It Rare?' But `Does Anyone Care?'" As mentioned above, just about any watch could be considered "rare" or "unique". Most of the time, these differences are not things that people are interested in. It is much more useful to think in terms of how many people care about a watch than how "rare" it is. "A Watch May Be Rare, But The Buyers May Be Even Rarer." Even in cases where you have a watch that most people agree is rare and very desirable, there may be only a few people in the world who are willing to buy it for anything close to what it is worth. Not many people have $100,000 lying around to buy a watch, even if most people agree that it is worth $500,000. Serial Numbers Most American watches made before around 1950 and many European watches have serial numbers that can be used to uniquely identify a watch. Normally these movement serial numbers (which are unrelated to the serial numbers on the watch cases) are just used to determine the approximate year of manufacture and what grade or model the watch is. Most of the time, people do not consider serial numbers interesting and certainly not enough to make a watch rare or "unique". Sometimes, however, the serial numbers alone can make a watch interesting. First Run/Low Serial Number People often are interested in watches that were made early in a company's history or in the first few watches of a particular model or grade. Peoples interest drops off very rapidly, the first watch marked "Father Time" will sell for a much higher premium than second, and the 43rd will probably not have much of a premium at all. Consecutive Serial Numbers While a watch with a serial number of 29430687 might not be too interesting, if you can match it up with SN 29430688, you have a fairly rare set of consecutive serial numbered watches. In the eBay logs, there are about 12,000 individual serial numbers recorded, but there are only 13 of those that have consecutive serial numbers. You could easily buy several thousand watches before you find two with consecutive serial numbers. None of those 13 matches were a run of three or more watches. Interesting Numbers While the Elgin grades 57, 10 and 234 aren't particularly interesting, the watches with serial numbers 100,000, 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 happen to be those grades and that makes them somewhat interesting. A watch with a serial number of 8231947 might be interesting to someone who was born on 08/23/1947. Serial numbers like 1,234,567, 1301031, or 333,333 may also strike some people's fancy. Famous Maker It is clear that watches made by some watch makers or watch companies are much more desirable than watches of equal quality that are made by someone else. For example, many watch collectors consider Waltham watches to be more interesting than Elgin watches and the average person on the street will consider even a low end Rolex to be better than a high end Patek Philippe. Price Trends They just aren't making these watches any more and every year a few more are lost to rust, fire, or someone tossing out an "old watch". In general, higher grade watches and watches in better condition will tend to increase in value quicker than other watches. General fads and trends also make a difference. When the economy is good and people have a lot of free cash, they often try and spend that money buying antiques and collectibles. For some reason, different objects become a "hot item" at different times. Some years, people may be buying coins, other times it will be old china. If the the current fads includes watches, the price can shoot up. Of course, once the economy goes down, people often try to unload these antiques, even if they take a large loss. Table of Contents There Is No Single Dollar Value The Most Accurate Method The Quickest Method The Price Guide Method The Online Elgin Database Method The eBay Completed Auctions Method The Appraisal Method The Evaluation Method     (General Overview) The Evaluation Method     (Detailed) The Email the Webmaster Method

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