For watches, there is no strict and universally agreed time period that makes a watch “vintage”. At its broadest, the term covers anything from the earliest wristwatches of the 1910s and 1920s up to approximately 1990. There’s some debate over whether watches from the 1990s and 2000s can yet be described as vintage – you’ll occasionally hear people say “contemporary vintage” or something similar – but by and large it’s agreed that watches from 1990 up to the present day are more typically referred to as “pre-owned”. The majority of vintage watches hail from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, with an increasing interest in pieces from the 1980s as well.

Every guide to vintage watches will give some variant of the same warning: before you buy the watch, you’ve got to buy the seller. In other words, caveat emptor. The good news is that buying through MR PORTER, you can rest easy: we work with trusted partners – Mr Eric Wind in the US, with other worldwide sellers coming soon – who have sourced, authenticated and carefully checked every single watch that we offer.

It’s true that, mostly, people start out with new watches and gravitate towards vintage once they’ve worked out what they’re interested in and developed an appreciation of mechanical watchmaking. But there’s nothing that says you have to do it this way – if you like, a vintage watch can be your first watch. If you follow the rest of our tips, you won’t go wrong.

If you’ve started toying with the idea of buying a vintage watch, you’ll probably have come across the idea of “investing” in watches – ie, buying a watch because you’re hoping that it will go up in value. While it’s true that over the past couple of decades a lot of vintage watches have seen their values rocket, that doesn’t guarantee they will forever. The most bankable pieces are already expensive for that exact reason, and if you’re going to start trying to pick the next sleeper hit, be prepared to miss more often than you hit. Fundamentally, we say buy a watch because you love it – if it goes up in value, that’s a bonus.

While the vintage watches you’ll find at MR PORTER are always going to be the best examples that we can get hold of, there’s no getting around the fact that these are watches that have lived a life. Some wear and tear is natural; connoisseurs tend to prefer a degree of honest patina, especially to the dial, and its preferable for cases and bracelets not to have been overly repolished, wearing down their crisp lines. Our photographs are a true representation of the condition of a watch, and if you have any questions you can get in touch with one of our experts.

It follows on from the above that vintage watches need handling with a little more care than their modern equivalents. Some – especially tool watches, dive watches and the like – will still be pretty sturdy beasts. But, over the years, the advances in manufacturing processes and materials mean today’s watches can take more of a licking. You won’t necessarily find scratch-proof sapphire crystal on a vintage watch, for example, and case coatings, dial pigments and luminous materials are all susceptible to age. There are two specific points of watch care that are worth highlighting…

Even dive watches, over time, can lose their water resistance – the rubber seals that the watch depends on can degrade. We’re happy to field any questions on a specific watch, but as a general rule, if a watch hasn’t been recently pressure-tested by a watchmaker (and potentially had its seals replaced), don’t assume it’s still as seaworthy as it once was.

The older a watch is, the more vulnerable it can be to magnetism (read our full guide to watch care here to understand just why this is such a problem). Modern watches use antimagnetic alloys, thicker and more protective cases and silicon components to counteract the effects of magnets, which are everywhere in the home, but little of that was available half a century ago.

Technically, all watches need regular servicing. Most manufacturers recommend somewhere between five and 10 years as the longest a watch should be left before it has a little tune-up. Your vintage watch has already lived multiples of that and even though it will have been checked over by expert watchmakers before we sell it, you should bear in mind that within five years, you should get it looked at again. Like a classic car, it’s a machine that’s done an awful lot of running. A once-over for peace of mind every few years will spare you an expensive bill one day.

Apologies if those last posts come across a little negative – but forewarned is forearmed. On a happier note, you should relish the fact that entering the world of vintage of watches is taking the first step in an almost limitless journey of discovery. Every vintage watch – unlike, obviously, something brand new – is unique, and is a gateway to all kinds of interesting historical avenues. Whether you’re interested in motorsport or music, architecture or aviation, there are myriad connections with the world of watches.