My two vintage Shanghainese watches, picked up from a local market, both straps changed.
Treasure of the Week!
I love qipaos, but outside of qipaos I am also a little bit obsessive about many things vintage. I therefore have a not insubstantial hoarding of “useless” things at home. Well… they are useless, but have such an old world charm and uniqueness about them that I really enjoy having them around.
I’ve been thinking about how I can also talk about some of these things on the blog, and decided to start the “Treasure of the Week” series, where I pick an item every week to share.
I’m going to kick-start the series with two vintage Shanghai brand watches that I picked up about a year ago. It was easy to decide on these since my usual watch ran out of battery a few weeks ago, and I’ve been wearing these since I haven’t gotten around to taking my other watch to the repairer. It’s hard not to notice these watches when you’re wearing them because they are very old school and need to be wound up every morning.
The story of the vintage Shanghainese watches
I bought these vintage Shanghainese watches from the Xintiandi markets (I think the vintage market runs there once or twice a month) last summer for about US$45 each (300RMB). I still remember the stall owner because when I was browsing the stall I actually dropped one of the watches one the ground and smashed the watch face. I was going to just pay and take the damaged watch, but he insisted that I take a new undamaged one instead. In his words, he would feel better if I took something that I could use, rather than something damaged and I couldn’t use. I was really touched and ended up buying two watches instead of the original one. The power of great customer service!
The stall owner told me that the watches are actually new and came directly from the Shanghai watch factory. They had been sitting as excess inventory for 30-40 years after having been originally manufactured. Well, I guess inventory and merchandise planning was not really a forte for these guys back then.
He also suggested that I change the original watch bands, which were made from pretty cheap materials and after so many years were looking a little tatty. This was great advice. I had one changed at a watch repairer (the smaller watch with the narrow black leather straps, this cost around US$45/300RMB), and bought the other one online and changed it myself (this was much cheaper, US$9/60RMB). Overall I actually like the one I changed myself better, the large watch face and dark brown modern faux-exotic leather effect contrasts really nicely.
The dark brown faux-exotic leather strap works really nicely with the large watch face of this vintage watch.
The black leather strap on this one makes it a little more grown up. Something my mum would have owned in her 30s maybe.
Watches with a story
I really like these vintage Shanghainese watches because they are a great alternative to the expensive, branded Swiss watches sported by many people nowadays. They are also not your generic fashion watch that is cheap but looks really commercial and will be out the next season.
They make a nice statement and have an interesting story, but are affordable and classy. The downside is the winding up everyday, and I have to also confess, they are not the most accurate and lose or gain a couple minutes everyday depending on the watch. But alas, it is a joy having them, enjoy, and please share in the comments section if you have anything similar in your treasure trove!
With the new strap, this watch has a nice contemporary look when worn.
This one has a more vintage feel when worn with the skinny black strap and small watch face.
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