Vintage Watches - Buying and Maintaining

[BobToc]

Prompted by the "wrist" thread I've been taken by a couple of vintage watch options, particularly the Omega Speedmaster and some Longines and JLC options, particularly in the late 70s / early 80s. A lot of these seem to be available from Chrono24. A couple of questions:
- Am I letting myself in for a world of pain when it comes to maintaining these older watches
- Is Chrono24 a credible place to source sellers? It seems quite sketchy, but that may just be my advancing years

Thx

[marcosgt]

Chrono24 offers no protection.

Of course, many sellers are highly reputable, probably moreso than eBay, but that's no guarantee.

If you buy from a local seller with a physical presence (eg a shop or home address you can verify) who offers some form of guarantee, I guess you'd probably be as safe as you could ever be with a secondhand purchase.

Vintage watches are often easy to maintain as they feature fairly common movements for which there are plentiful supplies of donor parts. The problem comes if you pick something rare, in which case the availability of parts, should something go wrong, could leave you watchless for months or even years.

A Speedmaster's a safe bet though as parts are widely available (although 60s/70s ones tend to be dearer in the first place, as are parts).

M.

Edited by marcosgt on Tuesday 6th January 10:52

[yeti]

BobToc said:

Is Chrono24 a credible place to source sellers? It seems quite sketchy, but that may just be my advancing years

Think of chrono24 as Gumtree (or the small ads in a paper) for watches and you'll understand. They offer no protection, insurance or comeback, they are simply the largest sales platform for watches. I check prices there and buy lots of watches using their site - I research the selling dealer myself and take it from there, as always, buyer beware.