For what it’s worth

I usually spend Sunday mornings on forums leaving little bon mots in comments on posts to amuse myself while the coffee wakes me up. This morning a comment felt like it was going to run long so I decided to put it over here, in my space, where it won’t get buried under posts from folks wondering what NATO strap best suits their Citizen Chandler.

What is this watch? I mean what exact model?

(You see this sort of outline format? It is a tell that what is contained therein has been written in good part or in whole by AI. Not here, we don’t do that. Here I am free to split infinitives and end sentences in propositions. It is what I am good at.)

People who like watches, but not necessarily old watches, often want to know precisely what they received from their loved one or just bought in a charity shop or at a flea market. They make certain assumptions about the near past and of the nature of the watch industry that may or may not be true. For example, today all watches, or nearly all watches, are designated by a model name and often a model number. In the past model numbers were often just for internal inventory control. Some companies like Seiko began to use them in place of model names. For some of us calling a watch a SRPJ85 seems silly. We would rather call something a Chandler. Although the model name only gives us a false sense of accuracy. Citizen puts out multiple Chandler models every year. It is more of a line of watches than a watch. Just calling something a Chandler doesn’t tell you if it is mechanical or solar quartz, or a three-hand field watch or a chronograph.

Before 1980 or so the watch industry did not function as uniformly in this regard as it does today. The bigger brands usually used model names. The smaller ones did not in the same way. Telling me that you have a Helbros Invincible only tells me that you have a watch made in the three decades after 1949, when it was independent and then later owned by Elgin. It may have seven jewels, seventeen, or in rare cases more. The movement may have been made in Switzerland, France, or West Germany by any number of ebauche manufacturers. Often the smaller watch companies made just one or a couple of models (for men and women) and then revised them over the years as styles and tastes changed. If you had a Welbros you made just have had a Welbros.

Where do I find model names?

There are some brands that do the work for you. Omega is very good about maintaining an archive that is accessible. Rolex will tell you their reference numbers. For brands like this there are also many books published that will get into the nitty gritty, even coffee table books.

If the brand won’t do it, some obsessive collector or collectors will. Everything that we know about vintage Bulova, Gruen, and Hamilton model names was willed into being this way. What they did was acquire catalogs and print ads to make a database. Catalogs were for jewelers to order product. When the stores closed, the content was sold (or tossed) and watch archivists try to find these treasures. Print ads are more difficult. Often these are cut out of old magazines and sold on eBay because they are interesting as art. Very few magazines have a searchable advertisement database (Europa Star comes to mind). There are many Cartier ads on the back covers of National Geographic magazine.

Sometimes even having the print ad isn’t enough. I only identified this watch because Michal Kolwas at Waha Watches told me exactly the movement which lead to the exact year. (At wahawatches.com check them out) That let me find an ad from that year geared towards the American market and … a model number but no model name (except for Eterna-matic, which they called everything for a while). I own this exact watch.

The watch in question this morning was a Majex. This was a British brand that imported Swiss watches. I don’t know if they cased them in the U.K. or imported finished watches. Here is an old ad:

It isn’t going to tell you a model no matter how many times you read it. It has information, but not that information.

(An aside:  Look at that modest slogan. It is a tepid endorsement of Majex. It reminds me of Barq’s Root Beer. “Drink Barq’s, It’s Good” was their slogan as an independent company. It used to crack me up. None of that “excellent” root beer for me, I’ll just take a “good” one. I used to grow antique roses, of course I did, and one of my favorites was the Green Rose, a smallish China. I have grown it in two states. It is a rose that gets lost when mixed with other flowers. I would use a Barq’s bottle as a vase. My wife thought this was eccentric, but not “good” eccentric, more like “stupid” eccentric.)

The only way that you are going to narrow down a Majex model name is to get your hands on a catalog. Where to find one of those? From the thewatchforum.co.uk you can trace the Majex ownership from Marchand & Tobin to the Melbray Group to Southern Watch & Clock to Apollo. The trail runs cold in Kent in the late 1990’s. A jeweler somewhere might have one from 60 years ago. Southern Watch & Clock also owned Precista, so maybe where you can find one, you can find both.

All of this is a long way of saying that it is unlikely that you will ever find a model name. Some watches never had model names.

How much is this vintage watch worth?

The answer for almost every watch is less than the cost of a service or of a sympathetic restoration. Sure, a vintage Holy Trinity, Omega, or Rolex may bring a large sum. For everything else the value is between $10 and $150 (convert to pounds or euros). Above that you are paying for precious metal content or for a recent service. The Antiques Roadshow lottery win from an inherited watch won’t happen to any of us. They are worth more because of their family connections than the market can capture.