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| Joined: | Mon May 5th, 2008 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 6 |
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"My name is 1jammot and I'm a watch-addict..."
(Sits down heavily, face bright red, while other attendees clap)
I collect watches for fun. When I just bought watches as a useful clothing accessory, I could spend much too much on just one watch. I shudder at the thought of it, because I know that £4000 spent buying a Rolex actually breaks down into £1000 for buying a watch and £3000 for buying an ego trip, a stack of publicity, and a questionable amount of research and development.
Now if I just keep my eyes and ears awake, instead of only getting one watch, I can up my collection by 8 good watches for the same £4000. Question of personal preference? Absolutely! And I know exactly where my preference lies. Some of the watches that really please me have cost about £250, like a Grovana Pro Diver's, or even, honestly, a Rolex-inspired "toy" that I picked up for $4.95, which has taken mighty abuse, been dropped in all manner of liquids, and still ploughs on, ticking like a time-bomb in a low-budget film, and giving me the time as accurately as I need it. And I only bought it to remind me of the hawker's spiel! I love it!
I'm interested in the technical aspects, but not obsessively, and a great deal in the aesthetics. I try to get watches that illustrate an aesthetic trend but maintain a certain standard technically speaking, which means no replicas, (my $4.95 "friend" excepted on jocularity grounds), and no quartz. I reckon getting an automatic movement into the box, and powering all the functions, make life more difficult for the designers to do as they please, aesthetically speaking, than would a quartz solution.
I do have quartz watches. They are all carefully put away in a drawer, in bubble-wrap and marked with the name of the kind person who gave each one to me as a present "for your collection". I am a well-organised coward, and always want to have the corresponding watch on my wrist when we visit or entertain one of the well-intentioned benefactors.
I enjoy exchanging in fora, but lose interest quickly in exchanges where each sign-off line is followed by a long, irrelevant and un-verifiable list of the contributor's watches. Watches are about quiet, contented enjoyment, (not about impressing friends and acquaintances), with a hint of thought and learning running all the way through every aspect of our very peaceful, very mild, form of mania.