Do be careful having your vintage watches serviced.
I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's pre-COMEX 5513 in very good condition - one or two tiny specks on the dial and a light scratch on the case. The appraiser gave me the warning that I should never send it to a Rolex repair center for servicing under any circumstance. If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.
Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina. Many watch manufacturers service things to "modern spec" and try to make a watch look new. For a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.
>>Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina.
Yeah, but I don't. I don't have this watch as an investment - hopefully I'll use it for another 50 years and then someone else can use it again for 50 more years. In fact in addition to the service I paid £300 to have the dial replaced with a brand "new"(old stock) identical dial, because mine was showing very minor signs of corrosion. If a collector somewhere has an issue with that.....tough? Also I have no idea how anyone could ever even tell the dial was replaced, the new one is original Omega, just......flawless.
>> If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.
That sounds perfect, if it were my watch I'd absolutely do that. Who cares how much it's worth at the end? If it's your grandfather's watch, then you probably won't ever sell it, will you?
Either way, I understand this is a personal choice.
>>for a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.
I did, both of them went "oh it's an omega, it's going to be about £400 for a full service mate" - so servicing it with Omega wasn't that much more expensive and it was a much better shout in my book, I know that whatever parts they replaced are original and brand new.
edit: just to add to the above - sorry, I realized I came across as very defensive. Yes of course your advice applies 100% if someone cares about maintaining the value of a vintage watch. Identical advice applies to maintaining vintage cars as well. But if you buy a vintage watch like me, to use it as....a watch....then just keep that in mind too.
No worries – and ultimately, you are absolutely right, it's all down to what you want out of it.
The two things I wanted to flag were
1) watches can have surprising value fluctuations, so they're worth being appraised professionally: just because you have "a model X from company Y dating back to Z" doesn't mean you'll get the valuation right if you try. If Papa were a desk diver at COMEX instead of Arthur Andersen I'd have likely ended up with a 5514 instead, and my six figure watch would be in a safe somewhere, not on my wrist.
2) many companies, when repairing, will not hesitate to add modern components. Rolex is apparently notorious for this, but others do it as well. In the opinion of Rolex, a watch is a watch: your GMT-Master with a Bakelite bezel is no different from a GMT-Master from 2022, it's just out of spec and needs a refresh.
The combination of this has lead to horror stories where people send their watch in for what they expect to be a fairly routine service (cleaning, oiling, etc.) and end up with an entirely different watch.
I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's pre-COMEX 5513 in very good condition - one or two tiny specks on the dial and a light scratch on the case. The appraiser gave me the warning that I should never send it to a Rolex repair center for servicing under any circumstance. If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.
Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina. Many watch manufacturers service things to "modern spec" and try to make a watch look new. For a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.