Buying pre-owned watches can be a fun, affordable and exciting way to add to your collection, but many people are wary of buying anything other than new watches. There are many reasons to be cautious of pre-owned watches as you can't know for sure how they've been used or treated by previous owners. They might not come with the original paperwork and packaging or any indication of when they were last serviced and what time they keep.

One solution to this problem is to buy a certified pre-owned watch; one that has been through an authorised service centre of the brand in question and therefore has been guaranteed to be both the watch it is supposed to be and has a guarantee of accuracy following a service.

There are many ways to buy a pre-owned watch. Firstly, remember that the category has many other names, including second-hand, vintage, antique and collectable. All of these terms mean a watch that's not being purchased brand new from a retailer or brand. There are a huge number of ways to buy one, including from dealers, online platforms, auction sites, auction houses, watch forums, and retailers with a pre-owned section.

We recommend caution when buying a pre-owned watch of any type or age, and of course, the more valuable or old the watch, the more caution needs to be taken. The older a watch, the more time has passed in which things could have gone wrong, or more dodgy things could have been done to the watch (for example the use of non-standard parts during a service). For very valuable watches, there is more incentive for unauthorised parts to be used, or even for the whole watch to be fake.

The most important thing to remember is the phrase "Buy the Seller not the Watch". Carefully analyse whether the seller seems credible, has a good track record and good reviews, and is accurately showing everything you need to know about the watch. Never be afraid to ask questions. If a seller is unwilling or unable to answer your questions, that may be a bad sign.

When it comes to dealers and retailers selling pre-owned watches, they will often have stores where you can go and look at the timepieces, and these stores lend a large amount of credibility to the sale. However, you still must do your research, make sure they do not have bad reviews or claims that they are selling dodgy watches, and satisfy yourself that they have a good reputation.

This is what we call a watch that has the highest possible guarantee of originality and value when it is pre-owned. This is for two reasons; the first is that the watch has been serviced in a service centre authorised by the same brand or manufacturer that made the watch. This means that the brand sets standards and processes the service centre must follow when servicing a watch under this scheme and then audits the service centre to make sure they are staying up to those standards. Every watch service is different, and the resulting standard depends on the type and age of the watch, but the brand standards indicate the level that should be achieved to maintain the brand's reputation. For example for Rolex, the testing that they do on a watch after a service using specialised and expensive machinery is to a higher standard than other brands.

The second is that watches serviced in an authorised service centre have to be authentic, and when serviced only authentic parts from that manufacturer can be used to repair it. This means that any watch that's gone through the process can be seen to be as close to 100% authentic as possible for a pre-owned watch. 

The reason it is called Certified is that then the retailer is essentially offering a certificate of service to state that these two things are true. The watch is as close to 100% authentic as possible and it is fully serviced to the brand's standard for that model and age of watch.

Where can you find Certified Pre-Owned Watches?

There are three main places to find these watches. The first is at certain brand boutiques themselves. For example, Vacheron Constantin have sold pre-owned models in some of their main boutiques for a while now, including in the London Bond Street boutique. The second is at authorised dealers that also have an authorised service centre for a brand. Longines have multiple authorised service centres across the UK. If you buy a pre-owned Longines watch from one of the Authorised Dealers that have an associated approved Longines service centre, then you can be sure the watch will be certified pre-owned. It will likely be sold with an official Longines service receipt, or you can ask to see it before buying. 

Finally, there is a new scheme from Rolex, recently launched in conjunction with the retailer Bucherer. This scheme is important because while Bucherer has always offered officially authorised servicing of Rolex watches and a certified pre-owned service for the watches it sells from a variety of brands, the new scheme involves official Rolex paperwork and guarantees authenticity. Unlike many other watch brands, Rolex do not offer any extracts from their archives to authenticate a watch, or provide any way of authenticating a watch other than an official service. Rolex believes that this scheme will provide anyone looking for a pre-owned Rolex the best possible experience, and the scheme is simply called Rolex Certified Pre-Owned.

Are they more expensive than other pre-owned watches?

Across the pre-owned market, watches trade at a premium for exceptional quality and the most interesting provenance (which means its ownership history). They also trade at a premium when they have the original box and papers, which means things like the original user manual, guarantee certificate, and even the receipt from the retailer they were bought from. 

Similar to the watches themselves, all of these things get damaged or lost over the years, and they can be faked, so it is normal that a pre-owned watch of any age with the correct papers will be more valuable than one without. 

If a watch has been serviced at an authorised service centre and is therefore known to be fully accurate and reliable, it will also trade at a premium to similar watches that have not been serviced at one. The new Rolex scheme comes with a new set of paperwork and tags that adds to this guarantee. It is therefore fair that these watches may trade at a premium to those of similar quality but without the certified servicing process.

Generally, the more that is known about a watch's past and service history the more valuable it will be compared to similar models. We see similar effects in markets for other pre-owned goods such as cars or antiques. The size of the premium will always be dependent on the market, but it is fair to say that the entire category of certified pre-owned watches should trade at some premium to the rest of the market. 

Buying certified pre-owned is just one way to buy pre-owned watches and you should expect to pay a premium for a watch sold this way versus the same model sold in other channels. The Certified pre-owned market can certainly give the highest level of peace of mind, and the watch may not require servicing for many years. The Watch Collectors' Club is here to help those who love all kinds, of watches, new and old, certified or of uncertain provenance, and we are happy to run events that explore all different aspects of the watch world. If you have any further questions about buying certified pre-owned please do not hesitate to get in touch.

How to buy a certified pre-owned watch. Why you should buy certified pre-owned watches.

Buying Certified Pre-Owned Watches

We explain what it means to buy a Certified Pre-Owned Watch

Our last Blog Post looked at the history of Watch Manufacturing, and we hope it piqued your interest in the long history of horology. There are many excellent books on the subject that we would be happy to recommend. The story of watch manufacturing in the Twentieth century is a fairly straightforward one of modernisation, but the details of how complex and varied it is today are of great interest to many watch owners. This week's post will try to outline some of the details, but much more can be found online or even by visiting a watch "manufacture" as they are known. The Watch Collectors' Club is very excited to be visiting a modern watch factory on February 10th 2023, and there are still spaces available for those who want to join us; details can be found on our Events page.

The Modernisation and Mechanisation of Watchmaking

Watchmaking is a conservative industry, but the constant demand for low priced watches led watch companies to find ever more ways to incorporate mass production techniques in the same way as other industries. The largest amount of push back against machine manufacture of parts was from luxury watch brands, and there are interesting statements from the likes of Henry Stern, who ran the luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe in the 1930s - 50s. He said the following:

“Everything that a hand can do better than a machine, we will do. But when machines can assist the work of a person, we will not adhere blindly to tradition.”

Like in many other industries, the real pioneers of low-cost watch manufacturing arose in Asia, namely the two companies Seiko and Citizen, who built companies capable of producing huge volumes of low-cost mechanical movements. For example, Citizen Group own the manufacturer Miyota, which has produced over 2 Billion quartz movements over the last 40 years. These numbers are only made possible by fully automated manufacturing. Today, watch parts and movements are made in China, Malaysia, and Japan, with assembly also taking place in those countries for movements found in a huge number of brands, large and small.

While the Twentieth Century saw a huge amount of turmoil in the Swiss Watch Industry, including the period of the so-called "Quartz Crisis" in the 1970s, the country remains a watch industry powerhouse. There are manufacturers large and small making everything separately and together: for example, Rolex do almost everything themselves, from smelting their own steel to making their own hands and dials, before assembling and testing the whole watches in their factory in the Les Acacias area of Geneva in Switzerland. However, for every part of a modern watch, there are independent suppliers large and small. There are companies that only make the gears or wheels of the movements, those that specialise in hands or dials, and workshops that create the complications that sit on top of base movements and provide functions like a chronograph, stopwatch, or calendar. 

Some of these parts suppliers are famous in their own right, thanks to important innovations, interesting features they invented, or partnerships with famous brands. The Renauld & Papi movement workshop is now owned by Luxury brand Audemars Piguet, but continues to design and manufacture complications for them as well as other leading brands.

It must be understood that most modern watches will contain parts from many different manufacturers. Rolex are unusual in their dedication to making everything themselves. Most other brands will use a mixture. One thing that is important is the Swiss Made designation. For this to hold, 60% of the components of the watch must be made in Switzerland and it must be cased (assembled) and tested in Switzerland also. Only watches that fulfil this can write Swiss Made on the dial.

It is an important component of luxury watch-making that some parts of the watch are hand made or hand-finished and that the watch is assembled by hand. This is not true of low-priced watches, where most have been engineered to be almost entirely made by machine. Quartz watches usually do not feature movement finishing as the movements are hidden behind the case back. For mechanical watches, it is common today to display the movement through sapphire casebacks. This gives the opportunity to create beautiful finishes to the parts and the movement itself. These finishes can be done by machine, but as a sign of commitment to luxury, many high-end brands do them by hand. 

One exciting thing to research when looking at luxury watch brands is how much is done by hand. For example, the luxury German brand Lange & Sohne finish almost every aspect of the movement by hand, including parts that cannot be seen. Swiss brand Patek Philippe are also famous for hand-finishing parts that cannot be seen. They do this as a commitment to quality for their customers, indicating that if they take that level of detail for the parts that cannot be seen, the quality and reliability of the whole watch will be very high.

Watchmakers have used independent organisations to verify the accuracy and reliability of their timepieces for a long time, and the two Swiss certification agencies of COSC and METAS certify millions of high-quality timepieces as chronometers per year in Switzerland. Rolex also test every single watch after it has been finished to ensure it meets their promised high standards, including testing their dive watches to 125% of their rated water depth. Most companies don't have the resources to do this, so will have a different Quality Control procedure. Often these are done by highly trained people, and it is a mark of a quality brand that is happy to advertise and talk about this. One good example is the young British brand Fears, based in the UK, where the founder regularly posts the details on his Instagram account of the quality control procedure he undertakes on every watch before it is delivered.

One of the huge benefits of the move to highly automated modern manufacturing systems is the collapse in the cost of designing and making a watch to a good standard. This has been demonstrated by the explosion of startup watch Microbrands over the last 15 years. Using common design software and Chinese manufacturing and assembly, it is easy for people to make a small run of new watches for a very low price. This has allowed the flourishing of design ideas, the establishment of new brands in countries with no history of watchmaking, and the resurrection of older brands with new ideas and energy. We encourage you to look out for microbrands you like the look of and investigate their background. 

Modern watch manufacturing is complicated and highly sophisticated, and every manufacturer will do something different. We encourage you to ask watch salespeople and brands more about their manufacturing process so that you can appreciate what a brand is trying to do. We hope this article has given you some more questions to ask of your favourite brands, and if you need any help finding out more, just let us know and we can do some digging. It's also great to share you knowledge about how watches are made with other people, and at our regular events we all do just that. Find out more on out Events Page or on our social media. 

We explore modern watch manufacturing and how watches are made

Modern Watch Manufacturing

We explore how modern watches are made

The Watch Collectors' Club runs regular events where we teach members a little about watches, watchmakers, watch

A club for everyone who likes watches.

Watchmakers and brands are constantly looking to bring something new to their catalogue. This means they often look to celebrate historic milestones in their past with anniversaries in the present. To do this they create special one-off watches to celebrate the anniversary of something, such as the year the watch was launched. They can also commemorate famous events connected to a watch, or simply broader anniversaries of the company or something connected to the company. We are not talking about watches bought as an anniversary gift for someone, but a watch that celebrates an anniversary important to the watch brand. This year (2023) contains many anniversaries of important watches, including Casio G-Shock, Swatch, Blancpain and even Rolex, who have never yet made an anniversary model, but who knows if this year is a first?

Anniversary watches often celebrate the anniversary of the company that makes them. Patek Phillippe, the high-end Swiss Manufacturer has celebrated their company founding date repeatedly, producing a limited edition timepiece for their 150th Anniversary in 1989, and in 2014 they introduced their most complicated wristwatch in production, the Grandmaster Chime for their 175th Anniversary. It has 21 different functions and in order to order one you have to pass an interview with the company in Geneva. To get that interview you have to already be a really big client. They even made pop star Ed Sheeran have an interview (yes really!). 

Another great example of a series of famous anniversary watches is the Omega Speedmaster range. They have created a very large number to commemorate anniversaries of different versions of the Apollo space missions for which they are most famously associated with, being the first watch on the moon and the first watch on a long spacewalk. It's quite entertaining to see just how many special edition Omega Speedmasters there are, but this large number is great for collectors as there are some very cool dial designs. Omega has produced a new limited edition celebrating the Apollo XI mission that landed on the moon every five years since the 20th anniversary in 1989, so that's seven just for one mission! 

50th Anniversaries are a very common reason for watch brands to celebrate their historic models. The Jaeger LeCoultre Polaris dive watch relaunch on its fiftieth anniversary was a particularly well-received highlight of a popular function, the alarm, in the very stylish dive watch design. The range is still doing very well for them today. 

2023 sees many watch models have their 70th anniversary, including two of the most important and famous dive watches of all time; the Rolex submariner and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. Rolex does not do "anniversary watches" but the world is eagerly anticipating their new models for the year to see if they commemorate the Submariner's first year of production in 1953. Luxury brand Blancpain has already released their new version of their famous Dive watch, the Fifty Fathoms, with an interesting new complication, a three-hour timer for divers using high-tech rebreather technology. This fun update is the latest addition to their very popular (but also very large and expensive) dive watch range.

Some brands celebrate the anniversaries of their own collaborations, including Patek Philippe. At the end of 2021 they created what is probably the most hyped watch ever to celebrate the Anniversary of their relationship with US Jewellery Retailer Tiffany & Co., a version of their Nautilus model with a Tiffany Blue dial.

Even young brands can create anniversary watches. The British watch brand William Wood, which makes firefighting-themed watches, used its five-year anniversary to create and sell a brand new watch for charity. This auction was a great success and the watch is truly unique, in both colour and dial design.

Anniversary watches are and interesting and quite common way for brands to dream up new versions of past classics. If there is a  brand or watch model that you particularly love it is worth searching for any anniversary models to see if they have interesting designs. It's also worth noting any coming up that you might want to reserve buying power for! Anniversaries are a fun and interesting discussion point for collectors of all kinds. Keep your eyes open at this year's Watches and Wonders watch show at the end of March for any interesting ones to go alongside the Blancpain. 

We explain anniversary watches and special watches made for anniversaries

What are Anniversary Watches?

We explore the watches brand use to celebrate significant historic anniversaries.

Many watch brands talk about the “finishing” of their watches, but what does that mean? Simply, it means the decoration applied to part of a watch. High horology brands talk a lot about their fine finishing, often applied to the case, hands, and movement. A previous blog explored the finishing that you can find on watch dials. 

This blog will briefly explore the various type of movement finishing that watch brands use for their movements.

All watches have movements. Some of these are very simple, and some are very complicated. Some are powered by quartz movements, whilst others are automatic. There are lots of ways in which movements can differ. How a manufacturer finishes the movement is just another one. 

Finishing is simply decoration of the movement. Sometimes manufacturers just use simple finishing, usually completed by a machine, to keep costs down. Other manufacturers might employ highly-skilled watchmakers to finish movements by hand. 

The way in which a watch manufacturer finishes a watch usually reflects the quality of the watch. Really high quality and expensive watches will often have movements finished with a variety of patterns, whilst cheaper watches will have simpler movement finishing. There are obviously some exceptions to this where cheaper watches have really beautiful movements.  

 A simple way to finish a movement is to polish it. It is unlikely that the whole movement will be polished, but some of the component parts might be. The bridge is a part that is commonly polished. 

Some watchmakers will spend a huge amount of time polishing parts of the movement by hand until they have a mirror-finish. This is very striking and requires a lot skill to achieve. Grand Seiko watches often have mirror-finished components to their movements, as you can see in the image below. This type of polishing is called Some polishers are able to create an effect called black-polish. This is achieved when metal is polished to such an extent that it appears black. It is very impressive to see!  

The opposite to polishing is graining, or brushing a movement. Like dragging a rake through sand, a machine with a sharp edge is dragged over the metal. This leaves it with tiny etches, giving the metal a matte finish. The grain is often in a straight line, however, there are various patterns that watchmakers might grain or brush a movement in, such as circular or Geneva stripes. 

Watchmakers achieve another matte effect by sandblasting the movement. This involves blasting compressed air and sand against the metal in order to cover it with lots of tiny craters. This is a very smart finish when combined with polished components. 

Cotes de Geneve, or the Geneva stripes, are a high-end brushed finished that you often see on watch movements through crystal case-backs. To create the effect, the watchmaker either uses a lathe, or a rectifying rule (a bit like the arm of a turntable). This is incredibly difficult to execute cleanly and evenly, so this finish is mostly used on expensive watches. It is also a useful finish, as it hides any marks on the movement, and traps small particles of dust.

Like Cotes de Geneve, perlage is a difficult effect to achieve. The watchmaker uses a rotating head, pressing it onto the metal to create an overlapping pattern of circles on the movement. It is very difficult to achieve a consistent pattern across the movement, so this finishing is often only used on expensive watches. 

Anglage, chamfering, or bevelling the edge of a movement component all mean the same thing. It means to polish the edge of a component, typically on a 45degree angle, to stop the edge of the component breaking off and damaging the movement. The top of a bevelled component is usually brushed in contrast to the polished, sloping sides. See picture below.

Guilloche is one of the most difficult movement finishes to achieve. It involves carving extremely precise patterns into the metal using a rose engine lathe. The lathe operator has to been incredibly skilled to achieve a consistent pattern. The process needs to be completed perfectly first time – so it is only used on the most expensive watch movements. 

At The Watch Collectors’ Club, we don’t have a favourite movement finish. We enjoy seeing the wide variety of finishes that watchmakers use to decorate the movements they put into their watches. They highlight the talent of watchmakers, and the pride that manufacturers take in the quality of their engineering. The best way to see some of the different movement finishes is to come to one of our events. 

The Different Finishes On Watch Movements

Join us at our first event with Europe's largest pre-owned watch retailer Watchfinder for an evening exploring their Royal Exchange Store in the City of London. On Thursday 27th April from 6:00PM you'll learn all about how Watchfinder works, what they stock and what to expect when you buy or sell from them. We'll also give a short talk on the History of the Rolex Submariner and have a special selection in store of recent models. You'll be able to try them all on and finally decide which Submariner suits you best!

There are only 20 spaces at this event so please sign up ASAP and please also let us know if you change your mind or can no longer make it. We will not admit anyone not signed up, so if you have friends who are interested please ask them to sign up here.

Join us to see a large range of Rolex Submariners and learn the history of the watch.

Rolex Submariner Event, History of the Rolex Submariner

Exploring the Rolex Submariner

Exploring the Rolex Submariner with Watchfinder

Join us on Thursday April 20th from 6:00PM for a new format of event at Mortimer House, a stylish member's co-working space in London's Fitzrovia. At this event we will give a talk all about how to get started with watch collecting, exploring the different types of collecting, what to look out for, and how to talk about your love of watches in an interesting way. After the talk, we will mingle and you'll be able to share your watch stories, learn from other watch lovers, and get a taste of what our regular Meetups are like. 

Mortimer House is a smart co-working club in Fitzrovia set in a fabulous art deco building, and we'll have the upstairs bar area and terrace to enjoy for the evening.

Join us for an Introductory talk on watch collecting at a fabulous art deco Members Club in London's Fitzrovia.

A Simple Guide to Watch Collecting Event at Mortimer House

Rolex's Post War Innovation Explosion Online Event. Join us on Zoom on Monday 18th April for the second in our series looking at Rolex's fantastic history and this time we will talk about the introduction of their most famous tool watches in the 1950s and 60s like the Submariner, Explorer and Daytona. We'll give a short online talk and then open the floor for a fun discussion of what we like bout them and why they've stood the test of time.

We will send out the Zoom details to all those registered approximatley one hour before the event starts at 8:00PM

Join us on Zoom to explore Rolex's legendary models such as the Day-Date, Submariner, GMT and Explorer

An online Zoom event to discuss Rolex's post war innovation

Exploreing Rolex's Post-war Innovation Short Talk and Discussion

Exploring Rolex's Post War Innovation - Short Talk and Discussion

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