What other vintage brands do you collect?

[Joe_A]

Here's the story of the 1970s Autavia 1163. $200 if you paid full list for it at the time and if you could prove that you bought ten packs of B&W branded cigarettes, you could buy one for $88, and nearly identical to the retail version.

1970s Heuer Autavia 'Viceroy' Reference 1163V

Why This Watch Matters As a cross promotional product between Heuer and the cigarette brand Viceroy in the early 1970s, this watch showcases another win for the marketing genius, Jack Heuer. The Full Story This Autavia Reference 1163V – referred to as the “Viceroy” – comes from an interesting...

shop.hodinkee.com

It's possible that Jim Clark really liked the Sherpa Graph for more than one or two reasons. It appears that he had a generous soul, and perhaps he favored the watch in part because it was inexpensive enough to occasionaly give away. He'd just grab another at his convenience.

 

[SteveHarris]

I've had a couple of those Viceroys. Much cheaper than all the other Autavias and the same watch basically. Supply and demand being the difference there.

 

[kazrich]

In real terms, watches are now more expensive than in the 1960's .
In today's money a Sherpa Graph would have been a £ 600 - 800 watch.
Chronosport used to sell discounted 'grey market' sports watches.
Here's what they claimed to be approximate recommended retail prices in April 1968.

Sherpa Guide £ 30.00
Aqua Graph £ 45.00
Sherpa Graph £ 40.00
Jet Graph £ 50.00
Heuer Carrera 45 £ 29.00
Heuer Autavia 45 £ 36.00
Heuer Autavia 12 £ 49.00
Gallet chrono £ 28.00 ( unspecified model )
Olma chrono £ 29.00
Nivada chronomaster £ 38.00

 

[Joe_A]

@kazrich

Sounds about right.

In the 1960s, the exchange rate was about $2.75 to the pound at least through mid 1968 when it dropped to just below $2.50 as gleaned from here:

Graph of £/$ exchange rate (1940 - today)

www.miketodd.net

It looks as though we agree that the stainless steel housed watches we so admire today were not among the expensive watches of the time when they were new.

Mechanical watches of today are much more a luxury or jewelry item than a tool used to tell time and make time-related measurements.

Today one can buy a decent tool watch with much greater accuracy than watches of a bygone era for less than £50. Here I am thinking of a basic electronic or "quartz" watch.

Watches may eventually become an oddity, like an abacus or a slide rule.

. . . Not to any of us though . . . while we live.

 

[Joe_A]

I've had a couple of those Viceroys. Much cheaper than all the other Autavias and the same watch basically. Supply and demand being the difference there.

It's seems obvious that what we are paying for in a Rolex Daytona or a Sherpa Graph or a U.G. Nina Rindt or "Evil Nina" is an intangible. Is it a smidgen of the illusion of immortality? Perhaps a hope that some essence of a famous person may rub off on us . . . just a little?

Or maybe we are simply fans of Paul Newman or Jim Clark . . . and we are old enough to . . .

Well . . . maybe we are just old enough.

Why else would it be that, when a make and model of a watch that has been associated with a famous person may be worth so much more than a very similar watch that has not been associated with anyone famous?

BWC, Nivada-Grenchen, Zodiac, Croton, O&W . . . these watches are not so different from the old tool watches of Breitling or Heuer or Rolex yet the watches whose type have been associated with famous people are worth as much as 100 times more.

The human animal is at its core, irrational.

 

[petkr]

In real terms, watches are now more expensive than in the 1960's .
In today's money a Sherpa Graph would have been a £ 600 - 800 watch.
Chronosport used to sell discounted 'grey market' sports watches.
Here's what they claimed to be approximate recommended retail prices in April 1968.

Sherpa Guide £ 30.00
Aqua Graph £ 45.00
Sherpa Graph £ 40.00
Jet Graph £ 50.00
Heuer Carrera 45 £ 29.00
Heuer Autavia 45 £ 36.00
Heuer Autavia 12 £ 49.00
Gallet chrono £ 28.00 ( unspecified model )
Olma chrono £ 29.00
Nivada chronomaster £ 38.00

There is an ad where the Jet Graph cost 125USD new, so an exchange rate of about 2.5 seems exactly right. However, what is interessting is that with inflation 1 USD in 1968 corresponds to 7.41USD in 2019. Hence a Jet Graph in todays value would be 926USD which is about what a good mobile phone cost.. Furthermore, even today you can buy a lot of good new watches at that price.
According to Chrono24 a Jet Graph today is worth 6749USD which is 7.29 times more than new. I think this factor can be used as a reality check when you should estimate the risk to buy. To buy even a marginal brand to a price that corresponds to the price of a new one in todays value, should be quit risk free (provided you actually like it), since you will pay more or less for the quility you actually get.
I think we can also conclude that in the sixties the price did corresponded better to the actual cost of production, since back than you did not have to pay also for display teams of jet fighters (Breitling) etc.

 

[SteveHarris]

All true. Monthly income has increased an awful lot in real terms too and people have much more dispensable income I think.

On another note, I bought my first Favre Leuba last week. Sent today from the US, so if I'm lucky I may have it early next week

 

[petkr]

I have not got more active into the watch collection until this year, but always had a lingering intersst that I got from my dad who had connections with the watchmaker school where I grew up. He was somewhat of a collector but with great moderation, and he had his Omega Speedmaster for most of the time from the mid sixties when he bought it until he past away in the mid naughtis. Consequently I got some of the watches.



One watch i think is really interseting for its significans is the Eperline Electric (sold as Hamilton Electric in the US). The first electric watch. Apparently they where notoriously unreliable and about a third of the 5000 watches produced had issues and was taken back because and destroyed. Mine is really pristine but i have not yet put a working battery in it, but it is not really something I would wear, although it is interessting...
You could say this it is the proto quartz watch that come before the tuning fork that eventually led to the quartz watch.

 

[petkr]

I feel I always have been technology oriented and the japaneese did the same leep past the Europeans in watches, as they did with motorcycles, cars and cameras in the seventies. When it comes to watches I have aquired recently some automatic chronographs From Seiko and Citizen. I think they are such good value for money. I mean you can get a chronograph with column wheel, vertical clutch and flyback for a few hundred Euro in a funky seventies package..

 

[JimJupiter]

View attachment 592

Super nice Speedy with the superb Cal. 321! Seems to be a 105.012 to me. Do you know the exact reference?

 

[SteveHarris]

That Epperlein is very cool. Is that a display back on it? Assume that's a later addition if so?

Steve

 

[petkr]

That Epperlein is very cool. Is that a display back on it? Assume that's a later addition if so?

Steve

I have no idea about the origin of the display caseback, but I think this is a good feature for this particular watch,