NOS watches
Hi crunchers,
I really like the notion of NOS (new old stock) watches, as it allows one to get a better price for what is, essentially, a new and unworn timepiece.
Of course, there are also cons - the watch's history is sometime unknown (for instance, if and when it had been serviced), and you can never be 100% sure it had never been used.
However, my overall conception and (somewhat limited) experience with NOS watches are definitively positive.
What do you think of buying NOS watches? And do you know of any online dealers specialized in them? Would love to know.
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Saree
55 year old wine pro. I recently decided to feed my interest in watches, that has been dormant for years, some timepieces and knowledge.
Tel Aviv
Member since
Last active: 2 months ago
Would it be rude to call them unloved leftovers that nobody found worth buying in the first place? I know, I know, there are also mysterious remnants that somehow got inadventently time-capsuled for some other reason, but the skeptic in me generally feels that there is a reason it never found a buyer. Admittedly, that reason may be to your benefit depending on tastes, but the market is rarely wrong.
I have found only one truly NOS watch in my searches. It was an early 1960's Swiss pin pallet watch that had all of the original packaging, even the wholesale receipts. The seller wanted a realistic and modest price for it. I hemmed and hawed, but ultimately passed. It would have been a 60 year old watch that was an $8.00 watch when it was new. I just could not justify it. I certainly would have bought it if it had a fully jeweled movement. So, it was unloved as @OscarKlosoff suggests many are.
The golden ages of NOS watches tend to come when there is a sharp disruption in the market and many companies fail. Zenith's failure spawned its own cottage industry.
Well, I've been successful twice, but 10-15 old (and not decades old) watches were concerned. For me the main problem is that many dealers are using the term NOS these days to define a condition and not the watch's status. I've seen it used even for watches that weren't even full set (and of course did not have original tags either...).