Nostalgia Costs

Recently I was discussing old watches with a colleague and I got a nostalgic desire to have a watch that ‘ticked’. I don’t know why, I guess it’s something I remember as a child and how comforting the ‘tick tick’ is.

After all one of the recommendations if you have a young puppy, and it is lonely at night, is to put an old clock in its bed. The ticking of the clock comforts the pup. But I digress....

I really fancied having an old watch. I didn’t know what era I wanted all I know is I wanted a really old one. After looking on EBay I found a style I liked from about the early 1900’s. About 1912-1930 seemed to be the era I was attracted to. Well I thought I would put in a few bids. Was I in for a surprise! Every time I bid on a watch – no matter what condition – I was outbid. It got to be quite ridiculous in the end. I mean I was bidding for a watch for ME but it appears from the bidding history that there are people that are bidding like mad to do them up and re-sell them. After all why would you buy just about every vintage watch that came up for auction?

I even started bidding on watches that needed repairing but that was just the same. The same people buying all the watches and outbidding anyone else.

I haven’t given up totally and I keep looking but I had not realised just how popular old watches are. I guess if I upped my maximum price then I might eventually outbid these collectors/sellers but I can’t afford to pay an extortionate amount for an old watch. All I wanted was to have a nice looking old watch that ticked not make loads of money out of it!