Vintage Swatch Watches That Could Be Worth Hundreds Of Dollars

Time is money, but timepieces can also be worth plenty. In an age when people mostly check their phones for the time, it might feel almost impossible to consider a time when wristwatches were a big deal. However, some of these old wristwatches might actually be worth big money today.

While pre-"smart" watches may not have been able to monitor heart rates, calories, and sleep health while simultaneously allowing wearers to shout text messages into them while traipsing around the grocery store, certain wristwatches of yesteryear, like the Swatch watch, were once considered just as desirable. The slim, stylish Swatch watch dominated the watch-wearing scene in the early 1980s. These plastic-cased quartz watches were cheaply produced for an audience obsessed with switching up their style. Swatch watches were crazy, crowded, and colorful and often featured artistic collaborations and contributions from renowned names like Vivienne Westwood, Spike Lee, Philip Glass, Microsoft, and even Blue Man Group.

In the '80s, Swatch watches originally retailed for anywhere between $20 and $40, with certain special artistic editions and collaborations costing more. These relatively low prices spurred the start of Swatch watch collecting clubs across the globe. All to say, Swatch watches were once the Beanie Babies of the wrist. Today, while the value of certain Swatch watches is unlikely to hit the same monetary amount as the most valuable luxury watches, they can still be worth keeping your eyes peeled for, or at the very least, keeping your wrists at the ready.

Much like valuable coins you might have lying around, knowing what specific kinds of Swatch watches are particularly sought-after can make all the difference when looking through your old accessories. Some valuable Swatch watch models include: Keith Haring illustrations, sparkly and see-through "Jelly Fish" Swatch designs by Andrew Logan, and artist Alfred Hofkunst's "Veggie Line" — which includes a Swatch shaped like a chili pepper. Collectors are also always on the hunt for the elusive "Velvet Underground" Swatches, a collection of prototypes featuring lace details and neon colors meant to adorn the wrists of New York's hard-partying club scene in its '80s heyday. A truly mint prototype from this collection would come wrapped in a special stocking.

While swatch watches were designed to be disposable, some of these pop-cultural oddities have stood the test of time. Working models in pristine condition are rare, and will likely fetch far higher sums than scuffed-up, non-working models. Less rare models in fine working order might score a seller close to the Swatch's original retail value. In 2023, a Vivienne Westwood Putti Swatch featuring cherubs sold for $347 at auction. At the same auction, a full "Veggie Line" set sold for $819 and a set of three Swatches with astroturf bands sold for $756 in 2023. Some of the vintage artist series watches, like those from Keith Haring, are valued in the thousands, with a 1985 Keith Haring "Serpent" Swatch selling for $525 on eBay in March 2025.

The so-called "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and '80s featured a shift away from heavier, expensive, less accurate mechanical watches — full of delicately crafted components — to watches made with more mass produced, lightweight quartz movements, and electronic (battery) power. This rise in inexpensive but effective quartz watches, from Japanese brands like Seiko and Casio as well as American brands like Timex, gave Swiss watchmakers a run for their money, and could easily have run Swiss watchmaking into the ground.

After years of having a near-monopoly on the wristwatch market through a complex web of tariffs, government assistance, and other wartime twists of fate, the Swiss watchmaking industry faced its potential end in the '80s. Enter Ernst Thomke, a Swiss engineer and co-founder of what would eventually be called the Swatch Group. Thomke helped consolidate some of the remaining superpowers of Swiss watchmaking and turned the newfound supergroup's focus temporarily away from luxury timepieces towards the creation of the Swatch: an easy, breezy timepiece meant to change with every shifting emotion or outfit.

While a far cry from the luxury timepieces long associated with Swiss watchmaking precision, Swatch watches were (and are) low-profile, high-style wristwatches that leaned into fad fashion and throwaway culture. Swatches made their debut in 1983. The Swatch, or "second watch," was Switzerland's first major entry into the new and far less stodgy world of watches, as well as a response to a global economy just barely emerging from years of crisis-level inflation and lowered spending power.