I Don't Spend Enough Money on Watches

I need to up my watch game. No more middling models for the TV watching ignoramus. As my knowledge of the watch industry has grown, it's time to start spending some real money on watches. It's time to look at Oris, Helson, Boschett, Orient Star. No man posting "manly watches" can be excused for putting up paltry models. 

It's time to face facts. My hobby requires that I start digging deep into my pockets and taking my passion seriously. 

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Comments

[Gary]

Are you selling the Molarity Deep Diver already?

[herculodge]

No, it's a keeper. No more TV fashion watches however.

[jonnybardo]

I think of it in tiers, sort of like concentric circles or Russian dolls. You explore the limits of one "circle" and can either stay there, or jump to the next circle up. But to keep the fires going, whether we want to characterize it as an addiction or a passion, you've got to keep expanding, evolving, going deeper down the rabbit hole. And of course it just keeps going.

The Russian doll analogy works as well, although you could imagine each new doll being of finer and finer craftsmanship, but because they get smaller and smaller its harder to notice the difference. This is related to the law of diminishing returns I posited some time ago with watches.

What you're describing, I think, is a jump up from the $200-500 tier ("quality affordable watches") to the $500-1500 tier ("semi-luxury"). There are a lot of great watches in that range and if it took you seven years to get there, maybe you'll be in that range for the next seven years until you approach 60 and you start thinking, "F-it, I'm getting a Breitling" and then you pop into the next tier.

But life is misery if we can't enjoy where we're at, so in order to make $500-1500 sustainable, a new strategy is necessary. I talked about this a few posts back on Disciple, but I see it more as a "sniper approach" rather than a "shotgun approach" to watch-collecting. Less impulsive purchases, more careful consideration. I mean, a binge o five or six fashion watches ends up costing as much as a new Oris.

[Angelo]

But I don't know if spending more money equates to a more manly watch at all. Yes, I understand the concept of TV fashion watches needing to be displaced by something else. But for around a hundred bucks or so----one can buy a good Casio G-Shock that is not jewelry at all----it's a functional object that can take brute punishment and look better with a few scratches on it. That is infinitely more manly than any $5000.00 watch with a bracelet.