# Relative Values



## Who. Me? (Jan 12, 2007)

Seeing Tom's new IWC (and the couple Keith had up for sale), makes me wonder; what were the differences in prices between similar IWC, Omega, Tissot, Certina, Longines, Zenith etc Tuning Fork models, and do the differences in their current values compare to the differences in their original prices?

IWC seem to be the top-end of the price range, then Omega, Longines, Tissot, Zenith and Certina. (I'm excluding the Chronographs from this.)

Solvil et Titus always seem the cheapest (possibly because they re-badged surplus parts?)

Does that reflect their original pricing?

And were there similar differences in quality and workmanship?

I suppose the same questions could be posed for all the different, modern ETA automatic movement-based watches, but the F300 Tuning Fork watches all appear to have been very expensive pieces in their day and the movement was used by relatively few manufactuers.

Edit:- I'm not ignoring Accutrons, but Bulova appear to have used those almost exclusively themselves.


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## watchnutz (Jan 18, 2008)

I am not knowledgeable on the original prices, but I do have some thoughts on current values. I own at least one or more of each of the makes and don't really see big differences in quality given like materials in the cases. i.e. stainless to stainless. Base metal obviously would be a less expensive watch. The difference really comes down to "branding' or percieved value if you will. Some may do some fancy machining on the plates but that is eye candy the wearer will not likely see. You failed to mention Baume et Mercier which fetches the most resale it seems. I suspect that is partly due to the name branding as well as fewer being offered. Strangely enough the Omega f300's are more plentiful than the others and can be found every day on Ebay. Movado, Eterna and Rado also sold watches with the ESA movement. A side note: The Titus diver f300 seems to command good prices at the moment

BTW the Universal Geneve uses the Accutron 218 movement and the Citizen uses a Japanese version whose parts are interchangeable.


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