Interesting article in the NY Times (Thursday, November 28); nice to see the war story about the vintage Skipper and the nice coverage of our friends at Crown & Caliber, Atlanta, GA.

Jeff

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/fashion/its-a-sellers-market-for-vintage-watches.html

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It’s a Seller’s Market for Vintage Watches
By ARTHUR TOUCHOT

PARIS — In the spring of 1978, Virgil Jonas decided to buy an aging Volkswagen.

The blue paint had faded during the sedan’s 10 years on the road, but it was what he found inside the car that made the purchase worthwhile.

“He’s cleaning the thing out, and underneath the back seat sat this wind-up chronograph watch,” said Mr. Jonas’s brother-in-law, Thomas Bellegante.

Whoever had owned the watch seemed to have forgotten about it long before. The crystal on the face was badly scratched, and the brown leather strap was falling apart.

Mr. Bellegante said there had been no reason for his brother-in-law, who died in 1998, to pay the watch much attention. “He didn’t think it was worth very much. He gave it to my son and my son didn’t have any use for it, so he gave it to me. All of the pushers worked, you wound it up, and it kept good time.”

More important, “it had a real nice face to it,” Mr. Bellegante said.

Beneath the 12 o’clock marker read the words “Skipper” and “Heuer.”

At the time, Mr. Bellegante lived in Springfield, Ill., near a 17-and-a-half acre lake, and the Skipper seemed like the perfect companion to go fishing with.

“We just strapped it to the handle of a cooler and we’d go out on the lake fishing,” Mr. Bellegante said. “We’d go out there and have sandwiches and have a couple of drinks, just cruising on the lake waiting for bass, and so the watch was keeping track of time.”

The Skipper followed Mr. Bellegante over land and water during the next 10 years. Over time, the leather band began deteriorating again, and the crystal gained a couple of extra “memories,” or scratches, Mr. Bellegante recalled. Finally, in 1988, he decided to restore his Skipper. While digging for information, he discovered it was made in 1968, the same year as the car it was found in.

“Then, I knew enough to know it probably was worth something,” said Mr. Bellegante, who decided to send the Skipper to a company in New Jersey to have it serviced and most of its parts refurbished.

In fact, the Skipper, model reference 7754, was introduced by Heuer one year after Emil Mosbacher’s 1967 victory at the America’s Cup, during which he wore a Heuer chronograph on board. It was later nicknamed the “Skipperera” because it is housed inside a Carrera case.

Production lasted only a year before the introduction of a slightly modified version, making Mr. Bellegante’s watch one of the rarest Heuer models. Fewer than 10 are still known to exist, according to Tag Heuer.

The Skipper is powered by a Valjoux 7730 with an added 15-minute chronograph recorder designed to help skippers track the countdown at the start of a race, often the most decisive phase.

But what makes the Skipper universally appealing is its unusual mix of colors. Its sun-brushed deep blue dial is in stark contrast to the multicolored registers and bright orange sweep hand.

Mr. Bellegante’s watch also had orange minute and hour hands, found on the watch in 1978 but not present on the design in 1968. Who added them and why remains a mystery.

When the watch was sent back, it had gained a genuine Heuer mesh band. By then, it looked very different from the original but had also become unique.

“Then I decided not to wear it so much and definitely not take it out on the lake,” Mr. Bellegante said. “So it kind of sat in the drawer, and I would wear it every now and again just to make sure the thing worked right.”

Instead, he switched to a Rolex Daytona that he has worn “every day for about 15 years.”

In December 2012, Mr. Bellegante decided to sell his Skipper online through Crown & Caliber, an online retailer for preowned watches.

“They expressed some interest in it, so I sent them the watch and they sent me a check for $1,200,” Mr. Bellegante said. He split the earnings with his son.

“Our data showed there were several of these identical Skippers that had sold for $1,500 and $1,800, hence our estimate,” said Hamilton Powell, the founder and chief executive of Crown & Caliber, based in Atlanta.

So, When Crown & Caliber put the watch on the market two months later, the attention it received came as a shock, said Mr. Powell: “It just came down really to two individuals that wanted that watch, and they just kept bidding it up,” he said. In the end, it went for $7,090.41, three times more than expected.

“We were completely shocked at the sale price of that watch because rarely does that happen, and it didn’t align with any of the historical prices that were in our database,” Mr. Powell said. “It was because of the fact that there’s just this surge of individuals that are looking to own a vintage watch right now.”

According to Crown & Caliber’s data, listings of marked vintage watches have increased 21 percent over the past year. During that period, sale prices of these watches have also increased, by approximately 7 percent.

Those results are mirrored in auction rooms, with bigger overall results and record-breaking watches. Watch sales at Sotheby’s have gone from $22.7 million in 2009 to $85.8 million last year.

Last March, Panerai set a new record for one of its watches when a reference 6154 made for the Egyptian Navy sold for $326,500 at Christie’s New York, against a presale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. Three years earlier, a similar Panerai was sold at Christie’s Geneva for $143,839.

The success of preowned watches was illustrated once more this month, during Christie’s Rolex Daytona sale in Geneva. The 50 watches presented brought in $13,248,167, or an average of $264,963 for a Daytona.

The volatility of the preowned market has pushed Crown & Caliber to offer a consignment service so customers don’t miss out when estimates are shattered.

Since the introduction of the consignment option, nine out of 10 customers have chosen to consign their watches rather than sell them directly.

“The result of that is our customers have been able to benefit whenever that estimate gets exceeded like it was with that Skipper,” Mr. Powell said.