However you feel I'm sure you'll enjoy the below video.

Cheers,

Darryl.

Watch out...for value

When someone goes from being a watch owner to a watch collector is, as far as I'm concerned, down to the individual. I know some people with two watches who class themselves as collectors and others with thirty or more pieces who just “like watches” and tell me they are definitely not collecting anything.

As a dealer in pre-owned watches I meet every type of ‘watch person’. Some seek a functional timepiece they can wear for years and give the purchase very little thought. At the other end of the spectrum are the collectors who know the tiniest detail of dozens of different models.

Many, perhaps most people I’ve met, made an unconscious decision to start a collection. A purchase of a single watch to celebrate an occasion is soon followed by buying something else ‘for the weekend’ and the passion develops from there. For some it becomes almost an addiction.

The worst way to start a collection is to try and buy watches that will appreciate in value over time. There is no doubt that some watches costing a few thousand dollars some years ago are worth many times that amount today, but they are by far an exception.

If you buy something you’ll get good use and great pleasure from, then you may also get as lucky as a Mr Abi Nathan from Tenterfield, New South Wales.

Working his way around the world as a musician Mr Nathan found himself in Tasmania in 1971. In need of a solid watch he popped in to a Jeweller in Hobart and simply asked, “What’s the most rugged watch you have?” The sales assistant turned around and picked up a Rolex dive watch. Back then it was just called a Sea-Dweller, today it is famously known as the DRSD or Double Red Sea-Dweller.

To understand the significance of this purchase, we have to take a very short history lesson on Rolex dive watches.

In the beginning there was the Rolex Submariner. A great dive watch. The problem was, back in the 1960s, there were no remote controlled submarines with robot arms, so the only way to repair deep-sea pipelines and cables, was to send down a man with a watch and a his tools.

This was a demanding job and the king of dive watches at the time was the Rolex Submariner. With its 660ft/200m depth rating, it was good for nothing more than a trip to the beach. These were real men, facing death and a case of ‘the bends’ daily, so what was needed, was a mega dive watch. Rolex began work on what in 1967 eventually became the ‘Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller Submariner 2000 (2000 ft = 610m)’, affectionately known as the Double Red Sea-Dweller or DRSD.

‘Double Red’ because of the two lines of red writing on the dial. The early version, known as model 1665 was produced from approximately 1967 to 1977. It is these watches that have become the ‘grail’ for many collectors.

What Mr Nathan purchased back in 1971 was to become one of the world’s most collectable watches.

Some very fine examples of this watch have fetched over US$100,000 at auction and only a garage sale, or perhaps eBay, would turn one up for under  $25-30,000. In fact, it was eBay that Mr Nathan turned to when he believed his trusty Rolex had completed its useful life. After more than twenty years on his wrist and another ten in a drawer, with an angle grinder driven almost through the watch, a non original bracelet, the date not working and a broken winder, he listed the watch with a starting price of $500. Some would say optimistically.

Fortunately nobody bid for the watch. A couple of knowledgeable watch enthusiasts did however let Mr. Nathan know exactly what he had, and how much it might be worth.

A few days later I received an email from Abi Nathan. The subject line was “DRSD for Sale”. I contacted him immediately and soon after we were able to offer the watch for sale to our clients. Price? Let’s start talking about offers over $25,000. If it were mint condition, with all boxes and papers, we wouldn’t be talking with anyone who had less than $50,000 on the table.

So it’s true to say that there are some watches that have grown considerably in value over the years, but very few outpace even inflation, let alone a conservative share portfolio. Even the above rare example has grown by only about 7% p.a. compounded over thirty years. The vast majority of watches are worth far less than their purchase price however long you keep them for. 

Buy something because you love it. If you wish to buy something with the hope of minimising depreciation, or perhaps even gaining in value, follow these rules.

Ten Watch Buying Rules To Minimise Depreciation

1. Stick to the known quality manufacturers.
2. Don’t buy entry-level pieces.
3. The premium you pay up front for gold, platinum and diamonds will generally be lost more quickly. Steer clear of precious stones and metals.
4. Limited or special editions are only good if they are genuinely special or limited.
5. Try to buy something that is one of the last of an iconic model. The recently changed Rolex Submariner or SEA-DWELLER is a good example.
6. Buy excellent condition used pieces that have already suffered some of the initial depreciation.
7. Consider watches that are already increasing in value.
8. Keep all of the original packaging and paperwork.
9. Take care of the watch, but don’t over polish it.
10. Rotate wearing it with other watches to avoid excessive wear.

Perhaps one day you may have tomorrow’s equivalent of the Double Red Sea-Dweller.

You can view a couple of Rolex Double Red SEA-DWELLERS we have offered for sale here and here.

Devil in the Detail
Modern horology is a healthy mix of art & science. And while the artistic beauty of any given timepiece is what might catch our eye, often it’s the science beneath that makes a timepiece a true standout. Hidden just below the surface, there’s a whole world of complexity . . . and complications. In the world of horology, ‘complications’ means just that: a level of detail in the mechanism that allow functions far beyond the mere telling of time. And when you’re valuing watches at the high end of the artform, the devil is truly in the details. Watch Traders’ Darryl Middleton reports for AHA Magazine.

IT Doesn’t Have to be Complicated . . .

I often use the word complication when talking about watches, I guess mainly through unconscious conditioning whilst reading through watch magazines, books on Horology or researching on the internet. Unsurprisingly I often get asked the question, ‘what’s a complication’? To answer, here is our brief guide to the world of watch complications.

For the sake of brevity we’ll stick to wristwatches as pocket & coach watches can add a new dimension entirely to the conversation. Simply put, a watch has a movement. A movement is generally three hands, one each to register the hours, minutes and seconds. Beyond the movement we can add functions or in horology terms, complications. A date, a chronograph (stopwatch), a moon phase or an alarm can each be called a complication. (Features that enhance the watch operation such as a high degree of water resistance, long power reserve, chronometer certificate or a tachymeter are not complications, they are just enhancements to the movement, case or existing functions.)

I tried to count the number of complications available. It’s a long list (and one not universally agreed on) so I’ll settle on a figure of about 55, with a smaller number of ‘sub-complications’.

A movement has upwards of 100 separate components (or parts), often as many as 250, and a watch with multiple complications can have over 1000. But a long parts list is not the only requirement for a watch to become ‘complicated’.

Complications can generally be split into two broad categories; simple or ‘lesser’, and high or ‘extraordinary’ complications. Further, the list of complications can be split in to three main function sets. Firstly there are timing complications, which include the chronographs. Secondly there are the striking complications, which include both alarms and repeaters. Lastly there are the astronomical complications, which include calendars and moonphases.

Watches containing complications can be very expensive, as they require large amounts of expertise and many years to develop. Even the commonplace chronograph is a complex thing, only available at a reasonable price point because of the large numbers produced by a relatively small number of movement manufactures.

The kings of the complication are as follows:

The Tourbillon
Developed By Abraham Luis Breguet (as an ex-pat Englishman I can’t help but mention the idea should be partly attributed to the Cornishman John Arnold), at the end of the 1700s. The Tourbillon (French for whirlwind) was aimed to negate the effects of gravity by placing crucial parts of the movement in a rotating cage. 

Abraham Luis Breguet, entered watchmaking after a failed modelling career

If you have a watch on your wrist and sit at a desk for 10 hours a day the parts will almost always be in the ‘dial-up’ position. By rotating these parts in a Tourbillon they are always in different positions so less likely to be subjected to gravitational pull in just one direction. This was the theory and to some degree it does work – more so in pocket watches where the watch is nearly always in the same position – but because of the many positions a wristwatch finds itself in each day the positive influence is negligible.

The Tourbillon is produced by nearly all of the major movement manufacturers, partly because it is a demonstration of their ability to build such complex and difficult movements but mostly, because they just look sensational through a cut-away piece in the dial. The Tourbillon is without doubt the trendiest of the big complications. Prices from the major Swiss manufacturers start at around $50,000, with most in the $100,000+ range. (You can buy a perfectly good working Tourbillon wristwatch from a Chinese manufacturer for around $2000.)

Harry Winston Midnight GMT Tourbillon detail

The Perpetual Calendar
For anyone who has owned a wristwatch with a date, you’ll be familiar with looking at your watch on the first day of July and see the date window displaying a proud, but incorrect ‘31’. A date function is normally a simple disc that rotates one segment each time the hour hand makes two full rotations of the dial. There are thirty-one numbers on the disc but of course the watch does not know which months have fewer days. Imagine, if you will, that without any form of electronics or human intervention your watch could tell which months have 30 days and which have 31 – you would have an Annual Calendar.

Unfortunately you would be hugely inconvenienced on the 1st of March each year, because your annual calendar cannot adjust for the 28 days of February. Enter the four-year calendar, which knows when February is February, and will jump straight from 28 to 1 at the beginning of March. Sadly you will be tearing your hair out every four years, when an extra day is liberally thrown into the calendar to indicate a leap year. (Terribly inconvenient!).

The solution is the Perpetual Calendar, a complication with the ability to recognise the number of days each month and once every four years, give you a ‘29’ at the end of February. Now, you’ll still need to make an adjustment once in 2100 (and every hundred years thereafter) as these years do not add an extra day. I know you’ll find this grossly annoying, but there are solutions. One such beauty is the Anderson Gèneve Perpetual Secular Calendar. This calendar can count in centuries, and will display the correct day, date, week, month and year for four hundred years without adjustment.

You can buy a nice annual calendar for well under $10,000, a four year calendar for a little more but expect to start counting in the tens of thousands for a Perpetual. The Anderson Gèneve will set you back about $60,000.

Repeaters & Sonneries
I find these the most beautiful and desirable of the big complications. These marvels add another sensory dimension to your watch by giving you sound. Repeaters allow you to audibly know the correct time by the flick of a lever, setting off a series of chimes in a sequence that tells you the time to the closest minute, five minutes, or quarter hours (Minute Repeater, Five minute Repeater and Quarter Repeater).

The Sonnerie comes in two flavours, the Petite Sonnerie and the Grande Sonnerie. The former will chime out the hours and quarter hours as the minute hand passes the markers, the latter does the same, but will normally allow the wearer to hear chimes on demand – as does a repeater. The technical skill required to design and build these should not be underestimated. It is a massive undertaking to mechanically complete this task in a unit so small – just delivering the power is a task big enough to send most Master Watchmakers scurrying for a pint of mead. If you ever get a chance to hear a repeater or sonnerie you really should take up the opportunity, as the exquisite sound produced by the top manufacturers is really something special.

Prices for repeaters and sonneries generally start at around $100,000, with many costing a great deal more. The good news is that you can get into an audible piece of horological beauty by buying a mechanical alarm watch for well under $10,000.

We’re the best.
In the world of horology, one-upmanship and the race to develop ever better calibres has been going on for centuries. Today is no different, and in an effort to always be at the cutting edge watch companies are continually introducing ever more complicated calibres.

At the very top of the pile is the Grande, or Ultra Complication. Whilst no official body exists to declare a watch Grande or Ultra Complicated, most manufacturers stick to the rule of a watch having at least three complications, with one or more of them being one of the big three mentioned above.

Building a minute repeater is difficult enough; trying to get a chronograph and moonphase in the same case is moving toward moon-landing difficulty status, but some manufacturers go much, much further. The title of the most complicated watch is a bit of a hot topic among aficionados, primarily because the definition of complication is occasionally stretched. Even by my own definition above, you could argue that a Tourbillon is not a complication, but merely an enhancement to the movement – and if you can’t see it, is it still a complication? Well yes if it is audible or sensory (there are watches that will signal an alarm by pushing a pin on your wrist) but otherwise it is perhaps debateable. If a watch has a display of days, a perpetual calendar and a secular calendar a claim for three complications will be made, so when talking about Ultra Complications the calendar alone can count five or more complications.

Anyway, without getting to deep in the debate let’s look at three watches that are massively complicated.

1. Vacheron Constantin Tour de l’lle

Made to mark its 250th anniversary in 2005 the Tour de I’Ile can perhaps be noted as the watch that reignited the great calibre race. Having a double face and 16 complications, each watch had 834 parts. Complications include Tourbillon,

perpetual calendar, repeater, sunrise, sunset and sky chart. Chunky at 47mm wide and 18mm thick, it requires an even thicker wallet to purchase it at US$1.5 million. Only 7 were ever made, each with a unique guilloche dial to ensure you never bump in to someone else sporting the exact same timepiece.

Vacheron Constantin Tour de l’lle

2. Jaeger LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica a Grande Sonnerie
Sporting 26 complications and over 1200 parts in a 44mm case the MaGS (as I’ll affectionately call her) is not only hugely complicated but extremely wearable, at just 44mm x 15mm. This little beauty has no less than 26 complications, including a flying tourbillion, perpetual calendar and Grande Sonnerie. Whilst it is missing such things as the moonphase, chronographs etc; what is does immensely well is sing. Rather than be content with chirping out the hours with single strokes it will play the entire Westminster Chimes, a first for any wristwatch. And how much will this little piece of magic cost? US$2.5 million, but this does include two other watches and a watch box so big it is in fact a full-blown safe. Allowing for this we could perhaps pare the price back to a far more reasonable US$2 million.

Jaeger LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica a Grande Sonnerie

 

3. Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4
You want complicated? This is complicated. The Mega 4 is from Franck Muller, the mad scientist of the horology world (nearly everything about Franck Muller’s watches is complicated).  This watch has 36 complications, 1438 parts, a 1000 year calendar and will set you back, wait for it, US$2.7 million. I really don’t think I need to say anything else.

So there you have a brief introduction to wristwatch complications. Many of these complications were developed for real world use; repeaters for telling the time in the dark, moon-phases for tides or knowing when to take your lover for a stroll perhaps (I hear moon-phases are particularly popular amongst the werewolf community). You may think that today they are just mechanical toys for those that can afford them, but don’t forget, you can still go and buy yourself a perfectly good Swiss made chronograph for less than $1000 (or a day-date for less than $500); and simply enjoying that complication ticking away on your wrist may make it the best money you have ever spent.

Keep good time,

Darryl Middleton.

After several days of bidding the price crept up to about $900, that is where it stayed for the rest of the auction until the last hour when a couple of people drove the price to $1142. The Heuer is already with it's very happy new owner in Illinois, US. 

Well the competition for the Maurice Lacroix was hot, much hotter than I had anticipated. In fact we ended up with three people within the required $20 of the final price (I have offered them all a job in the valuations department given they all got a fair bit closer than my guess). But  of course there is only one winner and without further ado... 

...Congratulations to Mr. Carlo Bonato of Melbourne. Well done Carlo, a sensational effort with a guess of $1145!

I asked Carlo If he'd be kind enough to share a little about his watch passion and how he came up with his guess and he ki ndly agreed. Thanks Carlo, big thumbs up to you. 

How did you get so close to the finish price, wild guess or did you do any research?

I did some Internet Research and checked what recent sale prices were.  Then I assessed how it compared to those watches I has seen on the Internet. This was a bit of personal judgment on whether it was better / worse than what I had seen and then I accounted for the Aussie dollar being so good etc.  And I made my call.   

What was the first watch you owned? 

My family were post war migrants to Australia and were struggling to establish themselves in the new country.  But one day my dad came home from work with a wind up watch for me. He had a friend who worked on the wharves in Port Melbourne and who knew sailors from overseas who regularly visited Australia. So I ended up with a no name brand watch but it was marked - Swiss made and 17 jewels. I did not know what that meant at the time but I was told that it was a good quality watch. I kept it for a long time but eventually it succumbed to youthful excesses.  :=)

What watches do you wear daily?

My styles are more classic and simple.  I don't like leather bands as I get a skin rash in summer so I go for metal bands (stainless steel - cant afford white gold)  and roman numerals, worn a bit loose like a bracelet.  I usually alternate between a Baume and Mercier or a Rolex Datejust at work and when I want something more casual, I wear my PaneraiLuminor. 

If you could own three watches and three watches only what would they be and why?

Cartier Tank Francaise large men's automatic  or Cartier Roadster men's steel gold 2-tone watch -  I like the shape and design, not your usual round blob. Rolex president day / date 36 mill with mother of pearl dial and roman numerals - a classic design  which has stood the test of time. The new Rolex Day date II, in 41 mil size. a great modern  reinterpretation of the above classic design.

And in classic watch nut style Carlo gives us his top three watches... with four watches.

(competition closes Midnight 19/06/11)

The trouble with vintage watches is you never quite know what they will make until someone puts their hand in their pocket. When there are plenty of a particular model available, an Omega Ploprof or 1970s Subamariner for example, there is less guesswork as plenty of reference points are available. But what about something a little different? Take this 1951 Heuer for example. You see a few of them around as they often come up for sale. You don't see too many in 18k gold and rarely, if ever, with original boxes and papers. But what about that dial? It needs some work. Would you buy it and search for a dial or be happy with it as is? What sort of a premium would you pay for the original certificate and box?

I have an idea on value and what I think it should make. We could put it up for sale and wait for a buyer, but to really gauge what the market will pay it is worth considering an ebay auction (or Christies for the right piece).

We are running a genuine no reserve auction on Ebay (link below) for this watch. What will it make? Why don't you have a guess and if you are the closest to the final price (the Heuer buyer must pay for and complete the deal) and within plus or minus $20 of the hammer price, we'll give you a beautiful Maurice Lacroix Miros Coussin worth over AU$2000 new. SEE BELOW FOR COMPETITION RULES. Feel free to make a comment and let us know what you think the Heuer will make. YOU MUST ENTER VIA EMAIL TO HAVE A CHANCE OF WINNING. No need to introduce 5 friends, you don't have to like us on Facebook, just follow the instructions below and you could win.

Maurice Lacroix Miros Coussin

Heuer Watch Details

A fine example of a rare 1951 Heuer Triple Date with its original boxes and papers.

The dial on this one is the only thing that needs some work, it has some discolouration, fading and spotting. There would be a couple of options, a dial clean would give dramatic improvement or the new owner would seek out a replacement dial, not an easy task but they do come up from time to time. Sadly we just missed a near mint one and don't have the patience to wait on another. Certainly someone with the patience to do so would be rewarded with a remarkable piece.

This watch is available exclusively through our Ebay store lisiting, link below.

Heuer Triple Date Vintage Ebay Listing

Competition Rules

*Competition is open only to Australian residents

*One entry per person

*One email per person, no multiple emails from the same person on different email addresses.

*Entries must be received by Midnight Sunday 19th June 2011 AEST

*Ebay aution ends 25 Jun, 2011 06:20:17 AEST 

*Ebay buyer must pay for the Heuer purchase and complete the deal 

*The entry that is closest to AND within $20 of the hammer price will win the Maurice Lacroix watch. In the event of a tie names will be drawn from a hat.

*Friends and family, you can enter but sorry no prizes for you! Heuer buyer... you can't enter either!

*To enter simply send an email to darryl@watchtrader.com.au and include;

1. Insert in the subject line - 'Heuer Competition'
2. Your guess in Australian dollars
3. Your full name
4. Your email address
5. Your phone number