Hello Karen, Thank you for sending in this men’s wristwatch to mearto.com for an appraisal. TITLE: Vintage, Gent’s gold-plated stainless steel, Swiss made quartz movement, self-winding, dress wristwatch with gold plated link bracelet with folding clasp, Sapphire model (based on the color of the dial), reference 202UJ, made by Urban Jurgensen, Bienne/Copenhagen, circa 1970s. DESCRIPTION: Case: Size note provided - approximated to be 35-37mm in diameter, two leaf, gold plated round watch case with round gold plated, fluted bezel and fluted crown for setting the time (not for winding), while the back cover is in stainless steel, and the cover is embossed around the central Crown logo of the company, “Swiss, All Stainless steel, sapphire, water resistant to 3 atmospheres, Urban Jurgensen established 1740”. Below is the reference number of this wristwatch ‘202UJ’. Two gilt bars on the back of the round case connects with the bar-bell gilt lugs and the gold-plated stainless steel link bracelet with fold over clasp. Each link has eleven sections of parallel vertical bars giving the bracelet a retro style appearance. Dial: This is a round sapphire blue dial plate with a patinated gilt Urban Jurgensen Crown logo @12, no hour/minute/seconds markers on the dial. There are faceted gilt Dauphin hands and the dial is signed, ‘Urban Jurgensen’ above and ‘Sapphire’ below with ‘Swiss quartz’ at the base of the dial. Movement: This would be a Swiss made, timed and standardized battery-operated quartz movement. These Swiss made quartz movements were all the rage at the time. By 1990 it would be replaced by a cheaper Japanese quartz movement, made by Miyota. CONDITION: Case – There is blemish or ding to the bezel at the nine-position relative to the dial. Dial: In excellent condition and assumed functioning. Movement - Not shown, but assumed original to this case, genuine Swiss made and functioning. Overall good-very good.
HISTORY OF URBAN/JULES JURGENSEN: Urban Jürgensen is an independent high-end brand known for obsessing over details, creating masterpieces that may appear minimalistic, but hide an execution of subtleties that few ateliers can match. Founded in Copenhagen in 1773 by George Jürgensen, father of Urban Jurgensen. The Danish firm of Urban Jorgensen formed the parent company of Jules Jurgensen, building its first watch factory in Kirkevalse, near Roeskilde, Denmark. By 1775 the main company was located in Copenhagen. George’s grandson was Jules Frederick Jurgensen (1808-1877) who built the major watchmaking firm in Le Locle Switzerland in 1834. Jules was the most famous of the firms and he was the most innovative of all of the generations of Jurgensens. Jules opened the Swiss watch making firm as a branch of the Danish company of Urban Jurgensen, and the two firms always worked closely together. David Golay purchased the Jules Jurgensen firm in Le Locle during the mid-1920s and eventually sold his stock to the Urban Jurgensen firm in Copenhagen, thereby leaving two separate firms connected by ownership and family, one in Copenhagen and the firm Golay purchased and then moved to Bienne, Switzerland. After making fine precision watches under the original Jurgensen names, the second and most of the third quarter of the 20th century saw the firm using movements supplied by other watchmakers, and the quality of the product declined dramatically. They took part in the Quartz revolution of the late 1960s and made inexpensive quartz watches throughout the 70s, 80s and into the 1990s. In 1981 a Swiss man, Peter Baumberger purchased the Urban Jurgensen and son firm in Copenhagen and moved the entire operation of making watches to Bienne which was included in the purchase. In 1979 as the brand had a renaissance under the leadership of Peter Baumberger, an ardent watchmaker and collector, who was granted permission to use the Jürgensen name for timepieces. He officially acquired the brand in 1985, but had already produced the Ref. 1 Calendar Chronograph three years earlier. By 1990, the Ref. 2 Perpetual Calendar wristwatch with 122 Gold and 50 Platinum pieces was introduced, and the brand was again a focused, exclusive watchmaker that shunned machine-aided mass production for tradition handwork at a deliberate pace. Baumberger unexpectedly passed away in 2010, unfortunately just before the official launch of Urban Jürgensen’s UJSP8 chronometer in 2011. Although then headquartered in Biel, Switzerland, the company is once again (21st century) under Danish ownership with Soren Petersen (formerly with Nokia) as President and CEO. The company remains among the foremost watchmaking dynasties in history.
**N.B. - Despite their famous name, from 1974 to 2000+/-, Urban Jurgensen watches, whether marked Jules or Urban, mostly relied on inexpensive quartz movements, originally made at their Swiss factory and then in the 1990s made in Japan by like the Miyota Company using the Miyota 2035, and those watches are now difficult to even find online and also worth very little unless the cases were made in 14 or 18K yellow or white gold or platinum. The late 20th and early 21st century mechanical watches in gold cases sell in the four-five American dollar ranges. Typically, the pieces that command the highest prices, $5,000.00 -$25000 are cased in 14k or 18k gold and have multiple complications (calendars, chronographs, repeaters, alarms etc.). The market for pocket watches made after 1936 is soft. Turn of the 20th century pocket watches have done much better at auction. Mostly one can still find Urban Jurgensen quartz watches on e-bay selling in the two-figure range. See the following, an entire page of quartz Jurgensen models: https://www.ebay.com/sch/Jewelry-Watches/281/i.html?LH_Sold=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=07950&_dmd=1&_ipg=50&LH_Complete=1&_fosrp=1&_nkw=Urban+Jurgensen+quartz+watch&_sop=3
PRICING:
It is surprisingly difficult to find Jurgensen quartz wristwatches on the usual websites that post auction results, other than Ebay. (Live Auctioneers, Invaluable, Barnebys, Antiquorum) Trying to research your handsome example gives one the impression that there has been an active attempt to discourage showing any of these quartz driven timepieces and the entire emphasis is on the very expensive new complicated wrist watches that were produced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries instead. However, having found plenty on Ebay I believe the fair market value of this gold plated mens dress wristwatch if offered for sale in today's market- place would range between $200-$225 simply because of its handsome appearance, although the damage to the bezel may hold some back. The most expensive Jurgensen quartz watch which had complications sold on eBay for $265.
Thank you for choosing mearto.com for your appraisal.
My best,
David