Enthusiasm for mechanical watches--when did this start ramping up? What is the future?

[LittleWatchShop]

As I have rediscovered mechanical watches and a love for working on them, my curiosity is piqued regarding when the interest in mechanical watches started to ramp in the modern time.  That is the basic question of this post.

Before joining this group in Dec, I had been seeing on FB and other places, ads for mechanical watches.  This surprised me in the age of Apple.  Frankly, I thought, "Why would anyone want a mechanical watch?"  Seems like heresy now, but given that my father was a watchmaker, I knew of the maintenance issues and not being aware of any watchmakers within a 50-mile radius of where I live, I wondered...who would service a watch I owned.

As time passed, the watch thing kept gnawing on me.  I did some ebay searches and saw that watchmaking tools were very popular.  So I walked into my lab where my dad's tools are stored and I took an inventory...thinking that I would sell everything.  So I listed one little thing--an unused bottle of oil.  It finally sold for $15 or so.  Then I listed an A-11 Elgin.  That sold for a nice price.  I started taking pictures of the tools and things and then suddenly it hit me--what the hell am I doing???  It was a blinding glimpse of the obvious--don't sell these tools--USE THEM!!  That was in the Fall of last year.  Now...instead of selling...I am buying--LOL.  I am still kicking myself for selling the A-11, but what is done is done.

So, back to my question.  When did this resurgence start?  When did a Valjoux chronograph go from $500 to $5000 (or whatever range)?

An adjunct to this question is, "How long will it last?"  Nobody can answer that of course.  At some point, the vintage parts market will dry up I guess.  Then what?  I have noticed a few discussions here and there about the Swiss "cartel" (for lack of a better term).  Where is that going to end up?

Anyway...just wondering.

I am happy to see the enthusiasm of the members of this forum...it is infecting...it is encouraging.

[spectre6000]

If we assume the quartz crisis was more of a quartz revolution (what you call it depends on your perspective), then make parallels to transportation, mechanical watch enthusiasts are a lot like horse people (enthusaist? owners? caretakers? I don't know what you'd call the equivalent). The car came around, and no one needed horses any more. Cars are just lower maintenance, lower cost of entry, more accurate... So everyone ditched horses, and I guess a bunch of glue was made. There are still horse-ists out there, but now horses are much more of a hobby than a necessity. The cost is considerably more than it used to be. They're not appreciated as a means to affecting the culture's status quo daily life needs; they exist in the capacity they do for their own sake.

If you compare the cost of acquiring and maintaining a horse pre- and post-automotive era, I think the parallels are pretty precise. Mechanical watches are the horses of the engineering minded. They're almost categorically inferior in their previous utility, but immeasurably superior in a host of other ways. 

Additionally, I think there's a fashion/status symbol component that magnifies the cost difference. I am in no way qualified to speak to the nuances of anything in the same ZIP code as fashion. I can say that Rolex bros make Rolexes so much more expensive, and then everyone adjacent wants a piece of the pie. The water rises, and all the boats float higher. I don't understand expensive handbags, the gadgetry flavored "luxury" cars, or any other nouveau riche trappings either, and there's a heavy dose of that at play. I would suggest that someone of that bent would need to chime in to explain that aspect, but I'm not sure this is the right crowd... More of a WUS domain.

[HectorLooi]

I think this pandemic has also contributed to a spike in interest in watch repair. If you look at this forum now, we are getting more new members every week as compared to pre-pandemic times. I don't have the stats but maybe Mark can check if my observation is true.

The prices on ebay for mechanical clocks and watches have also gone up in recent times. 

So how long this interest last is anybody's guess. 

[Michael1962]

I have a Lotus Esprit S4. (Yes, it’s red before anyone asks) I would not call it a rich persons car. There are many other cars a lot more expensive than mine. I have it because:

1) I have wanted one since seeing one in The Spy Who Loved Me

2) It doesn’t have a whole heap of bells and whistles. It is just a plain old rocket ship.

I initially found this site as I was looking for information to fix my Seiko. (all on another thread)

I am now looking into the clock side of things. Twofold reason here.

1) I have clocks that need work.

2) Watch parts here in Australia are very difficult to get locally. 

The analogy that I see between my car and watches is that analog watches can be a thing of beauty. Different hands, dials etc. 

My wife wanted a smart watch. I got her a Garmin Vivomove because it looks analog-y. 
Things like an Apple Watch are just a black piece of glass with rounded edges.

I have commented on this watch. That wins handsdown over any smartwatch in my book. No chronograph buttons. No date. Just time. And stunning. Well it is to me. 
And if @GuyMontag ever wants to sell it, I’ve called dibs first, so get lost, the lot of you.  

[KarlvonKoln]

Whatever the reason, I am happy to see the renewed interest in mechanical timepieces, in hopes that I will have more to work on, and more to save from the scrap heap.  So, I'm hoping this trend will continue for a little while longer.
I can be a hopeless romantic about mechanical watches.  It's fascinating how they needed no battery to fuel them back in the day; just a few second's input of the energy produced by thumb and finger, stored in the spring, could power them for many hours.  I always thought that was quite a return.  And they seem, in essence, like little "tape measures for the intangible".  They move through time with us, marking our place along the way, and showing us how far we've come, and how much time is left.  They've shown us upcoming appointments, the approach of the end of our work shift, helped nurses count pulses, timed races, and some of them in their demise have recorded the sinking of ships.  These little mechanisms have been so dear to our hearts for so long that it makes me glad that so many among the younger generations have seen enough merit in them to spur a new measure of popularity.

[AshF]

My interest in watches was sparked when I bought a birth year (and month) watch off ebay only to find it didn't work.  I rang a few watch repairers and they quoted me about £300.  No way was I spending £300, the robbing ********.

So, one year later and £4,000 worth of tools I finally fixed my watch.

Who's laughing now eh?

[Michael1962]

That'll learn 'em.

And so it begins....................

Edited April 30, 2021 by Michael1962

[spectre6000]

4 hours ago, KarlvonKoln said:

Whatever the reason, I am happy to see the renewed interest in mechanical timepieces, in hopes that I will have more to work on, and more to save from the scrap heap.  So, I'm hoping this trend will continue for a little while longer.
I can be a hopeless romantic about mechanical watches.  It's fascinating how they needed no battery to fuel them back in the day; just a few second's input of the energy produced by thumb and finger, stored in the spring, could power them for many hours.  I always thought that was quite a return.  And they seem, in essence, like little "tape measures for the intangible".  They move through time with us, marking our place along the way, and showing us how far we've come, and how much time is left.  They've shown us upcoming appointments, the approach of the end of our work shift, helped nurses count pulses, timed races, and some of them in their demise have recorded the sinking of ships.  These little mechanisms have been so dear to our hearts for so long that it makes me glad that so many among the younger generations have seen enough merit in them to spur a new measure of popularity.

My personal fascination is more along this bent. I took an online course on special relativity while recovering from an especially bad car wreck a few years back, and gained an entirely new perspective on time. It's a difficult lens to translate, but time pieces are incredible. I've mentioned elsewhere my buddy's work on the new experimental resonator for the atomic clock. It's so accurate, you can measure the difference in elevation within earth's gravity well within a cm... 

I am also a fan of history, and my first mechanical watch accidentally turned out to be a WWII German issued officer's watch from the eastern front (D# scratched out to remove the Nazi stink), that received a battlefield repair with the pointy end of a bayonet, and ultimately ended up either traded for something out of a POW camp or picked off a corpse as a battlefield trophy. I knew none of this when I bought it on eBay from a seller out of the Ukraine for $35, having only recently discovered the existence of hand wound watches, and some of it is educated and evidenced conjecture that can never be certain, but imagine the awe every time I wear it (which I almost never do because I'm afraid I might damage it).

I'm an outlier though. I only know of one or two other watch enthusiasts that are my age, and they're both of the fashion variety. One guy thinks a little outside the box, but definitely no watchmaker. Aside from the watchmaker back in Texas that fixed up the WWII watch mentioned above, I've never knowingly met another in real life.

[LittleWatchShop]

Who knew...that this forum was so full of philosophers.  I love this place!!  Great responses...and inspirational.

Thanks for the great responses.

Time will tell....

[Tony13]

I think the main reason is that people are getting bored of buying exposable trash.

Take your'e Iphone it looks nice but after apple updates it a few times it is junk and you must buy a new one.

Even worse is digital stuff where you basically never own anything like music, in the old days you went to a shop listened to a record took it home and you had something you owned.

Now you just click a file and yes you have the song to listen to but you do not own anything but still have to pay for it while company's even try to prohibit you to share or sell it.

The other thing is that the watch industry has made very nice looking pieces in the past that never go out of fashion and just look great as jewelry.

There have been many years that the watchindustry made ugly pieces that all looked the same, same with many other products like cars for instance.

Young people discovered that the older stuff was made to last and was cool and this spiralled the vintage interest in goods.

One thing that worry's me is the pure greed of the industry like restricting parts availability. I am a big fan of Rolex and Tudor watches I own a few but I absolutely despise the company and there snobby greedy attitude.

If I buy a product it is for me to decide what I want to do with it what I want as I purchased it with my hard earned money so it is mine now. You should be happy that I bought your product.  I am absolutely not in the mood to let the company decide what to do with it for ridiculous fees. I was in a ad once and had 3 grand in my wallet I wanted to buy a watch and get my Rolex serviced. The clerc assed me if I could pay up halve in front as it might get too expensive for me.

I just took out my wallet showed him the cash and told him he just wasted a good opportunity and never went back to any jeweller in my life again.