Can you help me ID my watch? Concord, Gruen, Eterna, Waltham

[pat1011]

I went through rests of my collection and to be honest I have no idea if they are worth to keep. I know they are old and have some value however I would appreciate if somebody can shed little bit more light on their age and if they may be collectors item or not. I realize it is hard to talk about price, they have some price for me as I really like them :)
Thanks for any input.

[Eeeb]

I think all of these are collectable. They were great watches in their time.

The Concord is probably from the 30's or 40's. The Waltham from the 50's or 60's. The Eternia and Gruen are probably 60's watches.... all this based on dials and shock protection and general movement type. Anyone IDing the movements on Dr. Ranfft's site might be able to confirm based on his dates.

[RonD.]

Well, forgetting about price (since talking about value is against policy on most forums) I would give you my own personal opinion.. which also may not have any value. :)

The Eterna would be the nicest one. Probably from the late 1950s-early 1960s but you can do some research yourself on it. I have seen that same font for the numbers on so many watches from that era. The hands look wrong to me though and maybe the dial was re-done? Hmmmm

The Waltham is Swiss so it is probably from the 1950s-1960s, and not as desirable as if it was made in the US.
The Gruen is in nice shape, might be from the 1950s-1960s.
The Concord I know nothing about but it looks to have a 1950 style case and movement shape.

[pat1011]

Thanks for your input. I am asking as I cant decide to what to do with them. Walthams for example are in bad shape and need some restoration. Gruen need to have hands restored... I just dont know if it will be worth to have them restored, serviced or to keep them like they are right now. I am not a watch men and in fact hardly wear some as I damaged few in work. All these I have from days when I bought bigger lots with cases mainly from gold and this is what I have left from those lots. I also have some 7-8 nice ladies watch but they are gold and I will keep them for now. If anyone want to have look at them just out of curiosity I may upload some pictures. Well I like to see nice pictures and there is plenty of them on this forum :)
Thanks again.

[TheJohnP]

In my opinion if you're going to spend money on restoring & cleaning, I would just go with the Concord and Eterna. Those are the ones you'd likely get a return on investment. The Waltham and Gruen are nice, but you just might want to sell those and let the buyer do the work on them.

[trim]

I will say the Eterna is definitely redialed (and not well). It looks like the 5 ball logo has been overprinted with the name. The 1000 logo doesn't seem right for the era of the watch. I think doing this properly will require finding a better dial.

The Gruen is wearable as is.

[Hartmut Richter]

The Waltham has an Adolf Schild calibre with bridge adaptation, probably an AS 970:

bidfun-db Archiv: Uhrwerke: AS 970

...and the Gruen looks like something in the Cal. 510 series:

bidfun-db Archiv: Uhrwerke: Gruen N510

Can't place the Concord at present, I'm afraid, but if noone else gives it a go, I'll retry tomorrow.

Hartmut Richter

[trim]

I will say the Eterna is definitely redialed (and not well). It looks like the 5 ball logo has been overprinted with the name. The 1000 logo doesn't seem right for the era of the watch. I think doing this properly will require finding a better dial.

The Gruen is wearable as is.

Looking at the Eterna again, the hands are also wrong. Did this watch come via India?

I really think the the Gruen and Concord are the way to go.

[JL Smout]

The Concord is a beauty. Very redolent of the late 1940s, as it still has a touch of the Deco about it. The Eterna is a frankly rather appalling redial, and the Waltham and Gruen watches are lovely. I particularly like the Gruen.

[AbslomRob]

I think you'll find that the "bridge" on the waltham is a plate (with embedded jewels) sitting on top of the original plate (which could well be labeled with a lower jewel count).