Horological Meandering

cen@jkt
1918

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Another Thought on Watch Collecting

Inspired by a previous posting, I asked myself: what guides me in collecting my watches? What’s the underlying theme to my collection? What made me buy certain watches?

First, I don’t really care much about the movement, whether it’s quartz or mechanical, in-house or ETA, auto or manual. Secondly, brand is not the main concern of my purchase. So far after 2 years of collecting, I don’t have anything from the famous five: PP, AP, VC, GP, JLC (or maybe the watches that I want from those brands are the ones I can’t afford). Once I even suggested my brother-in-law to buy Grand Seiko and not Rolex, which of course, he thought I was high on grass J.

Third, resale value has never ever entered my mind. All my watches are for my pleasure, I wear them all. None is stored in a safety box in the bank. All have light scratches by now. That’s why I don’t mind buying a second hand watch. Anyway, judging by the brands that I have, I doubt I can get a good resale value.

So far, the basic principles that I adhere to in buying a watch: fun and/or uncommon; and I’m crazy for Eastern/Chinese themes. So I gravitate more toward Silberstein, Genta, and most of the AHCI, as compare to Lange, Moser or Rolex. And I feel, the “hunting” for the watch  is as important as the watch itself. It’s the process of learning of a certain watch, pondering whether to get it, and the actual hunting and gathering process.

In the end, the most important thing is: the watch has to connect with me, raises my heartbeat, and makes me drool (of course, it has to be within my budget, otherwise, I just drool and drool and drool…... J). One equation that is important to me is $ to fun ratio. Some watches are fun (i.e. Vulcain enamel or AP ROO), but if I don’t think the fun ratio is equal to the price, no deal.

I think this simple and naïve principle has served me quite well in the past 2 years. With Fun/Uncommon principle in mind, allow me to entertain you with these watches. Certainly fun, definitely uncommon, surely weird. Enjoy.

cen@jkt