s we said above, it is not so easy to make sure that a watch is vintage, and above all, that all the pieces that make up the watch are cohesive: unfortunately, this is a knowledge that comes mainly from experience, and it would not be enough even a dedicated article, however long, to explain all the "tricks" of the trade.
However, we can give some summary indications, which are certainly valid to help determine approximately the age of a watch. In this case, the keyword is "help": each element we cite below represents nothing more than a clue, and only a good investigator can manage to connect all the dots to date a watch accurately.
Let's start with winding and setting of the watch movement. If the winding of a pocket watch is done through a key and not through the usual crown, we can say that the watch dates back more or less to before 1850.
Let's move on to the pallet, which is the element that distributes the movement to the balance wheel. The pallet is typically moved by a wheel, called the escapement wheel. If the escapement wheel is connected directly with the axis of the balance, without any other intermediate elements, it is a cylinder escapement, a solution used more or less until the end of the nineteenth century.
On the other hand, if there is an additional element (called a pallet) between the escapement wheel and the balance wheel, we should take a look at it. For example, if the pallet of the watch has two small vertical rods, it is a pin-pallet, an inexpensive mechanism invented by Roskopf in 1870: therefore, the timepiece comes from later than that date. On the other hand, if the pallet looks like a small anchor, with two rubies placed at the ends of the arms, it is a higher quality movement featuring a lever escapement, also probably later than 1870.
If the case of a wristwatch has fixed lugs, called wire lugs, we can say that it probably dates from around 1925 or before that: springbars, which we still use today, were invented around that date.
If the upper jewel of the balance wheel does not have an anti-shock protection mechanism, the watch is probably from earlier than 1935, since the first mechanism of this kind, the Incabloc, was invented around that date. However, there is one crucial exception: Breguet watches, which mounted an element achieving the same function called pare-chute.
Automatic watches, that is mechanical watches that wind automatically because of the movement of the arm, come from the 1930s onwards. There are two main types of automatic winding systems: the bumper mechanism and the central rotor mechanism. The bumper mechanism - an oscillating mass moving between two extremes - was mainly used in watches from 1930 to 1960. The central rotor mechanism, the most popular today, was launched on Rolexes around 1930 but was then re-engineered and adopted by other manufacturers from the 1950s onwards.
Electromechanical watches - with hybrid solutions using batteries and traditional mechanical elements - were launched from the early to late 1960s and then replaced by quartz watches, which became widespread from the 1970s.
Finally, a big help comes to us from serial numbers. If yours is a watch belonging to an important Maison, it may carry a serial number: and there are many lists available online that inform us about when a specific serial number was issued. Comparing this to the items we've highlighted above should make it easier to tell if a watch is coeval or not.