For the seller

Are old Swatch watches worth anything?

Two analog watches side by side

Some old Swatch watches are seriously collected: the early models from the first years, the artist specials and the limited editions made for events and clubs. Most everyday Swatches are not. What decides it is the exact model and year, whether it is complete with its packaging, and what thirty years of storage, above all the battery, have done to it.

Swatch was made to be collected almost from the start, and people did: by colour, by year, by artist. A drawer of them is one of the most common collections there is, and one of the least understood, because the difference between an ordinary Swatch and a collected one is invisible until you look it up.

What makes a Swatch collected

The first years. The early eighties models, from the very first collections, are the vintage heart of the field, and the earliest of them are genuinely scarce.

Artist specials and limited editions. Swatch put artists on watches before that was normal: the famous artist specials, the numbered editions, the pieces made for one exhibition, one club year or one event. These are the ones collectors chase, and the packaging, often designed as part of the piece, belongs with them.

Completeness. Original box, papers, even the guarantee card. With the specials, the packaging can matter nearly as much as the watch.

Condition, and the battery. A dead battery left in for decades leaks, and the leak eats the movement. If any watch in the drawer still has its battery in, have it taken out, carefully, and do not scrub what is underneath. Straps of that era also harden and crack; leave them be rather than forcing them.

What is usually ordinary

The everyday production models of the nineties and later, worn and without packaging, are affectionately collected but rarely chased. In a collection they still belong: they are the context the specials lived in, and a Swatch collection is bought whole or not at all.

Before you sell

  • Do not wind, force or test anything beyond looking.
  • Get old batteries out, and nothing else.
  • Keep boxes, papers and the collector's own lists together. Swatch collectors kept catalogues and lists more than most; those lists are the collection's memory.
  • Keep it together. The specials are what make the everyday ones a collection.

How we handle Swatch collections

Swatch sits exactly where we live: it is a watch, and it is a design object, and we buy both. We take collections whole, anywhere in the world, record the story of how they were built, and every watch goes on with the collector's name attached. A Swatch drawer next to a camera shelf from the same house is the mixed collection we like best. For the wider field read selling a vintage watch collection, and Pass it on for how passing it on works.

Short answers

Which Swatch watches are collected?

The early eighties models, the artist specials and the numbered limited editions, complete with their packaging. The model and year are the place to start.

My Swatch does not run. Does that matter?

Often it is only the battery, and sometimes it is what the battery did. Say what you see and change nothing; collectors would rather judge it untouched.

Do you buy single watches?

No, only collections: roughly twenty objects and up, or fewer if they are exceptional.

Why we keep the story

A collection is not a pile of objects.

It is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping, and sold off piece by piece that is the first thing to go. So before anything is sold, we sit down with you and record it: how it started, what the best of it was, the piece that got away. That story stays on every object with the collector's name, and goes with it to whoever keeps it next. You get a page where you can see where each piece ended up.

Three ways the story gets recorded

On camera, where it lives. We travel to the collection and film it properly: you talking about how it started, the room and the shelves as they are, the objects in your hands. Wherever in the world the collection happens to be.

On a call. If the collection is sent to us rather than collected, we have the same conversation over a video call and write it up, with one photograph of the shelf as it stood.

In writing. If you would rather not talk at all, answer a handful of questions in your own time and in your own words. It goes on the objects exactly as you wrote it.

It never changes anything else, and you can always say no to it. Some conversations run ten minutes, some an afternoon. Read the collections we have taken on

If it is a whole collection

We buy whole collections, not single pieces: one person takes all of it, and the story is kept with every object. Tell us what you have and a person replies within two days.

How passing it on works, in full

1The collection
What is in it
Pick everything that applies. Something else opens a line to tell us.
Roughly how many pieces
A guess is fine. Nobody has counted.
How would you describe it
There is no wrong answer here, and a lot of ordinary is a normal collection.
One or two sentences. This is the question we care about most.
2Where it is, and how it could reach us
Town and country is enough.
How could it reach us
Unseend is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Sending and bringing are as welcome as a visit; if it is sent, we pay the freight and insure it.
When does it need to be gone
No hurry is a good answer. It lets us plan a visit properly.
3Condition and photographs
In your own words. Broken, incomplete or untested is fine and is normal; it only needs saying.
Photographs
Three to ten photographs The room and the shelves as they stand. Phone photographs are fine, and a slow walk round on video says more than any of them.Send them to hello@unseend.com
Or attach them to the reply that comes back within two days. Any of them works, and nothing is looked at until a person reads it. Do not clean up first — the shelves as they stand tell us more than a tidy arrangement.
4The number, and the story
A number or a range, whatever you have in mind. You will get an honest answer either way.
Would you tell the story of it
Filmed at the collection wherever it is, on a video call, or written in your own time. It never changes the price.
5How to reach you
The reply comes here, from a person, within two days.
Only if you would rather be called.

Answered within two days, by the person who would come, and by email at every step after that. Nothing you send is shared with anyone, and your photographs are deleted if we do not go ahead.

This form is protected by hCaptcha; its privacy policy and terms apply.