Rating: 
Summary: very good but.......
Review: ...it could have been more comprehensive. since i do not collect pocket watches, i don't have the need or knowledge for that part of the book. which is quite a bit of the book. nonetheless, all information is good information. as far as the wristwatches, a lot of the newer models of established brands are not included and some brands are missing altogether. this i find to be a shortcoming for a most recent edition of a book dedicated to watches. would have also liked to see a more complete and detailed listing on comic character watches. needless to say, i collect these.would i recommend this book? yes, while adding the above caveat. the price for the book is not unreasonable. so give it 3 1/2 stars in my estimation.
Rating:
Summary: very good but.......
Review: ...it could have been more comprehensive. since i do not collect pocket watches, i don't have the need or knowledge for that part of the book. which is quite a bit of the book. nonetheless, all information is good information. as far as the wristwatches, a lot of the newer models of established brands are not included and some brands are missing altogether. this i find to be a shortcoming for a most recent edition of a book dedicated to watches. would have also liked to see a more complete and detailed listing on comic character watches. needless to say, i collect these. would i recommend this book? yes, while adding the above caveat. the price for the book is not unreasonable. so give it 3 1/2 stars in my estimation.
Rating: 
Summary: Most Popular Watch Price Guide - But Its Flaws Show Quickly
Review: The mere fact that this guide is now in its 20th year is evidence of its popularity. It is unquestionably the most successful guide of its kind. Much of that success lies in its clear if sometimes oversimplified listings that make it easy for rank beginners to find the majority of popular watches, and the sheer volume of entries. I would rate the pocket watch section over the wrist watch listing for detail (e.g., coverage for high-end watches like Patek, Rolex and others is superficial and buyers should rely on some other book), but both are adequate for the most popular material. However, evidence is that most of the prices are not updated annually, and publishing deadlines make the few updates old when fresh off the press. Some prices simply remain untouched for years when auction and other sales clearly show significant changes (generally increases). I wonder how many of the scarcer and "by-the-book-mint" watches the authors would be willing to sell from their collections for the prices shown? Some historical information, such as the production dates and serial numbers are questionable. The section on Aurora watches is clearly at odds with documented factory records despite fresh editing done to that information in the 2000 edition. And where South Bend individual grades are priced in detail, Auroras are lumped into general groups -- a sad oversight, since many of those grades are very scarce (multi-stars). Other rather common grades from popular makers are unexplainably missing amid a hit-and-miss grade list. The price grading system is dramatically skewed to the unobtainable, making one minute flaw justification to slash the price below half of its near-mint state (which is mint minus a box, yet most watches likely never had factory boxes). Certainly mint watches deserve a premium, but the book's definition of mint is toward the absurd, and extra fine is nearly unobtainable. The result is that most seller's simply redefine the grades. It would be better if the author would make that adjustment, which would also put prices in line. And the insistance that all watches still be in their original cases? That likelihood vanished sometime during the Great Depression, when even a gold-filled case could be swapped for silveriod to pay back a few dollars, never mind how many solid gold cases vanished into pawn shops. The presence of other screw marks in the back of a case for anything short of a perfect mint watch is closely akin to the flap over used postage stamps mounted in albums with hinges: much ado about nothing. Finally, the foreign pocket watch section has only about 75 maker's price lists, and they are highly generalized. While something is better than nothing, perhaps this guide has become too long in the tooth, relying on minor annual tune-ups when a complete overhaul is due. But it sells, makes money, and there is no incentive to enter a new effort. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend anything better, except to get out and see the real market for yourself. In the meantime, treat it as a general guide, but seldom if ever the final answer - one that even in it newest release is actually behind except for items that have not changed prices in years (not many of those). Even the generalized empty case prices show no adjustment for gold market or demand, and can sit unchaged from one edition to the next. That should be your first clue something is amiss. Perhaps one problem here is the modern world of Internet auctions, which appear to be totally ignored as a basis for market sales histories. It would additionaly explain why this guide increasingly becomes outdated, even if it is published each year, having failed to see a whole new arena of buyers and sellers. Being the only one of its kind annual guide clearly accounts for most of its success. Perhaps a truly timely price book covering 90% of what is in the market simply is not possible . . . at least not quite yet. When it does appear, I will be first in line for a more accurate reference. Until then, don't make this is your only watch pricebook.
Rating: 
Summary: Basic Equiptment
Review: A Complete Price Guide To Watches No. 24 is an excellent book for those interested in vintage watches. This book gives you the opportunity to "see" inside a watch. It also gives you a lesson in watch history and mechanisms. Included are 400+ year old to modern era battery operated watches.
If you are a watch dealer you already have this book. If you are an enthusiast you should have it. It's basic equiptment. It can help guide you as to what to pay for a watch of the manufacturer/type/year...etc of your liking. At over 1000 pages long it's a bit beefy for a paperback. - It has to be, it contains a lot of information! You are given a detailed lesson in mechanisms and individual parts, diagrams and even samples of vintage advertisements for watches. It has tons of pics of vintage watches grouped by manufacturer, along with manufacturer's histories and serial #'s to boot!
This book can also give you a new sense of appreciation for a dizzyingly complex mechanism so finely tuned; it can work accurately for hours on just the winding of an incredibly tiny spring. If you are in the watch hobby/business you'll find yourself referring this book time and time again.
Rating: 
Summary: Still the best source
Review: Despite some flaws, The Complete Price Guide to Watches is always the standard guide most often used by pocket watch and wrist watch collectors. As a military timepiece collector, I use the price guide to help identify type and date of manufacture. It is thorough and comprehensive. I can't imagine a book of this size and scope not have flaws.
Rating:
Summary: Great general information - price guide suspect
Review: For years I've been recommending this book as the best place for a beginner to start. The original text is 20 years old and was originally written for a pocket watch price guide. The information in the front part of the book is therefore written on pocket watches, however this general information ("how a watch works, the history of watchmaking, etc) is equally applicable to wrist watches. This portion of the text is rich in information that all collectors of vintage timepieces will find useful. The price guide portion of the book can be divided into two main sections. Pocket watch evaluations are very detailed with manufacturer histories of most of the major American makers. The vast majority of American pocket watches can be found in this price guide. The wrist watch section is an alphabetical listing of many examples collectible vintage wrist watches. The quality of the images in this section ranges from poor to acceptable. There are many factual errors concerning model names, case materials, etc. Pricing bears little resemblance to current market conditions. All in all, a must for the vintage watch collector's library - as long as you recognize the limitations. Don Baker @ finertimes.com
Rating:
Summary: Basic Equiptment
Review: I've opened this book since some hours and I still have difficulties in understanding the order in which information is gathered and ordered. It's a real mess. Many important brands are missing (for example and don't see any Westclox or Timex wristwatches), watches are ordered without any serious criteria but their brand, unrelated information is put togheter and much much worse than I can tell. Imagine you put some thousands photocopies in a box and after some years you get them out of it and publish them. Is it a book? No, it's a shame. JUST DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY.
Rating:
Summary: Most Popular Watch Price Guide - Still Flawed But Improving
Review: In my review of last year's edition of this annual price guide, I was only willing to give it two stars. While that may seem brutal for what is clearly a lot of compiled information, keep in mind that most of this data has evolved over a twenty-year collection process, and each new year is now largely a product of editing and tweaking the previous volume. However, I have decided to raise my rating for this year's edition by one star because even a cursory overview reveals that the effort put in since the last volume was not nearly so minimal as the previous 2000 version. There are not a lot of new additions in the way of specific models or grades, and this still remains a significant weakness of this guide. To the newcomer, it appears to cover a vast array of models and grades, but to the experienced collector, it is by no means near the definitive encyclopedia of watches. Even in its strongest area, American pocket watches, it continues to overlook a considerable number of grades, leaving the reader to make lump assumptions about prices of watches overlooked. The same comments apply to wristwatches, where it might have been better to leave well documented names completely out (such as Rolex or Patek) since they are better represented with great detail in other books. Does this matter? Just look at the number of "rare", "scarce", bogus and absurd claims on some Internet watch ads, and the answer should obvious: such claims would not survive the light of day were this guide truly complete. But for the many grades that are in the book, both pocket and wrist, it appears the authors have awakened to the reality of the market: a booming economy has been driving prices ever upward, particularly for collectibles. And whether the marketplace is cable TV, Internet auctions, or watch marts, the reality of any market is constant: prices are set by a willing seller and ready buyer who agree on money. To deny the prices that are have been paid with repetition on Internet auctions is naive at best. A sale is a sale, and a collection of sales is the marketplace. Pretending that the majority of sales (which today is clearly Internet auctions) does not represent the market is absolutely ludicrous. So with the 2001 edition, a review of item after item in comparison to the 2000 version shows almost unilateral increases, which indeed reflects today's expanded market: no increase in supply, a significant increase in demand, and an enhanced marketplace to help keep things from simply skyrocketing. Revel in the price growth -- your collection should be worth more as time goes by, particularly in a strong economy. And price guides should reflect this rise. Finally, with this edition, I can say the guide is catching up. And it appears to have done so without defaulting to some simple formula. Important and popular watches show the greater increases, and this is reality. Will this publication ever be perfect? Perhaps one day. In Ehrhardt & Meggers American Pocket Watches Identification and Price Guide, an extensive cataloging of grades and variations far beyond the Shugart, et al guide is presented. But it was in some ways its own undoing. It is nearly impossible to keep tabs on every watch sale down to the fine details and thus produce a truly definitive price guide each and every year. The labor would be staggering. But as sales continue to occur on the Web in far greater proportion to any other venue, and web crawling software becomes more sophisticated, it seems that a combination of Ehrhardt's grade and variant detail with Shugart's annual pricing may yet come. When it does with real time price, a veritable commodities market ticker for watches, I am ready to award all five stars. This should, after all, be the ultimate goal even if it seems a bit unrealistic at the moment. Until then, I confess this is a book you really can't survive without in this hobby. It is the standard price reference when in doubt, and a particularly valuable asset to newcomers who are not yet familiar with prices for most watches. It is wise to be aware of its shortcomings, yet for all the missing grades, at least the prices are now more realistic. And should the market fall, I would hope the guide keeps track with the whole of the marketplace and reflect the ongoing reality, subject to the unfortunate constraints of annual updates and publications delays.
Rating: 
Summary: Misguided by the "Guide"
Review: There's an old adage, "He who has the gold, makes the rules." A point that no one who has reviewed this book has proffered, is that Shugart OWNS the business that publishes his book and price listings as well as buys, sells, and trades vintage watches that are listed in his 'Price Guide'. As a serious collector, things like overall condition for watch cases, dials, movements, etc. are, in my experience, VERY subjective, whether he defines the parameters or not. Just ask anyone who has purchased a vintage watch on Ebay and returned it because the condition was not as it was described. As for new price listings, I have to take their word that there are, I believe they claim, '10,000' new prices for the 2003 edition. But, are these prices based upon a true market value, or some nebulous value that Shugart's elected to publish?
Rating:
Summary: not structured, not complete, not up to date
Review: This book might be interesting if you're specialised in low-range US brands of wirstwatches or pocketwatches. The sheer number of hamilton, elgin and bulova models listed is surprising. If you collect rather on the high-end, you'll be very disappointed though. Missing information on calibers, important makes and models that are not listed at all, poor photographs, and the lack of structure of the model-listing are some of the major downsides of the book. No serious editor would publish this level of information quality. (The author is his own publisher)
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