As I’m sure many have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a ladies’ watch arc lately. Many happened to find their way to me and I am one who almost never refuses an afternoon tinkering. I love vintage ladies’ watches, yet few others do.
Why?
Many vintage ladies watches are cocktail watches. This was a design fad that lasted roughly sixty years, perhaps longer, where watches would be made ridiculously tiny. Sure, women have smaller wrists than men, but not two or three times as small. I own a Tissot cocktail watch, which has a case diameter of 17mm. A typical Tissot Seastar of the day, which looked virtually identical, was 34mm.
I did some internet searching. My wrists are 7,5″, with the average man’s wrist being roughly 7,3″, making my wrists for all intents and purposes average. The average woman’s wrist size is given as 5,5″. So for two inches, which is quite a lot on the wrist, size of a watch halves/doubles. That’s apparently how it worked in the ’60s, using these Tissots as examples. So that means if 34mm looks good on a guy with 6″ wrists, a guy with 8″ wrists would be wearing a watch almost 70mm in diameter. Get outta here.
I guess I could have just been more concise and said “women’s watches were too small sometimes.”
So what about the non-cocktail watches? I don’t know. I guess the number of people who buy vintage ladies’ watches is so small, supply and demand does its thing, making many ladies’ watches a worse deal than paying to eat your own shoe, or, of such little market value that most owners would rather hang onto them. I perused my favourite auction site and compared the prices of men’s and women’s Edox/Delfin watches. Cheapest men’s size Edox: ±R1800. Cheapest ladies’ size Edox: R95. One in comparable condition to the aforementioned men’s size watch will set you back R200 or so. I don’t need to bore you with exchange rates or anything, because R95 doesn’t even get you a burger at a restaurant these days. R95 can buy a six pack of beer and maybe a small pack of chewing gum if it’s on sale. R200 is a pizza and a (cheap, non-alcoholic) drink at a restaurant, before tips.
The same story goes for Lanco, Rotary, Roamer, Camy and whatever other basic Swiss brand you can think of. How can watches in the same condition and of similar complication have such a great variance in price? Like I said before, no one wants vintage ladies’ watches.
It’s sad, honestly. Ladies’ watches are built to the same or higher standards than men’s watches, but can be had for a fifth, sometimes even a tenth of the price. The lack of demand can be attributed to there being fewer female watch collectors. Why? Maybe watches used to be stereotyped as a “boy toy” alongside cars and the deadly sin of wrath, but haven’t we moved on? Social media saw many young women go into debt to buy the Cartier Panthère, which has been the “it girl” watch for some time now, unless the world has moved on and my daft self hasn’t noticed yet. The Bulgari Serpenti is not a small thing in women’s fashion. If there is reasonable demand for these and there is a reasonable number of women who can’t or don’t want to throw wads of cash at an accessory like a watch, but still want a fashionable, classy watch, there is no excuse left. Is this an untapped market, or am I guilty of wishful thinking?
Women simply aren’t made aware of vintage ladies’ watches. I’m sure some female collectors gain their initial interest in watches through a man (it makes statistical sense, but is definitely not the rule) and with men not knowing or caring about old ladies’ watches, burgeoning female collectors aren’t exposed to them.
So, gentlemen, be a good son, father, husband, boyfriend or friend and give the women who mean the most to you the disease of watch collecting. I have tried and will continue to try, because they make good gifts that don’t break the bank. My mother got a lovely Lanco for mother’s day, which she only wore when her smartwatch broke and during some meetings. A special lady who I’m talking to will receive a near NOS gold Delfin that has been sitting in my box for a while. She tells me she has been needing a watch and seems to really appreciate the gift. I’m giving my aunt the above pictured Tissot as a token of gratitude for her allowing me to ship tons of watch stuff to her postbox. There’s a good female friend of mine who has a watch already, but sod it, she can get one too.
Maybe I should stop projecting my desires onto others…
(You’ve made it very obvious that you’re butthurt that women’s watches scratch the itch and give you the same mechanical high that you get from men’s watches, but look ridiculous on you because… you kind of sort of aren’t a woman. Just collect them as tiny paperweights; I won’t tell anyone. — Ed.)
The Escapement Room 
First, I always think that relative dimensions need to be considered as two dimensional areas instead of lengths due to that radius squared thing.
There are several issues at play with lady’s watches, and many are the same as the modern mens’ problems. Beside case size, there is the strap or band size. Back when food was less synthetic and subsidized, and people were more physically active, people were noticeably slimmer than today. With a strap, physically fitting a wrist is surmountable, whereas little proprietary bracelets are a much larger hurdle. And even if the watch can be made wearable, it may look too small not just because of bad modern fashion but because the corn-fed wrist is plumper than that of the original consumer.
Then there is the formality crisis, or the lack of ladies and mannerly dressing. The delicate vintage lady’s watch is meant for pairing with civilized human attire of the time, and the contemporary female, following the male attire decline, dresses like crap. This is also why I suspect that the flip-flops and t-shirt male crowd love them tool watches and don’t want no elegant indoor watch.
Lastly heirloom and vintage/antiques just don’t seem to have the mainstream cachet they once did. I feel that 70’s and 80’s media was fairly full of the trope of “grandmother’s wedding ring” and the like, always a valued object. I don’t see that anymore. I am unsure whether the fault lies in disintegration of the family or a vogue for hatred of heritage and heredity and history, or just the tacky “buy new stuff, toss the old” consumption ethos.
Also, poverty. If precious metal, or jeweled, or just embellished and ornate, many feel that they don’t deserve nice things. They need streaming shows and delivered fast food, but a quality watch that lis truly well made is too good for them.
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