Customer Reviews

Classic Wristwatches 2008/2009: The Price Guide for Vintage Watch Collectors Over 1300 Models! (Classic Wristwatches: A Catalog of Vintage Timepieces & Their Prices)

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...but this is not a guide you would want to use daily. This is an ok book for higher end collector watches, but very limited.

I was hoping it would cover some or much more of the $200, $300 & $400 watches. Example: Only 8 models of Hamilton watches are shown.

I do like pictures: very nice, color photos. Also gives some history on the manufacturers of the watches presented in the book.

Nice coffee table book, but for daily reference you need a "Complete price guide to watches" by Engle/Gilbert/Shugart.

Very easy usefull Price-Guide.
There are to many expensives models, I would prefere a Mid-Prices Guide only.
It's a good help for new collectors.-

This book covers a very broad selection of watches and is especially strong in the major brands - Omega, Patek, JLC, IWC. Rolex, etc as well as some of the more "working class" timepieces which today are very collectible.

Some of the calibre and associated information on some of the listings are not totally accurate but on balance, this soft cover resource provides a good point of reference to check value and collectability of many classic watches.

Vintage watch collectors and libraries catering to this audience will find this invaluable: it's updated every two years to keep the values and market information current, and it reviews details on over 1,100 wristwatches made by over forty of the most interesting makers. These are watches solely no longer in production, with descriptions illustrating each and providing invaluable tips on identification, current value, and characteristics influencing price.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I just went over the book, and I was a bit disappointed.
Picture for money is quite interesting, thanks to a lot of images for small bucks, but the goods of the book is just that.

Interesting are the pages with the history of the maisons, that provide some useful hints about not very well known producers.

Organization of the book is quite disappointing, though: the models depicted are put on paper at random, with no age or value order.
As far as I could understand, those are the watches that were estimated by some kind of trader during the year, so no section covers completely the model range of a brand. If you need to evaluate a specific piece, most of the time you have to guess comparing it with similar age-feature watches of the same or other manifacturer.
Some brands aren't even in the book (Breguet? Rado?) while for other you just get 6 models.

The book is useful, anyway: with few dollars it can help you in identifying a particular brand that may catch your imagination, or browse through many hundreds of pictures, to find ideas for particular models, shapes, or features you may like to have in your collection.

If possible get a new copy: I bouth an used one, and the binding glue went bad: pages started to part from the book.

As mentioned by others, this book is strongest on famous Swiss manufacturers such as Patek, Rolex, Omega, and IWC, including many models and variations. However there are enough errors and omissions to give pause, even to those watches which appear (to my novice eyes) to be correct. Particularly galling are obvious errors of date and originality in several in the Rolex section, as well as a measly 2-page Hamilton chapter which misses The great Art Deco pieces of the '20s and '30s, and has a few obvious errors to boot. Very poor editing, I would say.

Very nice and informative book. Quality is fine and price is fair. I strongly recommend it for watch enthusiasts like me.