Summary of your journey…. In photos.

Did you keep any of the vintage Hamiltons? Big upgrade in median quality, BTW.

That's the latest group shot, about half of the total.

It is an improvement over this.

To answer one of your questions:  out of control.

wow that’s nice collection!! I’m working myself up to that 😁 but I’m loving what I got so far…
OK … I guess this is my official SoTC post as well so started with these first…

Then just escalated to this…but still in my humble beginnings though 😔…

my sons spiderman I kept in the box cuz he lose things this was his 3rd watch so it stays in the box…

That Raymond Weil looks beautiful!

I wish I'd actually had a better photo record of my collections.  As such, I have little to offer in that regards.

Otherwise, would echo @Aurelian .  Major upgrade in quality and.collection diversity.

I have some photos of the Hamilton collection. Most are kind of sub sets.  I’m not sure I ever did a full SOTC. 

Here’s the ones I kept and the work watches that don’t fit in my main box. 

That is a nice vintage collection.  There’s a variety of interesting watches.  Vintage can be so addicting that I had to remove the temptation. 

That’s a unique and interesting path you‘ve taken to get where you are today.  There’s some awesome pieces in there.  

The RW is a surprise hit.  It‘s nice enough that I didn’t feel the need to add another dress watch for many years until the Cartier showed up.  Yet it’s still different enough that it can reside side by side with the Cartier.

 It’s actually saved me a lot of money by preventing me buying a MUT Moon or some other super expensive dress watch. 

what is that longines second from left bottom row? That font is very nice but comes at a high price tag if you want it from Patek or Zenith or IWC or Moser

This is inspiration bro you started from the mud and you have some nice pieces in the fleet I c the hulk and the Batman keep grinding bro I’ll be displaying in a few years remember me lol

Super legit collect bro #goals

I had this December last year. 

Now I’ve got these g-shocks, divers and chronographs. 

These field type watches and more dressy options. 

And I’ve got these on order. 

I like these journey-style posts.

The earliest group shot I can find is this from 2016. My storage has gone through some changes too. I started out with a generic Tempus winder from Amazon - flashy, but no character.

The only ever-presents are the Junghans (my first proper watch), closely followed by my Tudor 79220N. After getting those two, I focused almost exclusively on vintage gold dress watches for a couple of years, then realised I was spending so much on servicing them back to life that I should consolidate and go modern.

As the collection expanded, I bought this old mechanics tool chest, which I refurbished and used for a while. I love this box, and still have it, but the wife uses it for jewellery now as the drawers meant I couldn't store anything on rubber as all the watches had to lie flat.

Then I commissioned a new smaller box to suit a consolidated collection (that commission was a disaster, which I may document at some stage). I reduced from 32 to 5, but have crept back up to this:

That's where I'm at so far...

That is called the Longines Heritage Military L2.811.4.53.0/3.  It’s a 44mm piece that’s still very comfortable on my 6-3/4” wrist. 

I feel like we shared many common milestones along the way.  A lot of what you’re saying is very familiar to me.

Started collecting back in 2015 with a strong preference for toolish watches with dark dials and steel bracelets. 

Tastes started to change and a lot of those watched got sold. In 2018, I wanted to add more colour as can be seen below:

2019-2020 I got into Seamasters and swore off Tudors after suffering from the BBGMT date wheel issue twice.

2022 I actually went into a quartz phase and more recently I started yearning for GMT watches given reopenings and all the revenge travel, I also forgave Tudor hence thr BBPro. Here’s my current SOTC:

Wow brother, you have some amazing watches in your collection 

Thats quite a collection!! What size will the black hamilton on order be?

It’s a 42mm diameter and 11mm thick. Not sure about the lug to lug. 

November '14 vs 10 minutes ago

Thank you sir!

Thank you sir!! Aspiring to have as nice of a collection like yours 🍻! 

Love this thread and makes me feel so much better about my 10 piece collection which I thought was going mad in terms of numbers etc. You guys blow that off the scale and now I feel I have permission to keep on going!! Dangerous to say the least.

Missing some here, old that were never shot, and new I'm not sure I wanna share yet.

Flipped a few through the years.
I currently have two up for sale, one of which I might replace soon if I find a good deal.

In my case it has been a building experience. From collecting Fossil character watches in the 80’s, still love my George of the Jungle watch, etc,  to Omega, Rolex and other high end brands. It has been quite a continuing voyage.

Still love them all. And now it’s like I have a vintage collection simply because I have owned some watches well over 25 years. 😂

PS: Specialize? Nope, I buy what I like. Storage? The “Tower of Time” which is filled with watches and accessories. I have a briefcase of dead quartz, others squirreled away in closets and the really good stuff is in the safe.

The tower is awesome.

Its hard to imagine that so much stuff us old guys bought new might already be considered vintage.  

Interesting that Tudor lost you for a time, but then you forgave the brand. Why was that ?

It felt like a “it’s not you, it’s me” thing. I was caught up in the whole status thing viewing it as the poor man’s Rolex…but over time I got over it and couldn’t deny that Tudor just makes good tool watches - seeing it that way made me get over the slab-sided case profiles, thickness, lack of more premium materials e.g. aluminium vs. ceramic bezels.   Also the past Tudors I’ve owned have had kept super accurate time. My BBGMT ran like 0.5spd too bad for the date wheel issue though, my BBPro runs at 2spd, no date wheel issues. Before that I had the ETA Black Bays and they ran pretty good too. 

Tudor certainly do offer a lot of watch for the money. 
mots funny how you can fall out of love with a brand over an issue… I have been questioning my ongoing interest in A Lange & Sohne because of an episode I had, which incidentally wasn’t even with them directly but through an authorised dealer. Either way, I can’t help feel it reflected badly on them. Still wrestling with that same issue…