Advantages of vintage watches

I have been interested in watches for several years now and I am also involved with them professionally - I have had the opportunity to touch, measure and wear hundreds of timepieces so far, and vintage watches have always appealed to my heart more. Let's be clear - I'm not a hater of modern watches - among the new timepieces there are still dozens of models that I would like to have (or which I consider cool enough to stock a timecatchers store without spoiling our identity) - but I'm not entirely a fan the direction in which the market has evolved in recent years.

Here's why, in my subjective opinion, vintage watches are generally better and more interesting than their new counterparts:

1. They are cheaper! You can buy a well-preserved vintage Omega with a quartz mechanism for PLN 2,000, a new one will cost at least several thousand PLN.
2. Their value usually increases steadily over time - the vast majority of new watches lose several dozen percent after leaving the showroom, in the current market, even new/several-year-old Rolexes often sell below retail - the vast majority of vintage watches are resistant to speculative jumps and drops in value - they most likely lost the value they were supposed to lose several years ago.
3. They are more comfortable - the current fashion for large watches (resulting from the fact that we no longer treat watches for utilitarian purposes, but as jewelry) means that wearing a large modern watch is often associated with a heavy burden on the wrist, as well as the crown digging into the hand. After wearing a moderately sized vintage watch all day, my wrist definitely feels more rested
4. They look better on most wrists! This point is also related to the size. Thousands of conversations with clients made me realize that the average man in Poland has a wrist with a circumference of between 17 and 18.5 cm - in my opinion, for example, a modern Diver with a width of 42-44 mm on a wrist of 17 cm looks like a piece of clothing that a child stole from his father. There is nothing cool about a huge pan, with lugs protruding beyond the edges of the wrist, or a strap/bracelet that simply disappears invisible when the head of the watch itself is too large.

5. They are special, unique and have character - there is definitely less chance that you will meet someone on the street with the same watch if it is a several-decades-old, vintage watch. If you have a vintage watch, e.g. with an interesting, natural, tropical patina - you can be sure that there is no other watch like it in the world. Additionally, the limitations in this case result from production capabilities and demand several decades ago, and not from artificial limitation of supply by the manufacturer to maintain the market price.

5. They are more durable and cheaper to service - new watches are made so that only an authorized service center can repair them, vintage watches will be serviced and repaired by any good, independent watchmaker for a fraction of the cost of an authorized service center. Example? Service of a simple, manual Omega cal. 601 at a good independent watchmaker costs PLN 300-450, service at an authorized service center costs at least PLN 1,500-2,000.
6. An OG will always be an OG and a re-edition will always be a re-edition - vintage watches, especially from the 1950s-1970s, determined what watches look like today - they determined the most useful form of a watch in the years when a timepiece was something necessary for life - whether the diver worked underwater without any problems and was tight for the diver, whether the correct operation of the chronograph during a space mission had a key impact on people's lives.

Of course, you can talk about the pros and cons of vintage and modern watches for hours - but from my perspective, these are the arguments that definitely outweigh the vintage side.