Roasting my oldest watch (and other stories)

This wildly self-indulgent blathering is brought to you with some prodding by The-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Omeganut and not an inconsiderable amount of alcohol

For those of you who have watched me post around here, you know that I am as unserious a watch collector as they come. I don't collect thematically (such @Aurelian and his vintage collection) nor am I brand specialist (like @HotWatchChick69 and his passel of Grand Seikos).  I don't favor a specific complication (such as @ChronoGuy) or purport to collect broadly and widely (such as @JaeBust ).  To the extent you want to emulate a collector, emulate these esteemed personages.

I am the very definition of a watch dilettante.  Most of my purchasing thought process over the past decade or so has been driven entirely by my involuntary love of shiny objects (preferably in stainless steel, 40mm in diameter, with a 45-48mm lug to lug) Shiny things trigger my dopamine centers and I find it incredibly difficult to avoid clicking the button and buying. In stark contrast to my professional and personal life, I research little, impulse a ton, and generally make foolish decisions.  I am largely at peace with my collecting degeneracy.

I don't really wax poetically about my watches in public.  I don't mind it when other folks do it about their watches...but when I do, it feels false in my head somehow.  Perhaps it's because I don't think the perfect watch exists and that's the central reason why this hobby is so fun and so frustrating.  The search for perfected novelty is endless.

This means any watch in my collection is at an immediate disadvantage.  The longer I own something, the more faults I can find.  But the longer I own a watch, the less will I have to get rid of it.  I find this dynamic deliciously frustrating.

So rather than do a SOTC (which I rather enjoy watchfam, keep em coming), I figured what better way to enjoy your company by roasting my own watches? 

It should be said (before someone takes offense on my behalf), I like everything in my collection.  I wouldn't own it if I didn't....but I also am not so in love with everything that I can't laugh at them (and myself in the process).
 

Cartier Roadster Chronograph XL

Let me tell you a story of a younger, thinner, more stylish @edge168n.   When I was in my vaguely less troglodytic 20s and I had made a little bit of money, I thought to myself "I'm getting married pretty soon.  I should get a wedding watch."

I'd enjoyed watches before, but mostly of the budget variety (your run of the mill Seikos and Invictas) but I was determined to buy myself a serious watch with all the intent that bold italicization can imply.

Living in Washington DC at the time, I marched into the nearest watch dealer where I was taken care of by a lovely woman named Irene.

Did your intrepid hero take his bonus check and decide buy a GMT Master II like his wiser watch friend suggested?  No!  Your hero is a hipster and decided that he was too special for such a pedestrian watch.

But dear Irene!  She took care of me and two hours later and $10,000 poorer, I emerged with this Cartier Roadster Chronograph, entranced with promises that this was a soon to be discontinued reference that would no doubt appreciate in price.

I left the box and card at the dealer, promising to go back, but being in my mid 20s, I was (as I am now) a distractible sort and have never been back since.

At least 65% of this story is true but being a former consultant, I can summarize into a few key points!  I bought the watch at full retail from a persuasive lady in Virginia and don't have the box and papers.  I am truly a savvy buyer of fine timepieces!

And my dreams of appreciation?  As I check secondary market prices today, I think I might be about to sell my baby for about $4K and, if we count the roughly $2K in servicing I've poured into it, I'm down a clean 80%.  Crypto investors eat your heart out.

Three lessons emerge from this

1.  I am a remarkably gullible  individual.
2.  Don't invest in watches
3. If you do decide to invest in watches, just do the opposite of anything I do.  I'm sure you'll make a killing.

I digress.  We don't buy watches for financial appreciation!  We buy them because they are the perfect intersection of art, engineering, history and fashion (quoteth our esteemed Canadian-English correspondent Watch Gringa).  

If I indulge my poetic side, it has the curves of a Porsche 901 (a car that they intended to name the 911, but instead ran out of applied 1 badges and so just slapped on some extra zeros they had in the back instead) and the classic Cartier face that @Aurelian seems to think is overwrought.  The Chrono buttons are snappy and satisfying

It is truly a magnificent watch!  

Well, except the butterfly clasp is nearly impossible to get a proper fit on despite half links. The crown is big and kinda digs into my hand when I flex it.  And proprietary lugs means you're locked into the Cartier strap system.  Which would be fine if hadn't started discontinuing the good ones (sailcloth I miss you).  The movement is also throughly okayish (modular chronograph movement, ho!) and definitely couldn't be found in a watch maybe 1/3 the price (like say an omega dynamic or one of countless montblancs).  It is remarkably expensive to service.

I'm not even convinced that it's a reasonably sized watch.  Tim Mosso tells me that someone with a 6inch (15cm) wrist can wear it.  That is what I would call an optimistic take.  I recently measured mine at 7.25 in (18.5cm) and there's definitely some generous overhang with its 55mm lug to lug including male endlinks.

Still, the memories I have shared with this watch are unable to be matched. I got married in this watch, I climbed Machu Picchu in it, and have visited countless countries with it strapped to my wrist.  It witnessed the birth of both of my children (probably!) and likely will be buried with me when I die.

This is what economists refer to as the sunk cost fallacy and I am the walking and breathing embodiment of it.  I've spent the past ten years attempting to backwards justify owning this watch.  I'm in too deep to ever let it go.

Feel free to sh*t on my watch choices (or your own) in the comments below ;)

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