Selling my El primero :(

So what are you replacing it with?

With money, and the bel canto next year.

I suspect 90% of the Speedmasters sold used are sold for about the same reasons.

Chronographs are lauded as amazing watches, but for the basic purpose of telling time they are worse than almost any simple three hander.

If you like chronographs, cool. If you don't like them, cool. I'm definitely in the "don't like them" camp.

I think they're good looking and definitely have this sporty badass guy vibe to them which doesn't fit my bougy personality at all.

Sorry to hear that it's going. I went through the same phase with chronographs. Absolutely loved the look of them. Thought, "Oh, man, now I can really live my badass pilot / race car driver / astronaut life." Then, you know, every day shuffling around the house in my slippers - the greatest excitement / danger being exposing myself to the risk of getting a paper cut - the charm of my "secret life of Walter Mitty" quickly wore off, as did the charm of the chronograph!

Same! I didn't turn into a badass racing pilot, I'm still same me :/

I don't see them that way, I see them as as overly fussy pilot types that take their own pillow on TD because the pillows at the Hilton aren't good enough... I suppose that's the difference between seeing pilots in movies, and interacting with them on a daily basis. 😉😂

I'll always take an three hander field or dive watch over an overstuffed chronograph. A simple watch for an honest days work. 😉

But.. But.. How you're going to time your hard boiled eggs?

I like eggs over medium anyway.

Yeah I'm sorry to see it go. But the bel canto is an amazing piece.

I'm in the same boat... I just lasted a little longer than you (purchased in 2020). Somehow I was a chronograph guy through and through and could not understand the appeal of divers. I ended up trying one out and had an epiphany that you could actually quickly tell the time at a glance! The timing bezel actually was more practical and useful and the diver was a bit tougher and less fussy with everyday use and bumps and bangs...needless to say, I never turned back and am in the process of gifting and posting for sale my A384 and speedy.

And you are really going to find that watch useful? I hope you like the look of the Bel Canto because after playing with it 5 or 10 times, my guess is that you won't be running the chime very much.

Part of the journey is finding out what type of watches work for us and it is an ‘expensive’ journey! Until you try that watch on for a while and not just in the AD, only do we know if it’s for us.

Many of the watches that we though were our dream/grail may not necessary suit us. Enjoy the journey!

You can always test run a homage watch to see if you really are into a certain design or tool watch costing $$$$.

A nicely done San Martin for instance is generally $200 or so.

Fully agreed that the journey is about finding out what works, and what doesn’t. The key thing for me is the awareness that we go through different seasons where we have different perspectives on things, including the types of watches that we believe suit as at that point in time.

I went through a diver, as well as a microbrand phase concurrently; then I started to pick up a few chronographs, both automatic and quartz (wearing my quartz chrono right now). Cleared out a few divers over the past 2 years.

Will I ever clear out my chronographs? Who knows? I know maybe between Dec 2022 and April 2023, I was literally on the hunt every day for a Breitling Chronomat from the 90s. Overnight the hunger left me.

Chronographs I think are attractive in that they usually have that maximalism look- it looks like great bang for buck. I do like chronographs as an idea, but I also feel that they (mechanical ones) are often difficult to wear because they end up being large and thick. And expensive to repair.

Crazy. I love the Zenith. One of my favourite looking chronos and literally a dream watch for me.

That’s what’s interesting about watch collecting and personal taste I suppose. We are all so different in what turns us on.

I’d be the guy selling the BelCanto to fund the Zenith.

Good luck with the sale and I’m sure you’ll love the CW.

Despite that A384 being a dear favorite of mine and having a boyish love of chronographs based on the drivers who wore them from the 50s-80s (as opposed to the modern drivers who only put on watches during interviews to fulfill endorsement contracts), I understand that strange moment when you realize you don’t want to wear the watch you always wanted and the sense of liberation when it sells. I think there’s also something about the watches we get because of some outside motivator — who or what it’s associated with, who praised it online, how the brand or model is hyped in communities like this — versus the ones we find and fall in love with on our own because they just feel right. Those are the keepers. The others, no matter how “important” or esteemed, come and go. I had a vintage Speedy that was my grail and I kept for years, saying I’d never sell it because of it’s heritage and the iconic status of its design. Every time I saw one in a movie or on some cool actor’s wrist, or saw it referred to as essential to any “serious” collection, it reinforced my commitment to it. But I realized that I stopped actually wearing it—it was too big, too delicate, too expensive to keep up...and even sorta boring—and I ultimately realized I owned it for intellectual and not emotional reasons. Selling it kinda changed how I thought about watches and since then I focus more on watches that I really love and not watches I’m told are great. The A384 is one I fell in love with the moment it hit my wrist, but I totally get that if you don’t feel it, getting the money back is always the right move.

Yeah, that's the bottom line, if you wear them whatever it is. I totally feel what you said about owning for intellectual reasons and not real love and I think that's what happened here.

Yeah, that's what's great about watch collecting.

This one is especially complicated and expensive to repair, but it's one of the smallest automatic chronographs I know about, the watch is 12.6mm thick and 37x46, so pretty compact for what it is, my only other one is even thinner but has a module instead of a column wheel.

Yeah that's true, before getting this I was thinking of buying the seiko speedtimer to "scratch the itch" but I didn't see it as a test drive, I know it's not the same but it os a similar style, will do that in the future.

I mostly wear watches because of looks, functionality is 10% of ownership for me, the zenith is great but it wasn't my style, I like the bel canto because of it's uniqueness and the journey of the people behind it.

Selling the Zenith for the Bel Canto would make both my heart and mind happy! Good call, buddy!! 🤙❤️👌

Thanks! Actually pre-ordered the BelCanto a while ago, just need the $ to pay it off when it's ready to ship.

Beautiful watch

I’m actually looking for one

Same lol. That's what brought me to this post. Searching for a384 posts