What is the most important thing for you in a watch?
We pour a ridiculous amount of time and money into this hobby of ours. The psychology behind that fascinates me, yet I rarely see in-depth discussions about this. I figured we could start with a surface-level discussion: What do you look for in a watch, and what is most important to you?
For me, there are three criteria:
Design
Heritage
Movement
That's in order of priority. To me, part of the appeal of watches is to express my identity. That's a big part of it, actually. I want the design to reflect my visual taste. I want the brand's heritage to align with my core personality traits. Lastly I want the movement to be made with the same priorities I would have had, if I were to make it. Different watches require different priorities, i.e. it's not just about accuracy (if it were, none of us would have had mechanical watches to begin with).
Pictured: My first luxury mechanical watch: Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43.
Watch enthusiast from Norway
Design
Brand (I don't know if it would be heritage or rather brand awareness or brand value)
Movement
Brand, design/looks, price.
For me - Design, does looking at it make me smile? Is it just another me too, or something a little different / distinctive?
Movement, I want it to be relatively accurate, reliable and serviceable. If it is mechanically interesting, even better.
A brand with good customer service is always going to be more desirable than one with poor service, but going further, I'm quite brand adverse, my personal feeling being that I don't want to be seen as a herd follower that is brand susceptible. So you'll not see me flexing a...
Nah, I'd better not say, I'd upset too many people😂
Brand - Design - History. In that order as well. Great question my friend. 💪🏼
Most importantly…do I like it and can I see myself wearing it a lot?
Do i like the way it looks? Is it in my price range? Can i tell the time at a glance? Does it have a date window? Is it from a reputable brand? Will my wife let me buy it? Can i keep my wife from discovering this purchase?
If all those are yes, then i am more likely to get the watch
To begin with, a watch must first appeal to my eye - dial layout, case shape, colour scheme, combination of brushed and polished surfaces etc.
The watch must also have a meaningful feature that fits within my life - waterproof rating for when I wish to dip in a pool or the ocean, sapphire crystal for day-to-day ruggedness, GMT/date/chronograph complications for their respective functionalities.
Lastly, it needs to be priced well, or available second hand at a price which is reasonably attainable. The piece within my collection that cost me the most was acquired at around 35% off retail price as I had gone down the second hand route.
Factors like accuracy, good build quality, legibility, are - to me - at a base level of requirement.
The most important thing to me is how the watch makes me feel when I put it on.
I like the B09. Heritage, movement, then design. Funny because I asked a similar question to a FB watch makers group. I ask beauty or accuracy? I said beauty. Some said the accuracy of a mechanical movement was beautiful.
If I'm only allowed to pick one thing, and we are under the assumption that the watch tells time at a reasonably level of accuracy, then the single most important thing for me is the action.
Crown action, bezel action, etc. How tightly do the components operate with each other? i.e. Does it feel like a German sports car or a Razor scooter? Do I have to re-thread the crown tube every single time I change the time? so on and so on.
Design and durability! Is this something I see in my collection for the rest of my life? Do I love it or will I get tired of it? There’s a few things. I’ll take 6-9 months vetting a watch before buying it.
Design and Heritage for sure... I have to like the look of the thing as it's sitting there on my wrist, and I like to have a watch from a brand that's got some cachet to it. Some people don't need (or even grasp) the latter, and that's OK. We're all different with this stuff.
But those two things are important to me.
Movement... less so. You can say an automatic will run for 48hrs and is plus or minutes 20 seconds a day... and I say, righto. You can say an automatic will run for 70hrs and is plus or minutes 5 seconds a day... and I say, righto. It's not that I believe they are "the same" but I don't place one massively above the other. If it's in a watch I like the look of, with great heritage, I'm not going to sweat it over the performance of the movement and, for my purposes - which is generally just wearing the watch every now and then - it's fine.
Design and craftsmanship. I want it to be apparent that even the little details are well considered and well executed.
Well for me it's both easy and complex. First of all it has to be a watch, because something which is sold as a watch but is incapable of telling the time has very little appeal.
Then it has to be able to distinguish itself from the masses. It can be through a spectacular dial (Seiko), clever engineering (Vostok), style, or just by having the right amount of weirdness to stand out.
I could not care less about heritage, and movements are simply a non issue in most of the cases.
I would say aesthetics, functionality, affordability.
Absolute NUMBER ONE criteria for me:
Does it fit well on my wrist
Only after that do I start to take into consideration ANY of the other attributes. There are a lot of watches that I l have loved that I set aside on the watch counter and never thought about again. Even after doing LOTS of research on them (like an embarrassing amount of reading/YouTube-ing). Lug-to-lug (and how much the lug drops down) is a spec that matters far more than case diameter, in my experience anyway.
My first Swiss made watch:Gevril seacloud
Honestly, Lume.
How it feels, how I feel wearing it, and the story of that exact watch are the main things. But, ya know, lume.
I’d hate to buy my first 3k+ watch (soon, for my 30th bday) and be disappointed with the lume like I am with my seiko spb317. My SKX s and turtle just bring such a smile when I see the lume just rearing to go, even in a lit room.
Beautiful breitling
Great post! 1)comfort/wearability. 2)Ease of time telling 3)cost.4) craftsmanship. Prefer Swiss autos(& use to like seikos)brand/heritage can be nice.Love Lume,but not totally necessary.
I genuinely have no idea! But there is something that makes me go ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I went into the Omega boutique to try the pail blue Aqua Terra, I love that watch, and I mean Really like it. Cash in hand, they called me to say that they had order it in for me to see, limited edition colour etc. put it on and …. Nothing. I can’t explain why but it wasn’t for me. I like what I like and that can be anything, i will post my collection on here soon however when you see it there it is not a collection of slightly different designers, almost everyone is different. I like aesthetics, I like complications, I like things others don’t so don’t tent to fall into the trend side of things. I have bought a couple of things out of interest but I will probably move them on at some point.
Design, wearability and the number of times it draws my attention away from mundane life to my wrist.
That it’s easy to read , rugged and accurate. So Casio to Tudor and my top tier dream would be a simple “ Square classic by Laurent Ferrier in Polished Titanium. Plain white face and Asagai hands just perfect.
Power Technology (Solar first to handwinding out of discussion)
Power Reserve
Water resistance
Functionality/Complications
Design (I kicked some nice watches from the list because they were available only with automatic movements 🤷🏻♂️.)
Design, reliability, durability
Design, quality, price
Brand/history/heritage
Accuracy and precision/movement
Aesthetics
Id put durability and ruggedness in with movement.
Build quality
Design (artistic integrity)
Movement
First is whether I actually like how the watch looks. Second is history, ie Hamilton field watch. Third, can I actually afford it.
1.) Price
2.) Looks
3.) DATE INDICATOR
I personally don't give much of a damn about heritage; this is all coming from a broke high schooler lmao