If I could turn back time: Is your vintage timepiece the real deal? Yes — if you buy it directly from this watch brand

Let’s set the scene: You want to buy a rare and beautiful vintage watch in great condition, but, with a myriad sites and sellers out there, you’re worried that what you’re about to purchase isn’t the real deal, or that you’re overpaying. Wouldn’t it be great if your second-hand timepiece came with some kind of guarantee, or a warranty like a brand new watch?

Over the last few years, major watch brands and independent artisans alike have realised that the booming vintage watch market and their reputation for quality means buyers will come to them for scarce models that have been properly serviced and authenticated. Plus, there’s something special about the fact that these repairs are being done by the people with direct access to the brand’s archives — sometimes even working from the same machines and at the same benches that turned out the watch the first time round.

IWC is the latest major brand to announce this kind of offering —joining sister companies Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger-LeCoutre, Longines and Nomos Glashutte — and it’s called ‘IWC Curated’. The carefully curated collection of vintage watches is available at selected boutiques around the world, in London, Tokyo, Dubai and IWC’s home town of Schaffhausen.

The appeal is simple: you get the very best examples of cult classics or forgotten gems, and someone else has done the hard work of finding and fixing it. The flip side is that you will pay significantly more than the going market price for the same watch. IWC’s argument will be that no-one else can sell you the same peace of mind or sympathetic restoration. There is a limit, as well, on how many watches will ever be available — unlike the hundreds you can find online — because the programme is restricted by the manpower in IWC’s servicing department.

‘It's not big scale, but the most important thing is that the customer can trust us,’ says IWC’s museum curator David Seyffer. ‘We have a lot of spare parts, but on the other hand we have three watchmakers. They are trained in restoration, so if we don’t have a part they make a new one.’

The watches themselves speak to IWC’s rich, 157-year-old history. David’s job is, in part, to take a sort of ‘greatest hits’ approach, so while he’s adamant the collection could in theory contain 19th century pocket watches at some stage, for now it focuses on what’s hot. That means original Ingenieur SLs from the late 1970s, and the ever-popular Mk 11 pilot’s watch, used extensively by the RAF from the 1940s right up until the 1980s. It will include beautiful Aquatimer dive watches — dainty by today’s standards — and forgotten rarities from the recent past, such as the limited edition Big Pilot’s. Perhaps most on-trend are the ceramic Da Vinci perpetual calendars from 1985 — groundbreaking watches from a time when the industry was emerging from a decade of strife and struggle — and the watches IWC made for Porsche Design in the 1970s and 1980s, whose titanium bracelets still have a sci-fi, futuristic feel.

David, though, prefers the classics. ‘For elegance, I would have to say the 1950s and 1960s. There are some very pure, three-hand dress watches, and you have the Caliber 89, which some journalists say is one of the best hand-wound movements ever made.’ Fortunately, for us, he’s not allowed to reserve the best finds for himself (so if you’ve always wanted a mint-condition original Portugieser you might just be in luck). However, he is duty-bound to submit anything truly unique to the brand’s museum. There are still something things that are just too precious to wear.