chippyfly
785
Collecting stuff
Every watch and clock I have in my small collection (35'ish ++) was acquired because I admired/wanted to own and wear it. Be it the rare steel Rolex ref: 1936 manufactured in 1936 with its original box seen in a Cheltenham jewellers, which I am wearing right now or the Cartier ref: 2413 I fought for at auction by catching the auctioneer's eye during covid's lockdown. Other watches were a lot more expensive and the daily and weekly wearing choice adds a little stress to the morning! To me, not wearing a watch is like exiting my house's front door for work absolutely naked for the day!
Current auction valuations indicate only a very few of my watch collection are "worth" more than I had paid. I have a rule at auctions I attend. The lot of a successful bid is only worth what the underbidder had offered and had lost out to me.
I also have a collection of pictures and historic art objects, all bought because I liked and wanted them on my walls and furniture. Very few will have current values above cost to me, which does not matter because the joy of looking and touching is invaluable.
Now I have a slight dilemma. I have reached an age where I need to contemplate what to do with my collected stuff, much of which I still want to keep while I enjoy reasonable health!
But, I must seriously help those of my small following family who will have to deal with my possessions. They may not share my passions, but should I care about that?!
Clive
Comparable to art ?
Nycwatchguy is someone you can follow on IG, a really cool profile if you want to see top-tier watchmaking and not always the same Rolex, AP and Patek watches. The link below is an article he wrote about constantly rising prices and some extreme auction r...
Well, I don't know the Art market very well, or better said, I know nothing about it, but about watches, this article sums the " sum " of our discussions quite well, here.
Watches are not an investment in 90% of the cases. You just pay for what you really like, love, admire or dream about. That is the main and the only reason. The rest is like playing the lottery or at the Casino. The so called stars are going up and down i...
Except when I'm considering buying a watch, I'm not interested in watch prices, any more than I am in the price of works of art.
The art market, like the watch market, is a legitimate reality, of course, but it's disconnected from the core of both activities: artistic creation and watchmaking. A true watchmaker never makes a watch with the primary goal of selling it and with the pr...
And ...both the art and watch markets constantly evolve through changing trends
What is also comparable to me are the trends we see. In the art world, the top artists today are very different from those who dominated 20, 50, or 100 years ago. Artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat , Yayoi Kusama , and Banksy are now worth millions and ...
Collecting stuff
Every watch and clock I have in my small collection (35'ish ++) was acquired because I admired/wanted to own and wear it. Be it the rare steel Rolex ref: 1936 manufactured in 1936 with its original box seen in a Cheltenham jewellers, which I am wearing ri...
Most of us ālong timersā are in the same boat
So we canāt solve the problem by selling to each other! Still, Iāve told my wife, āif I get hit by a bus, list the watches on WPSā
Some horology is truly hand crafted artistry, and some is mass-produced industrial design (possibly by hand) polished trying to be (rare?) art. I guess if a company makes **more than 5000***, it's probably.....
Mass-produced 'art'. Air is rare, as is the color green. Just because i say it is rare doesn't make 'rare' true. It might just be one, maybe two... or a Trilogoy marketing to sell 10,000+ products a year. jmho McDonalds used oil is collectable, too. Doesn...
These people will become bored with it like they do with everything else. They have no investment in watches except money.
The watch nerds like us have an emotional investment in watches and will continue that course while the various manufacturers sell out to the investment crowd. We'll find other watchmakers and continue on while the noisemakers from social media move on an...
Very long article but right to the point.
I have a pleasure of knowing him. very smart, decent guy and watch nerd.
Ever try to resell a painting by a known but not major artist?
Let's just say that the sky is not the limit. The article, it seems to me, is relevant in the absolute top tiers of watch collecting, but does nothing to justify the pricing of serially-produced, commonly-available watches whose prices are set not by bidd...