How many watches are in your collection?

Most folks who’ve answered have more than 12 watches .. so I’m not alone. I’m surprised though. I thought most people would have under 10 or so. But then, this is not a typical sample!

And nobody has a 1 watch collection! (at the time I wrote this comment)

I am sitting at about 15 plus my remaining vintage pieces. I also have to account for my wife’s collection which is over 20 counting the G-Shocks and fun watches.

I have been trying to trade or sell to upgrade yet maintain a reasonable size to the collection but she wants to keep adding. She can’t let any go. I think she’s more addicted than I am.

"D" but not asking for help!

Drop the "help" 18 plus 4 retired and 3 reserves is a nice little number!

Especially when I only change between 8 of them and the rest is just very interesting home decoration!

But it is a bit more complicated, as everything in life, if you only look close...

I have only seen 65 watches I really like (!!) anywhere and anytime... 15 "amazing" class A watches and I own 5 of them, hehe... And 50 "delicious" class B watches and 13 of them are mine... Plus 46 "interesting" class C watches and 5 are mine... And finally have I seen 7 "peculiar" class D watches, which also are interesting - but slightly too strange!

So I own almost 28% of every really fine watch I ever seen (!) and that is actually a HUGE number, considering that I am extremely fussy and never payed more than 157 euro...

Yes, everything is relative!

40+ and growing 😎

Most folks had 2-12 🥸

Approaching thirty in 18 months of collecting. I don't need help though I'm doing it all by myself....

I am genuinely surprised that (at the time of writing this) the over 12 answer is in first place with a 15 point lead! Nearly half of respondents! 🤯

It all depends on how/why you collect. Someone with a dozen watches, who genuinely wants to have a relationship with all of them, and have them all mean something, is totally screwed. They won't get that. They've let themselves get carried away, probably wanting to emulate their favourite YouTuber (who got most for free and isn't seeking to have a relationship with most of their watches, just review them).

In short, they have way too many watches for what they really want from their watches.

Someone with three dozen G-Shocks, meanwhile, is probably collecting them as objects, more so than actual watches they want to equally wear and have a relationship with. They want all the colours. They want limited editions. They want country exclusives. And so on. So even though they have 3x the number of watches as the first person mentioned in this post, their collecting hasn't screwed them over.

Although these are extreme examples, they paint a picture that it really depends on what you want out of your watches/what you're trying to do with your collection, as to whether it's too big or not.

15 right now but one just sold and another soon for sale. Maybe my Vostok will go too, trying to reduce at the moment, to refocus my collection

2 left from an original 10 watches.

I only have one watch at a time! 🤔😁

I reckon I’m totally screwed! 😳😱

I got up to 19. Then gave five (two Casios and three Citizens) away to friends and sold two that I decided were too expensive for my life situation to get to my current number of 12. The ones I gave away to friends were nice and I'm glad I bought them, but I had begun to wear them much less and less (I'm in the category of wanting a relationship with each watch). I think I could slim down to eight, but that means I'd have to get rid pieces I don't wear as often as I'd like, but I really enjoy them (Alpinist, Tissot Gentleman, Citizen Corso, and Casio Duro). I have a 12 slot watch box. It's full. I've decided to stick with a one in/one out policy concerning purchases so as to not have this hobby get totally out of control for what I want out of it.

oh man, that's even better! Now I need a T-shirt with that on it.

60 watches. Now, hold on: At least a dozen or so are on their way out, but I'm also the kind of sentimental prick who likes to attach watches to milestones and/or significant moments in his life, so it looks like I could easily stay around the 50-60 figure for a fairly long time.

Currently, my 10-slot watch box is full but only 6 I consider to be part of the core collection. Total I have or had 14 watches. I have no plans of going over 10 since the theme of my collection is “1 watch per decade beginning 1930s”. I already gave away 2 Seikos. I have a Timex that I’m giving away next week as these don’t fit in the collection. Also I need the space. I have a redundant 2000s watch, the Tissot PR 100 automatic. I will need to give that up as well, making a total of 10 watches for 10 slots. When I do get my 40s, 50s, 80s and 90s watches, those that are not part of the core collection will need to go. But for now, I like looking at a full watchbox.

In excess of 50, round about 60. Most damage was done in 2022 when I bought 43 watches. Quite a few of those were super-cheap, below £10: 2 Runerr, 1 Wokai (a £2 watch that was so bad it has hit the bin since), 1 Wwoor, 1 Lorus, 1 Jenises, 2 Skmei, 1 Fngeen. At the top end nothing exceeded £250, though I just ordered a £300 piece.

About a third of the collection is nigh unwearable, another third I got bored of, and the final third I wear with varying regularity.

To some extent this was not meant as a regular-wear collection to begin with. I wanted several watch types represented (Bauhaus, flieger, field, dive, chrono, calendar, digital, solar, kinetic, dress, strong lume, mini-rotor, GMT, world time, radio-controlled, mechanical alarm), regardless whether I wanted to wear them often.

There are still a few odd watch types for me to acquire. Other acquisitions, i.e. watches I'd like to wear and that improve on what I've already got [improve by my own standards, I'm not a social-status-flexer] are now much harder to come by and will become more expensive.

A box of 12, 10 and 6 and dual winder all full and a few more in their original box. Also probably a casio down ever couch cussion 😂

I need one for every occasion and to match my shoes and outfits 🤷🏻‍♂️ I have 6 but I’ve got 2 on the way and I’m just getting started.

Currently 4 and will stop at 12 at which pt I'll try to adhere to the one in/one out rule. I've sort of mapped out the journey of when these watches will be procured as related to milestones etc. I also don't count watches under 1k (and floating in the 500 to 800 or so mark) as part of the core collection, which is maybe a bit of a cheat ha.

your collection has a theme. Outstanding!

I actually found a Hamilton Intra-Matic Chrono under my recliner chair yesterday. Pretty pathetic, I know. I must have fallen asleep watching YouTube and dropped the watch. Is this a sign? 😜

By the way, my first thought was not that I'm drowning in watches, but I hope it's not damaged!

wow.. actually planning the collection. I'm a bit more impulse-driven in my approach.

You can imagine how I take vacations haha . . . my wife makes fun of the trip binder. That said, I do allow for some wiggle room for limited editions, unexpected releases that catch my eye if the need is great. In another life I was a large scale event planner. Never left it completely, I guess.

Can't count the amount of times I have stumbled upon a watch in my house and gone "I forgot I had this!" 😂 I don't have a problem

4 I would say - sports diver, chronograph, dress watch and a sports digital g shock or f91

Thanks for the responses everyone. This was my first poll on here and one of my first posts. I’m somewhat surprised by the results. Seems like the sweet spot for me would be around 12. I’d like to get my collection down to that… or at least under 20.

I know the size doesn’t define the collection, but I do think fewer watches, for me at least, would mean I could give more individual attention to each, and they’d all be that much more special.