What is a Considered a Vintage Watch Nowadays?

While a vintage watch is generally considered to be any watch more than about 30 years old, there are certain traits that watch collectors tend to expect from certain eras. I’ll do my best to quickly break down what is considered a vintage watch nowadays, and also address the increasingly popular term “neo-vintage.”

Vintage Watch Traits

Before I elaborate on some nuances of what is considered a vintage watch, here’s a quick chart to give you an overview of how terms are understood today. Note that these aren’t cut-and-dried definitions and there’s some overlap:

Typical Traits	Vintage	Neo-Vintage	Modern
Year Made	1950-1995	1988-2012	2000+
Crystal	Acrylic	Sapphire	Sapphire
Beat rate	5-6 bps	8 bps	8 bps
Bracelet	Folded metal	Solid links, but still old basic clasps	Solid links (including endlinks), and often quick-adjust clasps
Lume	Radium (before about 1962) or tritium	Tritium (before about 1999) or Super-LumiNova	Super-LumiNova (or equivalent)

What’s the Simplest Definition of a Vintage Watch?

While the most basic definition of a vintage watch is a watch that is over 30 years old, the exact number is arbitrary, and you might hear some people say the cutoff is 25 years. But, in my opinion, as of 2024 people still don’t really consider watches from 1999 to be full-blown vintage yet. Many would call those “neo-vintage,” and I’ll get more into that soon. Watches older than 75 years old are often called “antique,” but honestly the collector interest in those is minimal–they’re just too tiny and too hard to service.

What is Considered Vintage Has Evolved

When I first really got into Swiss watches in 2008 or so, there was one simple, widely accepted way to distinguish a vintage watch from a modern one–its crystal. An acrylic crystal meant it was a vintage watch, and a sapphire crystal meant it wasn’t. That made perfect sense, because at the time, sapphire crystals had been common for about 30 years and they notably change the “feel” of a watch.

I once predicted that at a certain point, the defining cutoff between vintage and modern would inevitably change and likely become “tritium or Super-LumiNova” instead of “acrylic or sapphire.” And I think we’re just about there. Tritium, the radioactive type of lume that was common until the late 1990’s, develops patina over time while modern lume doesn’t.

Defining Vintage Rolex

To many Rolex collectors, any “4-digit” model is considered a vintage Rolex watch. That means, simply, that the model number is 4 digits long–like a GMT-Master ref. 1675 for instance. 4-digit Rolexes generally have acrylic crystals and movements that beat 5.5 times per second.

4-digit Rolex models began to get replaced by 5-digits in the late 1970’s–those Rolexes tick 8 times per second and have sapphire crystals just like new ones do. But 5-digit models (which were, in turn, replaced by 6-digit models starting in 2000) are generally considered “neo-vintage” watches.

A 6-digit Day-Date like ref. 118238 from 2000, despite being almost 25 years old, would still be considered modern by some because of its predominantly modern characteristics. The main difference that people notice between 5-digit Rolexes and newer ones is the weight of the bracelet and clasp. Vintage and even neo-vintage Rolex bracelets feel much lighter than modern ones.

What is Neo-Vintage?

The term “neo-vintage” has been gaining steam in the past decade, and it generally refers to watches that are about 12-35 years old. A neo-vintage watch almost always has a sapphire crystal, but at least some characteristics (like maybe a rattly stamped clasp) that materially differentiate it from current models.

People who like vintage watches enjoy the look and feel that they offer–they have traits that new watches don’t; collectors aren’t looking for certain watches just because they’re old. So it makes sense that what is considered a vintage watch has changed, and will continue to change, as more defining watch characteristics age and become ubiquitous. Maybe in 2050, any watch without a quick-adjust clasp will be considered vintage.