New here-seeking help Arnex 18k gold ladies pocket watch

[kathyp1039]

Hello everyone,i'm new here and looking for help. I'm trying to find out about this watch. Our jewelers around here are very nasty when you want help and don't want to sell so they aren't helping me any! All they did was offer me fifty bucks so they could melt it down. It is a ladies Arnex 18k gold ladies pocket watch. It was my grams and its in excellent shape,she didn't own junk and took care of all her jewelry as if her life depended on it! the inside cover says Arnex,swiss made,17 jewels,18k gold and below this it has 0.750-someone offered my mom $150 for it and i'm not sure if it was a fair offer or not and wanted to check into it first. Any and all help would be appreciated and I do understand you all are busy. Thanks!

[jondar]

Kathy - The Incabloc movement was first made in the early 1930's so your watch was made sometime after that. The Incabloc was a movement with a very strong mainspring which resisted overwinding. Prices are all over the board as they generally are, the old Arnex watches are listed at from $39 up to $1200, bearing in mind that these are asking prices and not always what they bring.

The 18K gold you mention, I wonder if this is for the whole case.  The 0.750 marking does mean 18K gold or 75/100 pure gold, which is 24 K.  If it is then the value is far in excess of what the jeweler offered you for it.  Sounds tho like you have one of the high grade Arnex watches.  You may want to do some more research before you sell it.

[kathyp1039]

Yes both the inside front and back covers say 18k-and i've looked all over the internet and just cannot find this particular one-actually the jeweler offered me $50 and someone on Ebay offered $150 as soon as I listed it-so I started researching thinking this must be something pretty good! Here is another pic I got of the whole inside front...

[Rauville]

I'm making some assumptions here...

One: That it really is 18K gold. One simple test is, if you wear a ring, tap it against the open watch cover. A gold filled case will sound dull, while a solid gold case will ring.

Two: That it is a size 6 (a common Ladies sized watch).

Three: That the bare case might weigh around 12 pennyweight (20 pennyweight to the troy ounce).

Putting all the above assumptions (guesses) into an equation, we have: 12 x 1/20 x 1700 x .75 = $765 gold value.

A precious metal dealer might offer you anywhere from 50% to 80% of actual value.

Good luck with the auction.

[kathyp1039]

Thank you,just can't seem to find anything definite out about it-and we have no real trustworthy people around here to ask.

[Rauville]

I was glad to see that you had a decent auction, and received a fair price.

[kathyp1039]

Yes,thank you. I finally got it checked by someone who did indeed say it was solid 18k so the price I got was pretty good compared to the $40 our lousy jeweler offered!