With consistently more than 300 models in stock, Vintage Portfolio has become one of the leading vintage watch dealerships in Central Europe. All of our watches are examined by our team of vintage watchmakers and confirmed as authentic. We offer a lifetime money-back guarantee on authenticity, meaning that you will receive a full refund if we have made a mistake.

We try to keep our vintage watches as close to their original factory condition as possible. Secondary watch parts (such as dials, hands, crowns and crystals) may have been restored, replaced or freshly reproduced with attention to detail by our watchmaker team, where necessary. That being said, please read the condition report in each listing for specific information about the individual watch. In particular, the dial condition and movement service status are stated in the first sentences of the listing description. They are written in easy-to-understand language. Other sellers sometimes “hide” this information or use wording that misrepresents the condition. We don’t.

All our watches are fully tested and sold in fully functional condition. This means that the watch reliably keeps time throughout the day (the expected accuracy is stated in the description of each individual watch) and has a power reserve of at least 24 hours (after that, we stop testing). We invest a lot of time into testing and quality control: We test our watches for instance, throughout our acquisition process or immediately after purchasing them (to determine if a service is needed), for a second time in the website listing process (to be able to describe the movement status accurately) and for a third time before shipment (as part of quality control) – as you can see, we spend a lot of our time and our energy on testing.

In addition to the legal customer warranty rights, we offer – depending on the condition and service history of the individual watch – either a one-year or a three-year warranty on proper functioning:

– described as: “Tested, functional, but not serviced”: 1-year warranty on proper functioning.

– described as: “Professionally serviced”: 3-year warranty on proper functioning.

A three-year functional warranty on a vintage watch is an exceptionally long warranty in our industry and, in our view, a leading level of warranty coverage.

Listed as an unserviced watch? -> Optional Service Upgrade with a 3-Year Warranty

If you choose a non-serviced watch (with a 1-year warranty), you have the option of having it professionally serviced by us at a fair price and thereby obtaining a 3-year warranty. The cost is generally between €350 and €700, depending on the particular movement and the work required. Thanks to our Fastlane priority service with our watchmaker, the service can usually be completed within approximately three weeks.

A professional service (complete overhaul) includes the complete disassembly of the movement, cleaning, lubrication and regulation, as well as the replacement of at least the mainspring. The case can also be polished upon request. However, for vintage watches, we generally recommend against polishing in order to preserve the original substance and authentic character of the watch as much as possible.

What happens after our Warranty Period is over? (after 1 year or 3 years)

When purchasing online, consumers generally have the right to withdraw from the purchase within 14 days without giving any reason. The withdrawal period normally begins when you receive the watch.

If you do not like the watch after receiving it or simply change your mind, you may withdraw from the purchase within this period and return the watch to us. Following a valid withdrawal, we will refund the purchase price in accordance with the applicable legal requirements.

If you would prefer a different watch from our collection, please feel free to contact us. We will be happy to discuss an exchange with you.

If the watch does not correspond to its description or if there is a defect, your statutory warranty rights remain unaffected. In such cases, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can clarify the matter together.

If you are returning a watch from a country outside the European Union, such as the USA, please note that customs duties, import taxes and other charges paid upon importation into your country cannot be refunded by us. These charges are collected by the customs authorities of the destination country and are separate from the purchase price paid to us.

If you wish to exercise your right of withdrawal or request an exchange, we would appreciate it if you could let us know as soon as possible after receiving the watch. This allows us to process the return promptly and, where applicable, make the watch available to other interested customers.

Vintage Portfolio relies on a healthy turnover of its watch inventory. Short-term reservations (for up to 2–3 days) are no problem and are free of charge. Longer reservations are more difficult and are only possible with a 10% non-refundable down payment.

Of course, it is also possible to order and pay for a watch in advance and have us ship it at a later date that suits you better. Sometimes customers ask us to hold their watches for a few weeks until they travel to Vienna after placing their order. This is also no problem and is a free service.

Please contact Maximilian if you have any requests regarding this.

Shipping Charges (Express Courier Service – tracked and fully insured)

– Within Europe: €40 and 3–4 working days
– Worldwide: €80 and 1–2 weeks (we ship a lot to customers in the US and Singapore)

We recommend the Express Courier Service as it is much more reliable than a regular postal service.

If you decide to buy multiple watches for long-term investment purposes, shipping is only charged once.

Our watches are stored in a bank vault located outside our office. It can take up to two business days to prepare a watch for shipping. We need to retrieve it from the bank vault, perform a final check to make sure it is functioning properly, and initiate the shipping process.

Please expect a total delivery time of less than a week for EU customers and approximately two weeks for customers worldwide, starting from the time we receive payment. It is sometimes even faster. We will, of course, send you a tracking number once the watch has been shipped.

On average, it takes us two working days to ship the watch. We need to retrieve it from the bank vault, perform a final check to make sure it is functioning properly, pack it carefully and professionally, and take it to the courier company. Once the watch has been shipped, you will automatically receive a tracking link so you can follow your parcel.

You can reach out to us (even on weekends) via email at maximilian@vintage-portfolio.com.

If you have not received a reply within 48 hours, please check your spam folder (sometimes emails get caught there) and reach out to us by phone at 0043 664 430 5816.

You can place your order directly through the checkout system on our website (by pressing the green “Buy” button to the right of the watch pictures). The checkout usually takes only 3–5 minutes, and no registration or login is required.

You can choose between bank transfer, credit card (Mastercard and Visa), PayPal (+3.5%), or cash payment when meeting us personally in Vienna.

Some customers prefer to pay by bank transfer (bank wire) by simply exchanging bank and address details via email. This is still possible, as it was our first and only payment option when we started the company in 2013. Ironically, it is still the most frequently used payment method.

– The watch itself (as shown in the pictures and described in the listing)
– An official company invoice (on which our warranties are stated)
– A Vintage Portfolio User Manual for your watch (please read it)
– A Vintage Portfolio Watch Box. These watch travel boxes are great for taking two of your watches with you while travelling, so you can switch watches even when you are abroad.

Upon request and with a scheduled appointment, watches can be viewed in person in downtown Vienna, Austria. All of our watches are kept in external bank vaults outside our office. For security reasons, we can only show you a few watches at the same time.

Please expect small discounts for single-watch purchases. We offer significant discounts to customers who buy 5 to 20 pieces at once for investment purposes.

We also have resellers as customers from Northern Europe (especially London) who buy their full stock from us because of the competitive price-to-value ratio we can offer as an online shop. If other dealers buy from you, that is a good indication that your prices are competitive.

Our watch services are performed by professional watchmakers and involve cleaning and oiling the moving parts and replacing parts that have suffered wear and tear. For movement services, we use only authentic replacement parts ordered directly from the manufacturer – for instance, Omega.

Afterwards, the watch is regulated by our watchmaker to ensure that it keeps good time for its future adventures.

The dial condition of our watches is stated in the condition report for each listing. Our refurbished dials have been carefully restored using state-of-the-art reprinting and refurbishment techniques.

In our opinion, dial refurbishment usually increases the value of watches worth less than €3,000, as the refurbishment costs involved (up to €500 per dial) can raise the overall value of the watch.

For watches above €3,000, the dial is usually seen as a piece of art alongside all the other watch parts, and its condition is particularly important. The collectors’ market (not so much the mass market) pays a premium for collector-grade dials that are “untouched by human hands”.

The mass market, in our opinion, generally prefers refurbished and completely patina-free dials, as they are more visually appealing and better suited to daily wear. Well-refurbished dials are often also easier to resell than dials covered with what is often considered unattractive patina, especially on the mass market.

Patina forms as a result of exposure to sunlight and changes in temperature and humidity over the lifetime of a watch. A well-executed refurbished dial can save a watch from otherwise being discarded or heavily modified.

All of our watches are suitable for daily use. Wear them with confidence and pride!

That said, the biggest risk is dropping the watch on a stone floor, particularly when drunk. Watches (both modern and vintage) usually won’t survive that.

The second biggest risk to a vintage watch is unnecessary vibration to the wrist, such as very hard hand clapping, riding a bicycle over cobblestones, riding a bicycle or motorcycle to and from work every day, or playing tennis or golf. Basically, whenever you feel heavy vibrations on your wrist, it is not good for the watch. It can harm the watch over time.

High humidity can also harm a vintage watch over time. For example, avoid leaving the watch in a bathroom during a hot shower while the bathroom mirror is fogging up. The effect is somewhat similar to how smoking harms a person over time.

If these risks are avoided, a vintage watch can last for 100 years with servicing every 5–10 years. We do offer servicing for watches that we sold many years ago as part of our continuous customer care, and we also help if accidents happen. We can repair almost every watch we have sold, particularly vintage Omega watches, as we specialise in those.

Vintage watches are generally only water-resistant to a level that allows them to survive a few drops of water, but not much more. This means that you can walk through light rain or carefully wash your hands while wearing one, but vintage watches are not suited for water activities.

No showering, no car wash, and nothing that exposes the watch to high humidity. Before washing your hands, we recommend pulling the watch up your sleeve to increase the distance between the water stream and the watch.

Activities in which the watch is exposed to heavy vibrations on your wrist can also harm the watch over time, such as riding a motorcycle or riding a bicycle over cobblestones. The watch may survive all of the above once or twice by luck, but these activities are not recommended.

Particularly vintage watches with plexiglass crystals are only water-resistant in the sense that they may survive a few drops of water.

Please note that we cannot offer any warranty on water resistance, even if a water-pressure test is performed or sold along with the watch, as water resistance is only a momentary condition.

In short: We do not recommend exposing any watch to any kind of water. It is simply not worth the risk.

Contact us via email, describe your issue, and we will help as soon as possible and to the best of our abilities.

Until now, we have never left a customer behind and have no intention of changing this attitude in the future.

Before you get in touch, please don’t forget to read the English “single-page” user manual for your watch, which will be inside the parcel, right beside the company invoice. Most questions will already be answered there.

All of our watches are kept in external bank vaults outside our office. We do not keep watches in our office or in private homes.

We have received over 700 customer reviews so far through direct purchases. They can be viewed here:

https://www.vintage-portfolio.com/referenzen/

We also have over 1,000 Chrono24 reviews with an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 possible stars. We have been listed there as a “Trusted Seller” since 2014.

https://www.chrono24.co.uk/dealer/checkout-rating.htm?customerId=16412