What has watch collecting meant to you?

Thanks for sharing your story Lauren. You are a treasure to the community.

I've liked watches for decades and, though I wasn't a collector, I had accumulated multiple watches in my early teens. This trend continued for years and sometime in the 90's I was working and started to buy higher end watches and fancied myself a collector. It took awhile, but I finally weaned myself from the high priced spread when I finally realized the Omega,Breitling , Chopard brought me no more pleasure than Hamilton, Mido, Glycine, and more recently, certain microbrands. The big names are pretty much gone now and I'm back to what I enjoy most-being an accumulator with no plan, rhyme or reason or justification. I buy what I want, when I want, for no particular reason except that I want that watch

Case in point-my latest addition, The 32 USD iCON that I currently enjoy as much as I ever did my departed Chopard Mille Miglia 2001.

I love that philosophy of getting what you want purely because you want it. I can relate to that sentiment of enjoying a watch without price really being a factor. I jumped in thinking a Rolex was my one and done. How silly of me. After getting the Rolex I went down the microbrand rabbit hole then Seiko then @Ichibunz specials so on and so forth. @Watchovski recently told me about Canopy Watches which seems cool! Which microbrands are on your radar?

Thank you for sharing, I started collecting watches because of my love of moving parts along with the history and craftsmanship that goes in to them and for something for my kids to remember me by, I dig that seiko to

Praesidus military reissues are nice and are fairly true to the originals. Vario ,RZE,, and Kuoe, Dufrane afre also interesting.

I started my mechanical watch journey over 10 years. I was tired of changing watch batteries and thought I needed a “real” watch and ended up buying a Swatch Sistem51 with a phone rebate gift card. It’s been a long road since then.

Wonderful origin story Lauren 😁

I became fascinated with watches around the early winter of 2022 when I became a fan of channels like Wristwatch Revival and WatchFinder. The bug took root in the following spring of this year when I got my 1st, the DW 5600.

I hunted for more quality watch related content and discovered @Trapvision3d who was doing it so much different than everyone else. Sure he does reviews and showcases of watches, but it always ties back to people. Never forgetting the human element in all of this. He has a saying "It all started with a watch". These relationships that I have formed here and other places all started with a watch.

I hope and pray that we can continue to grow these friendships through this new year and beyond. ❤️

Great choices! My wife loves her DuFrane Marby. I am exicted to see what DuFrane does next!

I like that saying and a lot of truth to it all starting with a watch. I got your back friend! ❤️🤗

If you ever get a chance to catch one of his live streams on YouTube, 85% of the chat is just everyone enjoying each other. A genuine community .

https://www.youtube.com/live/zuya4qGZNcA?si=04GepK1ZZdcMfFf8

This here is just will more than likely be about just having fun. Some of the more "stoic" of us take these watches way too serious.

For sure, my “great uncle” who we called the equivalent word for “grandpa”in Macedonian at the time gave me a Yugoslavia Zenith pilot’s watch when I was a kid, I had no idea what it meant or even how to use it, but I enjoyed winding it. Been hooked ever since.

I genuinely love giving micro-brands a shot as well when the opportunity presents itself with something compelling. The guys at Nomadic just seem like genuinely good dudes who are in it for the right reasons. But in truth, even the big boys like Swatch Group have brands like Certina that I love more than a lot of other monster brands. Maybe I just like the underdog.

I started my watch collection during the Pandemic as well!! I got drawn into the history of watches and the fact that watches are still using mechanical technology in a mostly digital world. I got some cool watches but I also made some mistakes. However, I enjoyed the journey and found such a great community!!

Less money to buy other things

Happy New Year to you and yours, my kind friend. I wish you all the best for the coming year. Stay safe and healthy! 🤩🥂🍾

You too Jae! ❤️🤗

Thanks for the story! Watch collecting has meant slowly overcoming a fear of loss, forging new bonds and discovering lost history. It's sort of like storing parts of my personality in little trinkets that can be passed along when I croak.

I usually wonder if any of my watches will come full circle and end up in a pawn shop after I die for some youngster to buy and wonder about as I did.

You are in good company here! It sounds like you are well into your journey towards healing and starting a new chapter. Thank you so much for sharing!

Spike sends his love! ❤️

I think that is the hope for my watches at least! Whenever the day comes when I am not here anymore I hope someone will enjoy my watches. I do like the idea that its a tangible visual of your personality. ❤️

Blackbay 58 is also on my list of watches to get! There's a very specific milestone I want to reach before I do get it. My story is less interesting, I've always been into watches but never really collected them, and I just reached a point where I felt notification on my Apple Watch were becoming more of a distraction than actual help to focus. So I thought of getting a few Casios, F91W which I had as a kid and lost and two others that I was curious about - now I'm just obsessed with watches.

I'm still not sure that I'm a watch collector. I really like to wear watches, and I do like to tinker with them. Mechanical watches are just so wonderfully tangible in contrast to what I work on all day. You can look at a gear ratio and immediately understand the division that it represents.

Watches to me are toys and jewelry, and I have no particular purpose or goal to make it a collection.

Watches tell more than the time, to collectors they go far beyond that and tell a story itself - like the engraving on this King Seiko 5626 from 1971, no doubt a treasure for the Japanese gentleman who received this as a commerative gift in 1972 from his company.

Ha! Weird ? I thought I commented on your thread but I guess due to my fowl language it got deleted 🤦‍♂️…

So what I wrote was…

Watch Collecting means to me now is a Gateway to interesting and Wonderful People I am able to connect and I look forward in meeting you bunch of Nerds in the New Year!!

🍻

Yessss looking forward to hanging out at some point! 👯‍♀️

Happy new year! To me watches are a little bit about escapism, a lot about art, and also a good part about community- I love meeting and chatting with folks I never would've met if it weren't for watches- my goal for 2024 is to be a bit more active in this community 🥂

Love chatting with you always Jiamei! I am with you on the escapism. 😆

Thanks for sharing your lovely story. Similar to others, I’ve owned watches over the years, accumulated rather than collected. A few simple tools and a case back press got most running again with just new batteries.

First nice automatic is a Seiko SSK003 GMT, discovered at a significant discount. Started finding micro brands and WatchCrunch and it’s been off to the races this year—Brew, Spinnaker, Casio, Nodus, Scurfa, Dan Henry, Glycine…

Not much of a plan other than representatives of most categories, designs that appeal, and little discipline when a good deal is available. 😉

I think the general theme is we all enjoy watches and the welcome distraction it provides from the daily grind be it work or other…the positive vibes of this forum contribute to that…looking forward to more fun interactions this year

I always enjoy you and your wife’s content! Lemmie know if she gets the BB54!

Thanks…back at ya! Absolutely…on our little local New Years getaway we were talking about her next watch…after getting the Speedy she’s pretty content but the District Time show will be here before we know it…can’t see us leaving empty handed ha ha @LBoogie

I always been a watch person. But from 3 years ago a ramped up more. I love the variation, style and movements. Satisfied for what I have right now. My main thing is style and size.