How old is too old?

[Lhn5]

I spotted a black submariner on a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen before and he told me that he recently bought a 45 year old submariner for $800 and had it serviced by a local authorized dealer. It looked AMAZING. What is the oldest Daytona that it would make sense to look at? At what years were there big changes?

[Tools]

If he was able to find a 45 year old Submariner for only 800 bucks, he made a very good deal indeed.

[dhknola]

$800 for a 1975ish Sub is pretty much the best deal I have ever heard of.

[enginerd]

$800 or $8000?

I thought I did well in 2015 with a mint all original 1979 1680 for $5,001.

[exador]

Were you swayed towards vintage Rolex by your friend's yard sale find? Should be able to pick an old Daytona for around a grand, right?

Rude awakening in 3...2...1...

https://www.worldoftime.de/en/rolex.....11-22638.html

[Lhn5]

Ill ask to see his receipt, lol. No the price seemed unreal to me from the beginning although I believe somehow he pulled it off.

[Styles Bitchley]

The only thing that makes sense in this post is that the old sub looked AMAZING! The rest is just wacky.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dan S]

April 1st post.

[datejust24]

I myself have came across some Insein deals that of course I capitalize done they are still out there though $800 is definitely up there with the best deal I’ve ever heard of

[harry in montreal]

In 2014 I bought a tudor 7020 day date turnograph on eBay for $175. Oh yeah, it had a nice Rolex 7206 band too. I remind myself of it when I get depressed at the deals that I got completely screwed on.

[dhknola]

How this game has changed in 5 years^^^...

[vintagewatch]

I've purchased a few 1970s Submariners for around $800, but that was in the late 80s or early 90s. If your friend bought one at that price in the last 20 years he/she totally scored a deal.

[janice&fred]

Originally Posted by datejust24

I myself have came across some Insein deals that of course I capitalize done they are still out there though $800 is definitely up there with the best deal I’ve ever heard of

yes there are definitely still plenty fantastic deals to be had. not so easy online or in ebay but with boots-on-the-ground hunting and persistence they are found.

[exador]

Originally Posted by janice&fred

yes there are definitely still plenty fantastic deals to be had. not so easy online or in ebay but with boots-on-the-ground hunting and persistence they are found.

Is there a strong watch culture in the Phillipines? I imagine that it might be easier to find a cheap Rolex in a pawn shop there than in the US or Europe but I might also be completely wrong...

[Andad]

71 is a gooood age.

[Too Old]

I never reveal my age!!!

[jwrosenthal]

I passed on a Sub in an antique mall back in 2000
For $400. It was a no date with bubble crystalc on rivet oysters bracelet and it was ratty, but running. I wass a poor college student and didn’t have $400 to my name and left it behind.... I have kicked myself over that ever since. I hope karma blesses me again and I have the means to jump next time

[janice&fred]

Originally Posted by exador

Is there a strong watch culture in the Phillipines? I imagine that it might be easier to find a cheap Rolex in a pawn shop there than in the US or Europe but I might also be completely wrong...

thanks for asking as i love talking about watch treasure hunting! there is a reasonably strong watch culture here but for the most part it's centered on newer flashier stuff. there is also loads of vintage stuff floating around and that's where we kick in...trying to hunt the stuff down from the owners as that's the best chance of getting the things at a reasonable price.

pawn shops are practically on every street corner but they mostly focus on gold jewelry. they generally don't have the staff to authenticate whether a watch is genuine or fake so that is a small advantage for us and other treasure hunters. the trick is connecting with the vintage watch owners looking to sell. we use banners and newspaper ads and it helps, along with general networking with everyone we meet. we hand out calling cards. we also have a fair number of competing watch collectors locally as well, but certainly nothing like stateside, Hong Kong or Europe.

of course the internet is a blessing and a curse to us treasure hunters. the curse is anyone can google and find a general idea of what they have and what it's worth. the blessing is what i explain to someone here when they quote some insane chrono24 price for their beat up old watch. i say "shake your iphone and see if the buyers fall out. no one is going to send you money here in the Philippines for that watch. i'm basically all you got".

the best hunting for insane deals here as well as anywhere else in the world is boots on the ground roll up your sleeves and get out looking. talk to everyone. tell them you collect watches. most every home has a watch or two in a drawer that no one is using or wants. broken is even better. those are usually the biggest home runs.

finally, and this pertains to anywhere in the world, know what you are looking at. study watches online and in person. know what's valuable or if something is the real deal or imitation. be able to make a snap decision when coming across something that might be good.

i described the Philippine scenario but USA-wise crazy deals are out there too. even in NYC. even in the frantic jewelry and antique weekend flea market sales in manhattan's chelsea district. here's some stories of USA finds. one of them is the 1655's we have in our collection. some of you manhattan-ites may even recognize the players in this story. this underlines my suggestion to know your stuff-what you're looking at. these true stories also give credence to my assertions that one should never ever be put off by dealers, and blindly adhere to the silly internet axiom "buy the seller". in person with a watch in our hands we always let the watch do the talking and couldn't care less who is selling it or what they say about it.

one sunday morning back around 6 years ago i arrived rather late at the 26th and 6th flea market section in manhattan and as always hooked up with fellow watch hunters at the coffee shop up a few doors from the garage antique gallery. i didn't have a look around yet. a good friend "Mr. Ko", a Korean watch hunter/dealer asked me "did you see the 1655 that bad hair guy has for $2000?" "bad hair guy" was this middle eastern vendor that always set up in one of the outside parking lot antique sales areas and always had el-cheapo or fake stuff. he had an awful Elvis style hairdo. Mr. Ko as most other dealer/hunters were wary of anything bad hair guy had in his display cases. Mr Ko told me he opened the watch and the movement was genuine but the rest is probably fake.

we both walked over to take a closer look at this 1655. yes i could see the movement was genuine. bad hair guy was talking a mile a minute as usual trying to convince us of some silly story that a guy traded it at his relative's jewelry store during the week. the closer i looked the more convinced i was that it was the real deal. proper wear marks under the lugs from the head links, engravings between the lugs look right, etc. however because of who was selling it none of the seasoned dealers paid much attention to the watch, and A LOT of seasoned dealers seen it that morning. it was a given to every dealer that inspected it previously that the movement was genuine, as well as the oyster band. however they summarily dismissed the rest of the thing solely based on who the guy was selling it. i did quick math in my head and at that time a working movement was probably worth $1000 to $1200 and the band about $250 so figured anything over $1450 would possibly be a loss. i managed to chisel bad hair guy down to $1800 and paid for the thing all within about 5 minutes while a small gathering started to form around his table.

Mr Ko thought i lost my mind. i was not 100% sure but i was willing to rely on my eyes and let the watch do the talking rather than listen to or pay any attention to whoever owned the thing. long story short it was 100% genuine and there was a lot of embarrassed watch "experts" in manhattan that day.
pavel, moti, sergei, vadim? you know the big Russian vintage watch dealers? they all seen it earlier that morning and were practically homicidal when they heard. still talk about it now

next story was at a weekend antique show on the green in madison ct. around 4 years ago. did a quick walk around asking each vendor if they had any old watches. some did but nothing special. then i came across a husband and wife team that bought up the contents of houses along the shoreline. displayed a bunch of old plates, a few antique chairs and stuff like that. asked if they had any old watches and the husband reached into a cardboard box and pulled out an omega flightmaster. nice clean dial and on it's original bracelet. he said "give me $10 as this isn't the kind of stuff we sell. we deal in higher end items." i paid the man and as i was walking on air back to my car i thought if only he knew this watch was worth more than his entire inventory of "high end" stuff on display

my next story is from about 8 years ago with a shifty wheeler-dealer guy that had a hippy-type grateful dead-esque head shop store also on the shoreline in ct. i used to stop in often as the guy would get his hands on watches from time to time. sometimes he had rolexes but mostly datejusts and wanted top retail at that time for them. this one day he showed me his usual watch stuff and had a 6694 rolex precision with a nice clean silver dial and folded oyster band. he picked up the watch, shook it and showed me how it only ran for a few seconds and said it needed repair. he didn't know it was a manual wind model. i said i liked it and he said " give me $200 for it". i paid him and still have the watch. at that time a clean 6694 was worth around $800 to $1000.

my last stateside story (as y'all can tell i love watch hunting stories) was around 7 or 8 years ago just outside of providence RI at another of those weekend antique shows. came across a guy with a glass display case containing some jewelry and watches. seen a row of watches and most of them were gold plated longines and plain omega dress watches. he wanted around $100 to $150 each which at that time was about all they were worth. wasn't a very pleasant fellow and seemed annoyed answering questions. then i asked him about a watch that i couldn't make out the name on the dial thru his display case. however the price tag was clearly $125. he picked it up and reading the dial out loud he said " I W C Shuff...whatever it's no omega but i want $125 for it". i gladly paid the man for the solid gold IWC automatic and thought to myself "it's a good thing it wasn't an omega or it would be only worth 5 times what he wanted for it instead of 10 times"

i haven't even begun to relay our 47th st manhattan jewelry district, los angeles, Philippine and Hong Kong hunting stories which are plenty. get away from the computer and iphones, get out of the house and do some plain old hunting around your area. stuff is out there and the super deals aren't going to be found on the internet.

[Cubdrick]

Cool stories Janice & Fred...those are great! I’m wondering if a lot of US service mens’ watches bought at PX’s wound up in overseas pawn shops? Would like to read more of your treasure hunting stories.

[janice&fred]

Originally Posted by Cubdrick

Cool stories Janice & Fred...those are great! I’m wondering if a lot of US service mens’ watches bought at PX’s wound up in overseas pawn shops? Would like to read more of your treasure hunting stories.

subic bay naval base and clark airforce base here in the Philippines were i think the largest USA foreign military bases in the world. while they were closed down by the USA a few years ago there are still loads and loads of ex-USA servicemen that chose to remain and live in the area. we bought many watches from these guys over the past decade. some quite rare. one in particular was a 1969 rolex commando, one of only a handful of genuine commandos known to exist. we kept it for years until Eric Ku talked my wife into selling it. however we couldn't think of a nicer guy than him to have it.

come to think of it now that you reminded me we got to head up that way again and have a look around. plenty of stuff still there i'm sure.

we live on cebu island which is a central island within the visayan island group and not near luzon island where manila is located so have to fly there when we want to hunt north of manila in the subic and clark/angeles city areas. however a short ferry ride from here in cebu brings us to leyte island where there is some decent watch hunting, and another ferry ride brings us to the island of negros which has some great cities like bacolod and dumaguete with decent watch hunting. right now we have been hearing about and seeing some great stuff coming out of southern mindanao in the zamboanga area but that is not a safe region for outsiders like us to be poking around in. however we do run into American servicemen and a lot of "contractors" (mercenaries) currently stationed there as they come to cebu city for R&R and i think the last watch we bought from one of them was a marathon GSAR in sad shape.

[M. Valdemar]

Hey Fred, long time no see.

I liked your Manhattan story, I still go to the market every week.

Jeff

[Richard Carver]

Great stuff Fred! So good to catch you talkative! Still got that TT sub? :) There are deals out there but like you said, it takes work. I haven't bought a watch since '15 but stumbled across this beautiful USA oval link bracelet on ebay last year. It was listed by a pawn shop on a BIN for 200 bucks, full 22 links and fairly tight!





Love it! :)

[SharpSky17]

Really sub that old for such little price, men you're lucky

[tHeTiMeTeLLeR]

The old that you can now longer afford