Is My Watch Vintage, Antique, or Timeless?

A woman walked in with a small gold watch wrapped in a handkerchief. “It was my dad’s,” she said, eyes scanning the dial like it still held some part of him. “Is it vintage… or antique?” It’s a question we get all the time. But more often than not, what someone really wants to know is this: Does this still matter? Is this worth holding onto?

Technically, yes—there’s a definition. In the watch world, vintage usually means 20 to 30 years old. Antique? That’s reserved for watches a century or more in age. But no chart or collector’s guide can define the true worth of a watch that’s been passed from one wrist to another, from one chapter of a family’s story to the next.

Some vintage watches are collectible because they’re rare. Others are valuable because they remind someone of the way their grandfather whistled while winding it every morning, or how their mother would set the time on hers before heading off to work. These details—the sound of a click, the feel of the crown turning, the way it looked under the morning light—stick with us more than we expect. A scratched crystal or worn-down crown doesn’t make it less important—it makes it real. It’s evidence of a life lived.

When someone asks us if their watch is vintage or antique, we answer. But we also listen—to the story, the memory, the emotion that brought the watch through our door in the first place. Because at the end of the day, while dates and definitions have their place, the most important thing is what that watch means to you.

So is it vintage? Antique? Maybe. But more than that—it’s yours. And that’s what matters most.