Vintage Elegance: Pre-1950s Watch Collecting

Ubik recounts a memorable evening with vintage watch expert David Goldberg of Timetraders, who shared his passion for pre-1950s classical watches. This gathering offered a unique opportunity to explore the enduring elegance and historical significance of early timepieces from brands like Cartier, Patek Philippe, and Rolex.

A few weeks ago Antony (Ant) invited a few of us to a meal with an old friend of his David Goldberg of Timetraders.

David has spent most of his life in the jewellery and watch business in the UK and offered to talk to us about his abiding passion – guess what - vintage watches.

What was so fascinating for me was that David’s love was for pre-Fifties more classical vintage watches like Cartier, Patek and Rolex Bubblebacks. An area I know very little about, so it was a fascinating talk and discussion.

David also brought lots of beautiful examples to show us and the seductive elegance of these early watches, the finesse, style and quality is really captivating.

David argued that everything important in the world of watches had been done by the Fifties and that after that it was refinement, as opposed to innovation (if I’ve got this wrong, please correct me).

As such, for him, this period represented a golden age (my words) which makes it such an exciting period to collect. What’s interesting is that in vintage market many of these watches have moved out of fashion in the last decade or so and as such prices are lower (for certain models) than they were ten years ago.

Of course others brought some beautiful watches to show as well and I took as many pictures as I could.

Thanks to David for being so generous with his advice and thoughts and of course Ant who put it all together. It was a pleasure to see everyone.

For anyone who came please add in your thoughts and recollections of the evening and from now on I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Please forgive some of the poor quality pics as the lighting wasn’t the best.