Neo-Vintage Watches: Why Their Time Has Come

In the 1970s, Swiss watchmakers faced an extinction-level event. Cheaper, more accurate quartz movements threatened to wipe out centuries of mechanical tradition. Their response was a good one: a period of intense innovation that produced some of the most interesting watches ever made.
But it’s only now that collectors are catching on. We asked two early embracers of the neo-vintage era what took so long – and why the excitement is set to last…

Tobias Gourlay

How are we defining ‘neo-vintage’?

Christy Davis, co-founder, Subdial: I'd say the 1980s, the '90s and the noughties are neo-vintage. For me, the era is quite defined by the quartz crisis. It's post-quartz crisis, when traditional watch brands started to reinvent or question what they're about and what their purpose is. It’s a time of quite brave design and experimentation. For that reason, it's a really, really interesting period.

Ben Dunn, founder, Watch Brothers London: I think of it as the gap between vintage and modern, which tends to be around the 1980s to 2000s. Anything after the 2000s gets a bit too modern for me.

Is this the first generation of watches to be called neo-vintage?

Ben: Yeah, as far as I'm aware. Before this, the main market focus was really vintage or new watches. There was this awkward gap between them, where the watches weren't really vintage enough to be desirable by vintage collectors, and not modern enough to be desirable by the modern group. They were kind of like the ugly duckling of collections. Now people are starting to see the value there and appreciate the design elements.

Christy: I think historically you had collectors who were just into new watches – they would just be building relationships with authorised dealers and only interested in new-release stuff. There were also real vintage collectors, but then you had people who wanted new but couldn't afford new or couldn't make the lists, and they were the ones buying 10 or 20-year-old pieces instead. I think that's changed, so now you have more focused collector interest on this neo-vintage period.

What makes the design of the era special?

Ben: I think they really leaned into complications. When everything was looking simple because of quartz, they needed to lean into mechanical complications. The intricacy extends to hand finishing and engraving, basically everything you think is the opposite of quartz. The traditional makers did this to such a level that it pulled them through, and that's what we worship now about that period.

Christy: It was a period of genuine innovation, with serious attempts to rethink design, to rethink what a watch could be. Not in just a colourful, gimmicky way, but in a genuine, watchmaking-led way. It’s experimental but also refreshingly sincere. It's not going, "Well, what's the market for green dial versus blue dial?" It's going, "Well, what if we create this skeletonised thing and put a blue enamel on some part and leave the rest skeletonised?"

What sparked your own interest in neo-vintage?

Ben: A couple of things. I have a design background, so this period was, for me, the last era where there were small details that make a big difference in collecting – dial styles, variants, small tweaks in production that make one more collectible than another. But none of that information was really online. I was seeing a lot of people selling pieces with wrong references or wrong series. There was nothing really clear.

@Subdial

@WatchBrothersLondon; @Subdial

Why is interest surging in general now?

Christy: I think there's a maturing of the collector market. When we started Subdial, the vanguard of collectability was vintage Rolex. There are still people who are super into it – vintage Submariner, GMT – and I love it too. But there didn’t used to be a huge collecting scene beyond that. Now, there are a lot more collectors who have been in it a lot longer, and they're spending every day searching for something more interesting, for watches that say something about them specifically. Before you might go, “Oh well, a Daytona, a GMT, a Nautilus – the prices always go up and never come down, so I'll buy one of those.” Now, there's a desire to find something that's not the obvious choice, to look a little bit deeper, and see what else is out there.

Ben: A lot of people got caught up in buying steel sports watches during that bubble. Many of them have been burned and are now looking to other areas. They’re still passionate about watches, but they're trying to find areas where they're not going to be taken advantage of. For example, a lot of people who used to buy modern Audemars Piguet pre-owned are now looking at neo-vintage AP.

What's at the top of the neo-vintage market right now?

Christy: I think Cartier has to be at the top of the pile at the minute. It just has an incredible catalogue from that period – the most rich mix of case shapes and models. This also happens to be a time when that sort of jewellery watch in precious metal is also having a bit of a resurgence. In particular, there are the Collection Privée Cartier Paris (CPCP) pieces from 1998 to 2008. François-Paul Journe was a watchmaker for Cartier during that time, making super interesting pieces in small batches of 100 or 150 – Tortues, Tank Asymétriques, Tonneaus, all sorts of stuff.

Ben: I would say AP is up there, especially some of its perpetual models, and then the core models from Patek Philippe – the 3970s and 3940s – are really rocketing. The Patek line has always been at a level above in terms of price point and is maintaining that. Patek is always heavily collectable, but AP is definitely seeing a burst of interest. The market is very brand and model specific – some are really taking off now, while others are treading water.

Are there any undervalued brands to look for?

Ben: The one that really stands out to me as a slow burn – it's been slow burning for ages – is Breguet. It has a lot of rich history, some really cool design elements, and they stayed true to their design language for a long time. The neo-vintage period of Breguet is really the most collectable part. Some of the rarest Breguet pieces I've found so far cost less than relatively common AP neo-vintage pieces, which is just baffling. But that’s the way the market is currently. Jay-Z isn’t wearing a Breguet – no one court side is wearing one – so the market for Breguet is very organic and collector driven. A collector gets one in their hands and it’s only then they’re like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ There’s no pop-culture influence – unlike with AP, where you can see your favourite celeb wearing one and then you want one.

Christy: Ulysse Nardin is an interesting one. I don't spend a lot of time with that brand, but its enamel dial pieces are incredible, and I think you can pick them up for like £10k – or you certainly could a few months ago. They’re just beautiful, handmade, and incredible value for what you're buying. There's a lot of excitement around some of the Chopard LUC pieces as well. And with AP, beyond the Royal Oak models that have already taken off, there are a lot of weird, wacky and interesting designs that haven’t been explored properly yet.

Tim Vaux

How does neo-vintage build quality compare to modern watches?

Ben: I would say it's actually better. It was the last period of using specialists and pulling them together before brands took everything in-house (which isn't a bad thing, but it's different). In this period, you'd use movements from companies like Lemania, particular case makers would make the cases, and dial makers would make the dials. Everyone was a specialist, and then the brand could pull everything together to make an ultimate product.

What advice would you give anyone coming in new to neo-vintage?

Ben: I don't think anyone should really do it with investment in mind. If you're conscious of losing money on a watch, then watches aren't really for you in the first place. Even for me, I take moderate risks when buying something I think I can sell for more. It doesn't always work out, and that's me spending every second of every day thinking about this market.

That said, my biggest thing right now is showing people the price difference between a very rare neo-vintage model and a rather common version. The difference is still small. I would advise people to really dig into the models and references they're interested in and seek the rarer variants, because right now is the best time to look for them. A good example would be a Breguet chronograph. You can get a very early open case back model for maybe £1-2k more than the much more produced later models. That gap’s going to grow exponentially, in my opinion.

Christy: I would just say it pays to be sincerely interested. I don't think that it's like the market for Rolex or Patek sports watches – that's pretty predictable and slow-moving. With the number of neo-vintage pieces that are out there and just popping up now, with stories you hadn't heard about, the market is changing quickly. So I think being sincerely interested and going into it to learn is really important.

Anything neo-vintage buyers be cautious about?

Ben: You really have to get the pieces in hand to see if you like them. I think this is very important because even entry-level pieces are huge sums of money. The market is less liquid than for modern watches, so if you're going to put your hard-earned money on the line, you should feel that you want the piece, because there aren't many sellers who'll just take it back. You can get a Vacheron Constantin perpetual for like £20,000, while an entry-level Patek perpetual from that period could be £40,000. It’s probably worth getting them both in hand before you spend £40,000 just because that’s the one you see all the time on Instagram. You might actually like the cheaper one more.

Christy: I would look for partners as you go, whether it's people that you're trading with or businesses with an interest in this area who you're happy to trust. They're able to actually tell you why these pieces are interesting, and they have watchmakers who are trained to service them properly, confirm condition, and understand authenticity.

Finally, then, is the interest in neo-vintage here to stay?

Ben: There's still so much to come out in neo-vintage, which is great. There's going to be loads more scholarship that comes to light. A lot of rare variants are still being found. After that, I don't know. I feel like a lot of it is trend-driven, and people will tire of certain areas, and move into areas that used to be popular but aren't so much now. At some point, I would imagine everybody will be back chasing steel sports watches, but that might be another 15 or 20 years away. It all just goes in cycles.

Christy: Definitely. I mean, I think it will evolve, and it's just moving quicker and quicker and quicker. It feels more akin to the sneaker market in terms of the speed of trends and proliferation of information and access to new stories than it ever has done before. But I think the interest in vintage isn't going anywhere anytime soon, simply because it's driven by increased interest in interesting watches, and there is so much still out there to be unearthed.

The old snobbery around watches is breaking down now too. Quartz, ironically, is a good example of this. If you were collecting quartz watches even five or 10 years ago, you would have got questions like, ‘What are you doing? Those aren't real watches.’ Now that's just not the case at all. People are recognising you can come to watches from a non-technical, design perspective, and that you can get some awesome vintage quartz watches from the likes of Cartier and AP that are super cool. It’s the same for neo-vintage.

Ben is the founder of Watch Brothers London. Christy is a founder of Subdial. To get hands on with neo-vintage watches, both offer appointment-based viewings in London.

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