Well, it had to come, didn't it? Did I mention that I collected watches? It's been a couple of years since I started collecting seriously, but I had a few before - a dozen or so. Now I have getting on for 200, mainly vintage, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80's... well you get the idea. Russian (CCCP), French, Italian, American, English, German (East and West) Japanese, Indian, Islamic, Chinese, Scottish, Swiss (obviously), again I guess you get the idea. Round, oval, square, tank, winders, automatics, solar, battery, alarm, backlit, moon phase, skeleton, tide, talking, atomic, and some with dangerous radioactive luminosity, all mainly working (more or less to varying timekeeping degrees) and all are quite, quite beautiful (at least to my eyes - beholder and all that).
Some people just don't get it. Some think me mad. Just why would anyone need so many watches? Now that's a very good question and the simple answer is that nobody does. You can't wear more than one watch at a time (unless like me you wear one on each wrist) but you can change your watch as often as you like and that is what I do. I change my watches dependent on my mood and who I want to be that day, sometimes five times a week (I get weekends off for good behaviour) and why not?
Of course, the other thing (the main thing) is that I'm addicted to collecting and watches are just my latest collecting fixation. As I say, 'My name is Andrew and I'm a watchaholic' - and I am, a total addict, a weakness in my character if you want (Doctor, doctor I can't stop buying watches. I see, is this a wind-up?). It's a harmless enough activity and if you think about it without collectors I wonder how the galleries and museums would survive, would they even exist at all?
I research all of my watches before I buy them, not just value, but history too, factories, location, ownership, quality... (how very sad I hear somebody saying). But it's the little things that fascinate me, the way the numerals are displayed (I'm a typography freak), the face (some are very intricate and can keep me fascinated for hours), the embellishments on the case, the crown (winder if you will) and where it's positioned, even the back (many are beautifully engraved).
I research all of my watches before I buy them, not just value, but history too, factories, location, ownership, quality... (how very sad I hear somebody saying). But it's the little things that fascinate me, the way the numerals are displayed (I'm a typography freak), the face (some are very intricate and can keep me fascinated for hours), the embellishments on the case, the crown (winder if you will) and where it's positioned, even the back (many are beautifully engraved).
I love getting a new watch, cleaning and polishing each one back to a shiny glory and choosing and changing the strap or bracelet when I need or want to (a good strap can make an okay watch look great). With some of my watches just getting them working is a bit of a challenge. Of course, winding all of my manual watches can be quite a task, but as I no longer wind unless I'm wearing it's a bit easier than it was. I keep my watches in rather splendid display cases, but I'm soon going to need a display case for all the display cases!
There's also a little bit of gambling involved. I'm turned on by bidding on a watch, not in a pervy way (I get most of my watches at auction), but in an 'it's all about the chase' way, like playing the roulette wheel but without the risk. Most of the time I can't lose, I either win the watch and it is mine, or I lose the bidding and I don't.
Sometimes I have missed out on a watch I really wanted, but I have a bidding methodology (which helps) and a superstitious approach (which helps even more maybe) so not very often. And only a few times have I bought a pup, a very few times (you win some and lose a few, that's the spin of the wheel) and being a gut feel player, sometimes I get a feeling about a watch that isn't meant to be working and then (miracle of miracles) I wind it, shake it, tap it three times, put it in a lighter fuel vapour path, warm it a little and usually, it works. At least, it does for me (call me Uri). I've even bought supposedly gold-plated watches that turn out to be solid gold when I remove the backs and see the hallmarks (kerching!).
I would say that it's all very exciting, but then I don't get out much!
Sometimes I have missed out on a watch I really wanted, but I have a bidding methodology (which helps) and a superstitious approach (which helps even more maybe) so not very often. And only a few times have I bought a pup, a very few times (you win some and lose a few, that's the spin of the wheel) and being a gut feel player, sometimes I get a feeling about a watch that isn't meant to be working and then (miracle of miracles) I wind it, shake it, tap it three times, put it in a lighter fuel vapour path, warm it a little and usually, it works. At least, it does for me (call me Uri). I've even bought supposedly gold-plated watches that turn out to be solid gold when I remove the backs and see the hallmarks (kerching!).
I would say that it's all very exciting, but then I don't get out much!
So, what's not to enjoy? I don't spend fortunes and I'm helping to preserve a past that without nutters like me would languish in the back of a dusty drawer until someday it was rediscovered and often thrown away. People actually do that you know (disgusting, irresponsible behaviour).
One day watches will be no more, non-battery run watches are becoming hard to find and people increasingly wear devices that gives them information about their bodily functions and activities on their wrists (you have not had a poo today, better go for one - it is 18 degrees and rain is forecast - you have taken 1100 steps today - you have mail - what time is it...how should I know?).
As Harry Lime says in The Third Man as he rides the Viennese wheel (wheel, not whirl) in the movie, "In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”, but they also made great watches of which I have a few.
Tick Tock!
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