Watches in the Wild
I was recently traveling through East Asia and as I often do, spent the trip watchspotting. Among those I noticed, three distinctive watches were the Chopard Alpine Eagle, AP Royal Oak (owner was not sure which reference), and Cartier Ballon Bleu.
What watches have you seen in person, but specifically, NOT at a watch event or with “watch people?”
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SecondHandCourage
Bimodal watch collector: vintage dress watches (primarily Universal Geneve) and beater steel sportswatches for when I have to get my hands dirty (go to the gym).
United States
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Last active: 3 days ago
mostly just rolex and omegas on elderly businessmen :/ would love to see something more exotic irl
Rolex & Tudor. Way more than any other "luxury" brands. A couple of Breitling too.
Gutted I've never seen a fellow Omega wearer!
Mostly hellspawn smart watches tho unfortunately.
(I work in a busy Vape shop, so see quite a lot of people daily)
2 real estate agents - 1 wearing a PP Nautilus than is very well worn and scratched from being used as an actual sport watch , swims and surfs wearing it.
The other agent wearing a Hublot Classic that seems to have never been taken off!
I've seen friends (and others at dinners) wear:
Rolex - Sub, Daytona, OP and datejust; Cartier big Santos and tank; IWC big pilot and chrono; Panerai; Longines chrono; Tag Carrera; Grand Seiko; Tudor BlackBay; Garmin (if it counts, does look nice); Timex - and probably lots of others, but my eyesight is not as good as it was...
And the few friends I have who are watch people - don't get me started! (One has now got up to around 20 G Shocks alone.)
I've seen many nice watches in the clubhouse of my golf club but most memorable is a Daytona Reference: 116506.
My wife owns the Ballon Bleu while one of my commercial tenants owns several APs but do not ever see Chopard except in the display case of an area watchmaker whose client dropped off one for service but has not yet returned to claim his watch.
At the office, among others: Patek Nautilus Chrono, YG Daytona, Deep Sea Sea Dweller, Black Ceramic Planet Ocean, countless Subs and Datejusts, Breitling for Bentley GMT 6.75 Chrono, and a couple of Speedies.
Rolexes, Omegas, IWCs, APs, Breitlings, Cartiers, Tudors, Pateks, Hublot, VCs, Tags, GS. Plenty of watch lovers in my bubble with friends and work industry colleagues. Haven’t seen a Moser, RM nor Chopard.