FIRE is great but most of us have our guilty pleasure(s). In my case, one of them is watches.
As a teenager the first watch I bought was a cool (I thought at the time) and rugged looking Camel Trophy watch. Still have it but the battery is dead.
Went watchless for a long time until a few years into my career I bought a “new old stock” Jaeger Le Coultre steel dresswatch from the 1950’s. Still have it as well. Beautiful but really too small for my wrist and very poor resistance to humidity. I really never wear it and should consider selling it.
Then went watchless again for a while until I was able to fulfill my dream to move to Switzerland (for years I’d been doing a lot of alpinism and dreaded seeing the Alps in my rear view mirror). Spent a good year to reflect on what I wanted to give myself watch-wise to celebrate the relocation and settled on a Rolex Explorer - very versatile, great alpinist heritage and obviously Swiss. Bought it through a grey dealer (this was long before the watch hipe and was able to get it in completely new condition for 20% below retail). Still have it and wear it occasionally.
Then wanted to celebrate a promotion so acquired a JLC Reverso with multiple complication son the secondary market. Again steel. Absolute beauty and now fulfills my dress watch need.
Then I turned 50 and (spurred on by my wife) gave myself a Rolex Daytona. This had become a bit of a grail watch for me and my wife got fed up with me obsessing about it so pushed me to pull the trigger. I was starting to identify Daytona’s when stuck in a traffic jam and looking at other drivers, on SBB, etc. so clearly it was an itch that needed pleasing. Had to pay a bit more than retail to skip the insane wait lists.
While my Explorer was my daily beater (taken it swimming as well as up 4000-5000 meter peaks), I then wanted a cheaper daily beater which I could also wear on vacation with less fear of being robbed and also use it to dive. So, first major purchase after recently receiving a severance was a Tudor FXD in black. Wow. Cheapest watch in my collection (by far) but actually a great watch for daily wear. The Explorer is still the best “one watch” collection watch as it also goes well under a suit or at dinner but set that aside I’d make the FXD my one watch collection if I had to. It’s fun to also exchange straps.
Where does it go from now?
With 4 ‘luxury’ watches I’m OK for now and being unemployed another watch is not high on my list, but I do still have 2 ideas floating in my mind. First is a proper dress watch (which the Reverso really isn’t) - most likely a Vacheron (Patek is just too obvious a choice). Second is an Omega Flightmaster - ugly but extremely cool (and not too expensive, unless you go for gold).
One thing I’ll never do is buy a watch on the spot just because I feel like it or saw something I liked in a store. It’s always been a process of lenghty reflection and research.
Looking forward to hear from others.
, since the markup from assembly price is usually 6-8x for premium brands, but only 4x for this absolute masterpiece.