Hi everyone

I turn 40 this year and my partner is looking for ideas for a present to remind me how old I am

I’d love a watch from 1984 but stumped about where to start looking. I’ve tried eBay but never bought a watch off there before and given it would be a decent purchase I’m a little reticent.

There seems to be some specialist birth year watch sites out there but thought you guys might be able to help.

Looking for something from 1984, automatic ideally but not a deal breaker, and from a watchmaker I’ve heard of - any thoughts welcome!

It's great when you can use your advanced old age as another excuse to buy a watch

I've never fully committed to finding a birth year watch but I do run a '1974' search on Chrono24 from time to time to see what's around.

The difficulty with a 40 year old watch is that you might find very awkward service issues at some point.

We see these issues with CW who are only 20 years old. Spares for some models are just not obtainable. Movements of CW watches might be replaceable, but case parts and crystals can be more difficult. With some watch brands it may not be as easy as replacing a movement in its entirety.

A 40 year old watch is probably similar in many ways to a 40 year old car.

I wouldn't worry so much about eBay per se. I have bought very good watches from eBay. The real issue is just the general age, and accumulated wear of vintage watches.

Good luck with your search, if that's the way you decide to go.

Edit.
I have an omega watch that's over 40 years old, and I never wear it now. It still runs, but I think it needs a service including a crystal replacement. I don't really trust an independent watch maker to be able to do it, and I know omega will charge around £500 and that's as much as the watch is worth. I would pay that and still have a 45 year old watch.

Birthyearwatches is run by Scott who posts on thewatchforum.co.uk. He's a collector and an enthusiast.

I have bought from the website without telling him via the forum that I was becoming a customer. I found the watch to be accurately described. On the web he made a big thing about some blemishes on the dial that could not be seen with the naked eye. Even with a loupe I struggled to make them out and I'm REALLY fussy about having pristine original dials on my vintage watches.

You will pay more for than you would if you sourced from ebay. I paid £200 for a gold plated 1973 Tissot, that was in almost perfect condition. On ebay, with patience and a fair bit of effort, I could have got that for £150-ish.

But buying from Scott, you get a warranty and you get an honest description. Buying from ebay is a crapshoot. Ten years ago ebay was great for watches, it was a brilliant place to buy vintage. Now it's pretty awful, most of the watches offered are from dealers who are cobbling together a mostly working watch from multiple non-runners and offering them for way above the market value of honest watches. I really would not recommend that someone new to vintage watch buying dipped their toe, they are likely to loose the entire leg. And an arm!

I have no relationship to Scott, he's not a friend or anything. My recommendation is based purely on dealing with hin as a customer.

I’m going to add a recommendation for a vintage watch dealer called Nick at Time Rediscovered who - full disclosure mode - shares an office with me so I know him from speaking at lunch etc.
He recently had a 1984 Rolex Datejust which was stunning. He is able to source watches that don’t make it to the general market and has a range of values of watches in stock or can find. They’re all serviced, you have warranty, can view beforehand etc. He’s helped me out a few times with my vintage watches too.

I also turned 40 last year and though I was tempted with a birth year watch (a model from either Seiko or Omega was tempting) I ended up going new instead with a significant purchase to become my new everyday watch. I’m hoping to see its 40th birthday! I went that route as I already have a few vintage watches that get worn occasionally so that was a personal decision but my recommendation is to spend some time looking around. There are actually loads of options from the 80s which are lovely and quite different to what’s around today. Particularly if you ignore Rolex and Omega.

^^^ that's a good post @BrokenSkunk - I've come across birthyearwatches before but this is a good review. Also an honest personal assessment of the balance between buying cheaper from wherever, and buying a good well founded reputation

JAFO wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 12:31 pm The difficulty with a 40 year old watch is that you might find very awkward service issues at some point.

My collection stands at 47 watches now, or it will do when the next one clears customs! Of these just nine are less than 40 years old. Only four hail from this centurary.

There is definitely some truth to what you say. I have a Omega Electroquartz from 1973 that uses a Beta 21 movement, the worlds first mass produced quartz. The word on the street is that spares ran out 20 years ago, yet I've been able to source a NOS motor and several wheels for the movement.

The swatch group have decided to stop selling spares to independent watch makers (I believe Cousins UK are taking them to court over this). This effectively means that brand new spares aren't available for anything with an ETA or ESA movement - unless you can go back to the manufacturer or one of their expensive affiliates.

However, the internet is full of cheap non working watches that can be stripped for spares. ETA / ESAs are pretty ubiquitous. I once bought a 1943 Bulova with a 7AK movement that had issues. A donor movement cost me $40.
Many crystals can be replaced with generic ones, similarly crowns and stems.

Lastly, spare parts should not really be needed. If a watch is serviced regularly (8 to 12 years) none of the internals should need replacing. Just clean, re-oil and you're good to go for another decade.

So, yeah, occasionally if you've picked something with an obscure movement you might find it difficult to source spares. But provided you're not afraid to put a bit of work in and scour the internet, it's generally not a problem.