IWC Heritage Group

Dear Collectors and Friends of IWC,

the collectors community is and has always been a very important supporting pillar in the history of IWC Schaffhausen. We are very happy that you regularly share your interesting ideas with us and are thankful for all the constructive feedback you give us throughout the whole year. To honor this constant engagement and to emphasize the importance of IWC´s heritage, we now would like to offer a special service to our passionate collectors, which supports the quest for unique pieces. Therefore, we created the IWC Heritage Group.

Process:
If a collector is interested in learning more about the history of a particular timepiece, he would have the possibility to apply for the IWC Heritage Group.
Members of that group can request information about their watches from the IWC archives dating back more than 100 years.
The access is limited to active members of the IWC Collectors’ Forum and linked with a yearly subscription fee of CHF 100.
The costs for a research are CHF 45.
Your application request can be sent via e-mail to:

heritage@iwc.com

After the membership status in the forum has been approved, a confirmation and an explanation of the payment procedure will be sent.
Upon receipt of the payment, IWC Schaffhausen will provide the research document via e-mail.
The membership subscription is valid until December 31st of each year.

Best wishes from Schaffhausen

Excellent initiative. Congratulations.
Application has been forwarded.

Great to hear. Thanks

Excellent news - well done to one forum member in particular who was a key driving force behind this taking into the best consideration possible the likely views of the typical collector. Well done and a great initiative. I will be a member.

I heard the rumor of this project. It's a pleasure to see the positive response and the project details. Next step is organizing an IWC Heritage Group GTG among members. I bet we will have a lot of takers.

This is excellent!

Nice. Mark gets some of the the credit for this.

KUDOS for Mark, who was the drive behind it, and to IWC for following it up.

Hallo to Switzerland,
I have joined the IWC Heritage Group today for the first time!
I appreciate that IWC has learned about the confusion which was caused by the new ZERFIFICATE which was issued mid last year - replacing the estimed STAMBUCHAUSZUG - the new price was heavy - € 300 for a sheet of paper. Now there is offered an additional new and ceeper method to get information about vintage watches - I wonder weather it is necessary to send the watches to Schaffhausen (like Ingenieurs 666 A/AD, 866 A/AD, Aquatimers and Mark IX/X/XI). Regards Lohengrien

Hallo Andrew,
who was the sucessful forum member - I have got the first issued ZERTIFIKAT in July 2012 and I gave my detailled comment to Renee Schwarz in Munich, regards Lohengien

A quick check with the Service Department in Schaffhausen today confirms that the recently announced COA - Certificate of Authenticity remains available for those that wish to have a hard copy certificate of "genuiness" for a particular watch. Be it for insurance purposes, removal of doubt or simply to add a little extra "IWC" value to your watch!

The process to acquire a COA remains unchanged - the timepiece needs to be returned to Schaffhausen for inspection and verification via your local Authorized IWC Dealer or an IWC boutique.

Best of both worlds now available - thank you IWC for providing these services to us Collectors.

Excellent initiative! Thanks IWC and Mark for their engagement, well done.
I will be a member, application has been forwarded.

Best regards

Excellent, excellent job my friend, well done!

It's a good thing.

I have a question. What if the watch has, for instance, a replaced (not coeval) dial, although original? What if some parts, clearly not coeval, have been replaced during a service? What if the watch, during the service, gets a material addition to, let's say, its case?

Will these elements/changes be mentioned in the certificate?

I always have in my mind a very famous sport watch (not IWC) shown inside its maison's museum, having its dial, original but clearly not coeval and substantially wrong.

Do those who release the certificate know about vintage?

Roberto, a good question. With a strong answer!

Indeed, unlike the previous Extracts which were static extracts issued based on information on paper records - the COA is issued after a hands on inspection by trained and/or people "in the know". Least ways, when I look at the titles of the two people who signed my Extracts - I know that they are qualified to do just that.

Hi Mark,

thanks again, for this reply also.

Actually, I was curious about specific questions, I've reported above. I've had the chance to see just a couple of certificates, thanks to you. All I see are just few-generic indications about the typology, like, f.i. "Elgin I, Cal 32, 19 lig. etc." but nothing about eventual works made to the watch, changes, replacements, generally speaking, notes.

Probably the examples I saw are not exaustive.

What I want to say, this new service has the potential to be more than just a piece of paper stating the genuinenesses of the watch. It could become something like a guide, somehow, into the world of vintage.

The way it is now, being the results of your efforts and the innovation made by IWC important achievements, I wouldn't entrust this CoA 100% if I had to decide whether a watch was good or not.

The new IWC zertificate since July 2012 (replacing the old extract from the archives for last € 60) which costs € 300 will furthermore be issued by IWC hopfully with some more important details. It is up to hardcore vintage watch collectors to be in touch with IWC to make shure permanent improvement.

My compliments to my friend Mark and IWC, in that order.

What an excellent initiative. Thanks IWC and fellow collector who was so instrumental!
Peter

+1.

Hi

How would i go about getting COA and eventual cleaning of may IWC YC dated ca. 1976 or around.
Price estimate and process of shipping/COA/service would be nice to have.

BR

Edo

Does anyone have an example of a "typical" result from a research request as part of the Heritage Group subscription? I'm curious to how the info differs from an IWC certificate, if at all. I prefer to have the information rather than the paper.