Hello Mark,
Thank you for sending in your vintage wrist chronograph to mearto for an appraisal I shall try to be of help to you today.
TITLE:
Gent’s stainless steel, manually wound, antimagnetic, waterproof, Incabloc shock resistant wristwatch with round button chronograph, two registers and tachometer, case no. 754, made by Baume & Mercier, Genève, Switzerland, circa 1950s.
DESCRIPTION
Case: Size not provided and approximated to be 35/37mm (without and with crown), polished stainless steel, two leaf, lapidated lugs, screwed down back cover engraved for, “Stainless steel waterproof back, antimagnetic, Incabloc, 754”. . .
Dial: White painted dial with gilt Arabic hours, closed minutes/seconds ring with seconds divided into fifths, outer tachymeter graduation in blue, two registers for continuous seconds @9 and a 30 minute register @3, gilt baton hands and counterbalanced center seconds chronograph pointer. The dial is marked, “Baume & Mercier, Geneve, antimagnetic”. . .
Movement: Not shown but perhaps the Landeron calibre 48 (=cal.148), a manually wound chronograph movement, made in both 14’’’ and 13 ¾’’’ (lignes) sizes, both with 60 sub-seconds and 30 minute functions, 17 jewels, lever escapement, bimetallic balance, flat balance spring, Incabloc shock proofing, antimagnetic, vibrating at a frequency of 18000bph with a power reserve of 41 hours and the dial, case and movement triple signed. . .
Condition: Case – Few surface scratches on the back cover otherwise case is in very good condition for age. Dial – There has been some overpainting of the white parts of the dial, especially in the dial center. Some has bled onto the numerals six and five. There are short scratches or linear impressions seen throughout parts of the dial center. Perhaps some relining of the minutes/seconds ring? Movement - not shown but assumed functional. Overall condition is good to very good. This 48 calibre movement was made from 1937-1970.
Looking at the auction market for Baume & Mercier vintage chronographs, it appears that it is not very strong, especially if you compare it to the watch market two decades ago, so prices have shifted significantly to the down side. Your watch dial which has been touched up with white paint and that single factor adversely impacts the value of your watch in today’s demanding market. I am also not sure about whether the minutes/seconds track has had some relining also. (See the area near the six on the dial.) If the dial were in very fine condition the watch would have had a value today of between $1500-$2000.
If you sold your watch at auction today I believe it would fall into the range of $1000-$1250 (790 GBP-985 GBP).
Thank you again for sending the watch to mearto for an evaluation and I hope I was of some help to you.
My best,
David