[goffsroad]

Is anyone familiar with marriage watches? I was cruising through Ebay, when I came across some watches that have antique movements, but are put in new modern cases. I have noticed that mainly Longines and Jaeger LeCoultre movements are used. Has this concept been around a while? Are they worth buying?

 

[Watchbreath]

I have one, a Nivrel with a AS 1361. Rainer Nienaber is big with vintage
movements and modern watches. Are they worth buying? That depends on how much your into watches. In the watch world, there're
many nitches. It's up to you to find yours.

 

[stuffler,mike]

There always have been marriage watches but imho there are two sorts of marriages:

1) The "marriages" for affionados like IWC pocket watch movements housed in a wrist watch case, old AS, PUW, Bifora, Glashütte, JLC, IWC movements in a new case in order to save a beautiful movement. Most of them have an "individual worth" to their owners.

2) Bad marriages. Someone is selling let´s say an expensive watch (like IWC, Rolex, Vacheron, Patek) and he does not tell that it is a marriage, e.g.
+ parts are not time identicial (movement from 1975, case from 1960)
+ the movement never has been cased into the model he is offering
+ the dial was made completely new (but not by the brand itself)
+ you get a vintage watch with a brandnew ETA 2824-2
+ movement has been repaired by using not time identical spare parts

I´d always be careful with No. 2, No. 1 could become a collector´s item if there´s a market for it and if the watchmaker got a reputation (Rainer Nienaber, Jörg Schauer, Benzinger to name some).
The Maurice Lacroix with AS 5008 (automatic alarm movement) for example became an interesting item - maybe because the movement was only produced in a quantity of 196.000 pieces.