Diamonds in Gents Wristwatches 30 Mar 2022 Auctions News Suffolk News

Here we are in April already and as yesterday was April fools day, I do hope you survived the day without being ‘caught out’, I certainly wasn’t when my wife tried to make me a cup of tea with cold water! Luckily, I am used to drinking my tea very lukewarm so it wasn’t too much of a shock to my system!

So, April what’s important about this month? Well, for businesses it’s the first month of the second quarter, for my daughter it’s the month where the Easter bunny visits us all with chocolate eggs (which in her eyes is massively important) and more importantly for us as auctioneers it’s the month where we celebrate the diamond! If you were born in April, then the diamond is your birthstone. The word diamond comes from the Greek word ‘adamas’ which literally translates as indestructible or unbreakable. It is understood that in history people wore diamonds before going into battle as they believed that by wearing a diamond it gave them strength, courage and some believed it made them invincible and gave protection – all because of the diamonds strength to be indestructible. They really believed the diamond had magical properties. I’m always fascinated by what google says about an objects because we all know google has all the answers, and when I typed into the search engine how old a diamond was…its simple answer was it could be five times older than a dinosaur!

When we talk about diamonds people may naturally assume that we are talking about diamond jewellery whether it be rings or necklaces, yes of course we see these on our valuation events and the quality of the diamond and the size of the diamond is really important in jewellery – the better quality and bigger it is the more valuable it is! However, we also see diamonds on other objects including wristwatches.

It can be argued that women wear watches with diamonds for the way it looks and its sense of style as my wife tells me on a regular basis – what girl doesn’t love diamonds! This may be the case for some women’s watches, in some instances we find that it may be that they are not true diamonds as it can be a fashion watch and could be worn to give a stylish look to an outfit. However, there are of course many brands of ladies wristwatches that do add real diamonds to their designs – such as Rolex and Cartier. These brands really have an element of ‘bling’ and as such the well known brand is very much collectable and sell very well at specialist watch auctions.

Gentleman’s watches with diamonds on the other hand are more than likely to be actual diamonds in all respects as gentleman tend to only purchase a watch with diamonds as a statement piece and not to add to a look where replicas could be used. In the auction world, it is true that gentleman’s wristwatches attract a more favourable hammer price than women’s watches so if a gentleman has a watch with diamonds on, then it is more than likely to be an expensive brand and make of watch. Again, brands such as Rolex, Omega and Jaeger-LeCoultre add diamonds to their wristwatches as they are well-known as a desirable and expensive brand. We have seen a few gents wristwatches pass through our doors that are adorned with diamonds, and as they are gents wristwatches (that already is a strong sellers market) and have diamonds around the bezel then they are also more desirable as the stand out statement piece.

Of course you can actually find diamonds in other objects due to its strength and the fact that they will not break or scratch, such as being used in engraving of granite or quartz or even in tools within the motor industry to cut the metal and although they are not something we deal with in the auction world, something that we do see come through our doors and where you may find the use of diamonds is in technical equipment such as record players and speakers, it is thought that they enhance the sound of speakers. How you may ask? Well, by using a thin dome shaped layer within a speaker it vibrates rapidly without interfering with the sound quality. You can also find the use of diamonds in the needles found on record players – who would have thought!

So its not only diamond rings, earrings and necklaces that we see, we can also see beautifully crafted diamond watches, or even the more unusual record players with diamonds in.

If you have anything that you think may be a diamond such as a watch or a collection of watches you would like us to look at then you can bring them to one of our regular Friday valuation events, or even come along to our dedicated Jewellery, Watches and Coins valuation day next Friday 8 April we would love to see you.

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