What's The "New" Vintage Criteria?

[LunetteVerde]

It's all about your perception & your basis of assumptions so it's another chicken & egg ? 🐓🐓🍳🍳


♛lunetteverde@Instagram♛

[powerfunk]

Originally Posted by Fabrice M

Anything over 20 years is considered vintage and automatically sent to Dallas which I guess is the only service center authorize to work on 20+ rolex watches.

I hadn't heard that before. In 2013 RSC NY serviced 3 watches from the 60's and 70's for me.

[dw.metro]

Originally Posted by jdmi32

I'm in the 30+ yrs. camp.

I agree that 30 years is the moving target for vintage.

[Fabrice M]

Originally Posted by powerfunk

I hadn't heard that before. In 2013 RSC NY serviced 3 watches from the 60's and 70's for me.

This is what I was told. But it's possible that N.Y does it too. Beverly hills doesn't for sure. In. Any case if the watch is over 20 years they will charge $800 instead of the usual $600 for service.

[G Francis]

As anything gets older it becomes vintage......
5 years from now there will be more posts about sapphire glass, 5 digit watches.
Put your house on it!

[Vincent65]

Originally Posted by G Francis

As anything gets older it becomes vintage......
5 years from now there will be more posts about sapphire glass, 5 digit watches.
Put your house on it!

there'll be another thread about it in a couple of days...

[brandrea]

It's a moving target, but I agree with 4 digit refs, and lug holes

[Spoonage]

I'm no expert by any means, but my opinion would be +25 years from the last year that the model reference was produced...

[powerfunk]

Originally Posted by Fabrice M

This is what I was told. But it's possible that N.Y does it too. Beverly hills doesn't for sure. In. Any case if the watch is over 20 years they will charge $800 instead of the usual $600 for service.

Bummer. I was charged the usual 600 but it seems they've changed their policies on vintage in the past year or so.

[Micha]

Quote:
Originally Posted by G Francis View Post
As anything gets older it becomes vintage......
5 years from now there will be more posts about sapphire glass, 5 digit watches.
Put your house on it!

Originally Posted by Vincent65

there'll be another thread about it in a couple of days...

[bdex75]

I say it has to be strictly age. Whether that is 20 or 30 years could be debated until the cows come home.

The only right answer for this particular forum is whatever the mods and forum owner allows in the vintage section.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[aaamax]

The advent of a totally new generation of Rolex (read: fatter/ceramic) I believe will bring about the relaxing of the term.

Hate to admit it, but up until very recently I did not consider 70's vintage. It was just old. The 80's? …

[Vincent65]

Originally Posted by aaamax

The advent of a totally new generation of Rolex (read: fatter/ceramic) I believe will bring about the relaxing of the term.

Hate to admit it, but up until very recently I did not consider 70's vintage. It was just old. The 80's? …

are you one of those 'cushiony', 'trench-watch' guys?!

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

The sapphire criterion doesn't hold water. Plenty of 1970s models out there with sapphire crystals, with five digit refs, too.

Originally Posted by crowncollection

Agreed
Have a few 18000 series myself definitely vintage IMHO

Last time I checked, a matte dial, 16660, Seadweller with a sapphire crystal was considered vintage.

[toomuchtalk]

I am going to be controversial and say that in the current advent of the ceramic bezel watches, rolex etching on the inside:
Then anything pre ceramic it's now vintage...
Ps- am just pulling the canopy back and preparing to bail out as I will be shot down !

[petereoin]

30 years +

[Lrlx]

Vintage anything = 25 years+

[mike]

Originally Posted by b5audia4

My own criteria for "vintage" would be matte dials and no surrounds around plots.

So some 5513's are and others are not?

[1675-David]

I imagine as the hobby matures the criteria for definable historical epochs will keep us all arguing long into the future. Collecting vintage wristwatches is a relativly young passtime and as a result our vocabulary and catagorization of what we do is fairly crude. Start collecting ancient pottery and you'll see what I mean! Until some sort of lucid proposal for catagorization is put forward, something we can sink our teeth into, threads like this will pop up every other week and we will continue to contibute to a subject that is begining to sound like self-sustaining feedback.

[omitohud]

Originally Posted by 1675-David

I imagine as the hobby matures the criteria for definable historical epochs will keep us all arguing long into the future. Collecting vintage wristwatches is a relativly young passtime and as a result our vocabulary and catagorization of what we do is fairly crude. Start collecting ancient pottery and you'll see what I mean! Until some sort of lucid proposal for catagorization is put forward, something we can sink our teeth into, threads like this will pop up every other week and we will continue to contibute to a subject that is begining to sound like self-sustaining feedback.

Well said especially the last part. 👍


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[mike]

Originally Posted by 1675-David

I imagine as the hobby matures the criteria for definable historical epochs will keep us all arguing long into the future. Collecting vintage wristwatches is a relativly young passtime and as a result our vocabulary and catagorization of what we do is fairly crude. Start collecting ancient pottery and you'll see what I mean! Until some sort of lucid proposal for catagorization is put forward, something we can sink our teeth into, threads like this will pop up every other week and we will continue to contibute to a subject that is begining to sound like self-sustaining feedback.

Well said.

[motoikkyu]

If you are over forty, vintage describes watches made before you hit puberty. I propose this for categorization criteria: if it is over twenty years old, has box, papers and is NOS, it is vintage. Otherwise, it is "used". I can't afford vintage Rolex, so I tend to buy used.

[Vincent65]

Originally Posted by motoikkyu

If you are over forty, vintage describes watches made before you hit puberty. I propose this for categorization criteria: if it is over twenty years old, has box, papers and is NOS, it is vintage. Otherwise, it is "used". I can't afford vintage Rolex, so I tend to buy used.

Interesting! So a 40-year old, used watch, without box or papers is not vintage?!

Following that line of thought, a 'used' Louis XV (French Rococo) piece of furniture, lacking documentation, is not an antique, but just old and used!

[1675-David]

this is what the epoch line for car collecting looks like, wristwatches have been around roughly as long.

[MitchSteel]

Classic,vintage.....tomato, tomaatoe

1- Plexi
2-4 Dig Ref
3-Tritium

This discussion can go on and on, well into the next century, making us all, very,very, vintage and classic.Enjoy your Classics Gents

[motoikkyu]

There are very few "antique" wristwatches. We are rather ethnocentric in the Western world. In the US, furniture from the Colonial Era (1700s) is rare and antique. In China, that era is too "modern" for many collectors. All things are relative, and my relatives took all my things.

[Vincent65]

The antique reference was just to illustrate a point, and was made regarding furniture as an example, not watches. I fully appreciate the 'relative' factor, too. Either way, I believe most here would agree a used watch - over 30 years old - but lacking box and papers, is none-the-less 'vintage'.

[GMT993]

New today, vintage tomorrow?? Good 90's pieces will become great heirlooms to pass on to our children in time!

[landroverking]

I fell we always want to mix vintage up with collectable.

[kier333]

If I go ahead with the purchase would my 91 sea dweller qualify as being vintage?