ANTIQUE WATCHES INCLUDING ROLEX

A fading gold star in the heavens may be old watches... pocketwatches....This is a topic that has been near and dear to me since Hurricane Carole back in August of 1954. It was then, at age 12 I traded some firewood for aa gold watch! I was only 12 but obviously sapient in my methods of trading. I had uncles who were traders.


As my life went along I acquired a watch her and a watch there. I think antique watches go along with all of antiquity. Either you do or you don't. My big brake came in 1979 with the Hunt Brothers attempt to "corner things." Nice try, guys. Since that date I have handled several hundred old watches.. some 14k gold, one or two 18k gold, many, many, Many gold filled not gold.. but gold plated. They called it Rolled Gold."


Watches can be sophisticated instruments of time keeping. Tiny glass jewels surround tiny gears and a wound mainspring. Jewelers spend a lifetime peering through a loupe looking at a watch's makeup.Watches can be 7 Jewel, 9 Jewel, 11 Jewel, 15 Jewel, 17 Jewel, 19 Jewel, 21 Jewel, 23 Jewel, 24, 25, 26 Jewel watches. Balance wheel, Escape Wheel, Barrel, Crown, Stem and others are the nomenclature of watch making. Men's trousers used to have a watch pocket!


Today,mechanical watches survive the SmartPhone revolution ..along with the Apple Watches According to one report Switzerland exported a record $24.3 billion worth of luxury watches. Wow. Apple reportedly sold2.5 million units last April. But here's the kicker. Watches are to kill for. "Components inside the most complicated wristwatch ever produced  1,483." "28.6 million Swiss watches exported in 2014.


Celebrities and rich folks can be brand loyalist: Dalai Lama  -Patek-Phillippe, John F. Kennedy Cartier and Omega, Dr. Martin Luther King -Rolex. For some people a romance exists between owner and watch.

Sentiment may also play a roll. Some ladies wear their family treasure on a 14k gold chain. Hong Kong exports the most, then the U.S., then China, Japan and Italy.


One Patek-Phillippe hosted a hammer  price of $24,051,380. Talk about having "time on your hand"...say nothing about money on your wrist. OMG. Sotheby's Geneva had the honors. Employees in the Swiss watch industry in 1970 is quoted at 90,000.in 2014 it dropped to 59,112 according to my magazine sources.


Finally, I once dealt in Patek-Phillippe..first a wrist watch I sold for $4,000.. then a gold pocket watch for $1,400. Today I sport two watches..a Fossil on my wrist and a Smart Phone in my right pocket. I also have at least six clocks scattered around my blog-home. "Does anybody really know what time it is?" LOL.