Ticking Along Nicely

I find it fascinating that everyone thinks all watch dealers are based in London. We’ve received quite a number of similar emails now asking the same question and sadly, we have to let people down on both points.  Just to be clear, Armstrong&Co Ltd has no retail shop, and secondly, we are not based in London.

To me, London is like an incredible theme park. It’s a great place to visit but I’m afraid I have no desire to live anywhere near it, and even less desire to open a retail premises there.  I’m just thankful that we have such an effective ‘Virtual Shop’ and that we are able to service our many London based customers with a next day service that means they never have to sit in a traffic jam or enter the congestion zone in order to buy that cherished timepiece.

Long may this continue. We do of course recognise that many watch buyers prefer to deal face to face.  In this regard, although we can’t really offer this service in our present form, we do have to work harder than most dealers in providing the necessary quality pictures, accurate descriptions and communicative service that means that our customers won’t be disappointed in dealing with a remote company. 

The big challenge for trading on the web is no longer presence,  it’s about fulfilment.  The classic internet trading faux pas in my opinion being, a complete lack of communication once a product is ordered, leaving the customer not knowing whether his order was accepted, was even in stock or when it will be received.  We’ve worked jolly hard to make sure the customer is well informed at all stages and as a result, enjoy the loyal custom of many collectors and enthusiasts who trust us enough to make that very expensive online purchase without the hassle of visiting a city centre shop.

Here are few pointers to prepare the newcomer for vintage mechanical watch ownership:

The Bad Stuff: 

1) Vintage mechanical watches are less reliable than modern quartz watches.  Don’t confuse Quality with Reliability.  Rolex and Jaeger Le Coultre represent quality but please don’t expect these watches to work any more reliably than a battery powered Timex or a Casio for a few pounds.  There are many good reasons why vintage watches are worth many times the value of a modern quartz but dependability in all situations isn’t one of them. 

2) Vintage watches are less accurate than modern quartz watches.  The average £5 quartz LCD watch bought from a garage forecourt will be more accurate than a Rolex from the 70s or 80s.  Again if you can accept this point and the previous one you are well on your way to being able to enjoy vintage watches. If you are the sort of person that becomes apoplectic when your watch has lost a second in one day, then you need to move on, there’s nothing for you here.

3) Vintage watches need care and attention.  I’m afraid if you want your watch to last a lifetime, swimming, surfing, rock climbing and other activities are not a good idea. Expensive old pieces are very easily broken. Inappropriate force to the crown, dropping the watch to a hard surface, water, magnetic sources, inappropriate storage, damp, humidity and numerous other environmental factors will conspire to harm your pride and joy.  You also need to wind them, sometimes everyday! 

The Good Stuff:

4) Vintage watches will generally increase in value over time, especially those from prestige makers such as Omega and Rolex.

5) Vintage watches can be worn and enjoyed everyday.  Be sensible about where you use it and keep it away from harmful environments. Don’t buy a vintage Rolex Submariner expecting to use it for diving and don’t wash the car wearing a vintage 1930s Art Deco Bulova. It’s easily possible to buy one vintage piece, use it everyday of your life then pass it on to your kids so they can do the same.  Try that with a £5 Casio.  You will need to budget for a handful of services, numerous straps and a few glasses and other repairs.

6) Owning a vintage watch is satisfying and rewarding experience. The appreciation of fine craftmanship, marvelling at the mechanical intricacy of the movement and knowing you have something of worth.

We are often asked, whether a particular vintage piece is suitable for everyday wear.  The answer to that is not quite as straight forward as it may seem and it really boils down to what compromises you are prepared to make for your timepiece.

At the same time as getting into vintage watches, I was working as a sales consultant for a software firm in the water industry.  This involved a fair degree of international travel, and inevitably the need to catch flights at certain times etc.,  Any person of average intelligence would have sensibly concluded that an accurate, robust and reliable timepiece would have been an essential accesory for such missions. Sadly, such practical considerations have often eluded me, and I would occasionally find myself either en-route to an airport or waiting in the departure lounge, staring at the face of whatever watch I was wearing, wondering why the hands weren’t moving. Luckily, unless you are undertaking regular commutes to un-inhabited climes, there is usually a secondary source of timekeeping, often more accurate too. 

One reasonable analogy is drawing parallels to classic car ownership.  It would take a very brave and committed individual to drive upwards of 15,000 miles per annum in a 1969 MGB Roadster.  Not only would they need the constitution of an ox to resist the assault on your senses, particulary at motorway speeds, but its likely they would be on first name terms with most of the AA patrol members in the country.   Nevertheless, there are people are out there that are prepared to make such commitments to their hobbies or interests, even claiming to be enjoying the experience. 

Wearing a vintage watch everyday is somewhat less demanding but some of the same principles remain.  At a basic level a manually wound watch needs winding every single day.  Not such a big deal I hear you cry, but I can barely remember to get up every day and if you forget to wind, you can be left wondering why its suddenly got dark at 2pm in the afternoon.    Then there is the water resistance to worry about;  Waterproof watches are a fairly recent phenomenom in the timeline of horology, but we seem to forget that complex mechanical devices don’t like to be used in the rain or washing the car, or heaven forbid used in the sea.   I can still remember the wince I gave reading an email where a customer asked me if the vintage 1960s diving watch I was selling was still capable of active service.  I think my reply was courteous, but it may have included a sarcastic reference to using a 1960s diving regulator.

The biggest threat to all mechanical timepieces is shock. The watch industry collectively found a number of reasonable solutions (Incabloc, KIF etc.) but again not until the late 1930s and even then, shock protection wasn’t de rigeur until much later.  Dropping a non shock protected watch to a hard floor, will break a balance staff pivot rendering the watch terminally broken, save from the rescuing hands of the most skilled watchmakers. 

 So after such ramblings the answer really is, Yes, its all perfectly possible but be reasonable and be prepared to make some sacrifices for your timepiece like taking it off when fixing the car or doing the washing up.

The most sensible suggestion of course is to have an army of vintage watches to share the load and a £5 rubber Casio for those moments where you can find yourself up to your arms in paint, concrete or if you have problems with drains, something much worse. 

If you really want to use a single vintage watch every day then make sure a) its shock protected b) have it serviced regularly  and c) you are very careful with it.   Barring an unfortunate accident, there is nothing that should prevent the said watch outliving your own time, and being available for the next generation.

We’ve been asked this on a few occasions and I sense some deep frustration in some of the emails.  I do have some sympathy, you log onto the site and see rows and rows of gorgeous watches but the one you want is sold. Whats occuring?

Well, bear with me, there are a few reasons for this.

- If we take our Rolex page as an example. What you see here represents around 5 years trading.  Much as we’d like to have 40 Rolexes in stock at any one time, we can barely keep more than a handful in stock simultaneously. This brings us on to the second reason,

- We often find that Rolex’s and Omegas in particular will sell extremely quickly , within days of being listed on the site.  This means that they inevitably spend more time as SOLD than for sale.

- The last reason is that listing watches previously sold significantly improves our presence around the internet search engines but also provides potential customers with a very clear idea of what budget they will need to acquire a similar watch.