Other Ways to Engage with the Hobby?

Awesome

I started to take apart and reassemble watches and then movements, that’s typically how I dive into things, and what lead me to my career as a mechanic. I take everything apart to understand it, and am also a compulsive repair-er-er

Excellent artwork btw, I love it!!!

Hope to learn watch photography (though i'm not even good at any type of photography nor am i creative). Haha. Will see.

Keep up the cool drawings!!!

OK FIRST OFF this is amazing! Do you have an IG account where you share all this artwork??

As for a different direction I'd absolutely LOVE for some time off to learn photography and do like a 'Watches in the wild' type series or something.

I've peaked in my desire to grow my collection, I have enough watches and choices for my daily wear that I no longer spend time hungering on the internet for my next aquisition.

I've turned my spending habits towards book collecting. I'm finding there are some amazing books out there and often quite pricey as many of them tend to be coffee table books with high photo quality.

I'm also learning quite a bit about the fashion trends of the 20th century. It honestly makes me a bit sad as I see some of the amazing design work and innovation, especially in the 60's and 70's. When I compare it to today's offerings I find modern watches...well uninspiring.

I love how the serial number was scratched out in the drawing. Very good though! Kudos!!

Fantastic 👏😍

Such a cool fusion of hobbies. I love that zenith drawing 😍

I would love to have that drawing of el primero framed and hung in my office or home if you ever decided to give it away)

I would offer it, but it’s a drawing of my friend’s watch (hence the scratched out serial just incase). I’ll be giving it to him next time I see him. Thanks though, your comment made my day!

Thanks so much! I’m inkabloc on ig. That’s where I share my drawings and photos of my watches.

I never considered the idea of book collecting. That sounds pretty fascinating and certainly there are infinite rabbit holes to go down with that hobby.

I certainly agree that we are not in the golden age of watch design. I do appreciate the build quality of modern watches, though. They help me worry less about how temperamental the vintage ones can be.

First I will say your drawings are amazing and you are a fantastic artist. I like to watch Watch videos, documentaries on Horology and read about the brands and their history. The thing that happened very organically was my little museum I decided to set up in the office in my house dedicated to Timex. I started buying old Timex watch cabinets, signs and light up advertisement and it makes for a fun immersive experience.

This hobby is always full of surprises.

You're very talented! I'm about as good at drawing as a headless giraffe, but I know that industrial and machined things are harder to perfect. Trees and shrubs are the limits of my abilities: I draw squiggly lines in brown and then squiggly lines in green.

I have been wanting do something similar for a while now. No matter how useless I am at it, I get an urge at least once a year to take up drawing (again.) I want to try either oil painting or simply sketching a watch or watch movement. You've definitely inspired me.

A short aside question, did you serve in the 1st Parachute Battallion?

Cheers!

Thanks so much! I feel your pain. I mostly drew looser landscapes with less precise lines before this so it has been quite the exercise to get used to this. If you can get yourself a compass for pre-sketching circles, an architect scale ruler for getting ratios right, and a protractor to help handle drawing angles, you’re on your way. 80% of the work is the pre-sketch. The Zenith was a slow process as a movement is a lot more complex than the dial side. Here is a photo of when I was elbow deep in the sketching process. I honestly think you should give it a shot. Please keep in touch if you decide to take the plunge! I’m happy to talk about the process and do some trouble shooting if you hit any snags.

I was not in the 1st Parachute Battalion. I work with a doctor who sold his 16600 and misses it (the background watch in that photo). His father served in the 1st and was able to convince the right person that him and four other officers should be issued 1665 Sea Dwellers! That was in the early 1980’s. His dad still has the watch to this day.

I totally agree re: build quality. I also like my watches in a new condition which is why I dont collect vintage. Patina is not for me. The great thing about the proliferation of micro brands is you can find innovators out there. The Moel 529 is a fantastic homage to that mid century modern aesthetic. If they still had ones in the colors I liked it...well, I would be wearing one.

Very impressive art work, I can't draw a stick figure to save my life but I love to write as well as photography so I hope to make things interesting by making reviews once my schedule allows and I'm confident enough regarding my collecting

Thank you! I would love to read a review whenever you get it done. I hope you’re able to find the time.

I never thought about this before, but I would definitely read the thoughts of a watch guy who is NOT confident in their collection. The wandering thoughts of a lost watch enthusiast would be awesome! I think people would really connect with a vulnerable reviewer. Your comment made me excited to think of that!

Another thing I have thought about related to this is to pick a topic in philosophy and explore it through a watch that feel could represent that concept best. It was a little far fetched but we are already sitting on the internet talking about watches so maybe it’s not that big a jump.

Excellent👌

Fair enough, I'm ordering a luminox pacific diver for Christmas and have already been brainstorming what I would say/write about it I can see how the eager nature of someone like me would bring something unique to the table and I plan on taking a long weekend for Christmas so I feel it will be very doable!

All Crunchers are always welcome, free of charge. lol Thanks Brother!

Hello fellow Crunchers. This my first public post about my alternative angle to enjoying the watch collecting hobby... over the past year, I have been building a website (www.TheWatchMetrics.com ) for watch enthusiasts that aims to become the largest index of interesting watches & collections with useful analytics for watch lovers. The site has been live since mid-year and I have had hundreds of collections shared by fellow collectors during this period and the database continues to grow. Version 2 of the site is in development and is being released in stages. My wife finds my watch enthusiast website idea amusing and supports it as long as it comes from my annual watch budget.

I want to say that I have learned a lot about watches since I started collecting a few years ago and there is no better way to learn than absorbing watch content from sites like WatchCrunch, YouTube, and conversing with other watch collectors (including watch meetup events). I have enjoyed making weekly social media (instagram: WatchMetrics) posts sharing the wonderful collections that I have come across.

Crowd sourced sharing, rating, and research of watches at TheWatchMetrics.com !

Thanks,

James

Do it! I’m looking forward to it. Hope

you get around to it.

Thanks for the advice! That story about convincing the right people to issue Sea Dwellers is awesome!

What an interesting and informative posting. I love your artwork and I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping you'll show some more of your work on the Crunch. 😎

Wow.

This is insanely cool. I am going to check this out over the holiday. Thanks for sharing this!

Thank you for the encouragement!

Circa 1986...I was 12 when I drew this. G shocks where WATCH to have!

That’s nice work!