My New Sport: Watch Collecting

Last year I bought a new watch that I considered to be very expensive.   The retail price was almost $1000 but I found it on sale for about $450.    The watch had very good reviews and seemed quite nice.

A couple of months later I was in Taipei and walking in a nice shopping area.   I was amazed because this area had so many stores that sold only watches, many had brand names I never heard of like IWC or Vacheron Constanitin.

When I looked in the window of the IWC store I saw a watch that I thought was really nice.   It was red gold color with a black face and brown strap.    Usually when I saw a watch, I did not really care so much but this one I really liked.   I checked the price – it was a big number in Taiwan dollars.  I did the conversion to US dollars in my head but the price could not be right – it was huge.   Maybe I could not see the price tag so well.    So I take a picture of the watch and the price tag and go back to my hotel.   I calculate the price on my computer -- $120,000 US DOLLARS!!!    Why?   How could a watch have a price so high?   How could it possibly be worth so much?   Who can pay for such a watch?   Why????

So I started to do some research about this watch.    I learned the watch company is old and has a lot of history and tradition.   I also learned that such a watch is made in only very small numbers, all by hand out of special materials like red gold and it uses jewels for the friction surfaces so that the watch can run with almost no energy.      I also learned that the watch was very very complicated and it could do some things that no other watch could do.      But still the price is crazy.

When I returned to the USA I bought a lot of books about watches:  Watch history, watch company history, catalogs, repair book and others.    Now I have learned a lot about these watches.    I also learned about people that collect and trade these watches.

After all of this, I started to think about what kind of watch I would want.    For example, do I want a watch for collecting?  That is I just buy it new, keep it in a safe place, never use it.   For collecting, it must never be used because as soon as it is touched the value goes down a lot.     NO – I want a watch I can use every day.

 Then I need to pick the features my watch should have.   Of course all watches must tell the time and be accurate.    This is difficult to do with a mechanical watch that uses springs and wires and gears, but the watch must do.    All other features added to the watch are called “Complications”.   Since the watch uses springs and gears, adding a feature that seems simple can be very complicated and very difficult.   It also causes the watch to get bigger and use more energy.   

Some example of watch “complications” are:

1.        Time:  all watch must tell time.

2.       Day of the month:   Many watches also include the day of the month.

3.       Day of the week:  Monday, Tuesday, etc.   This is rare but available.

4.       The name of the month:  Even more rare but available

5.       Stopwatch function:   Very common complication.   Adding this function also causes the price to start going up a lot.

6.       2^nd time zone:   Rare.   In some cases they include a 3^rd timezone for things like a pilot watch.   In one case I saw the watch that could track all the timezones in the world – 24 time zones.

7.       Moon phase tracking

8.       Self winding:  Uses energy from movement to get power.   Means the watch is very very good design and uses low power.

And many more.

No watch can do all, so I need to pick the complications I want.   

Finally I must decide what material the watch I get should be made from.   Steel is the lowest cost, but still can be expensive.   Gold is more.  There is white gold, gold, red gold or others.     The most expensive is platinum – I never saw a platinum watch for less than $10,000 – crazy price.

I checked the markets for watches in Taiwan,  Hong Kong and Macau and learned the watch cost in the USA is far lower.   Also I have the chance to buy the 2^nd hand watch here – this is important because I can get a much lower price on 2^nd hand if it is a little used because now the collector does not want it.   

So after I learned so much, I decided to try to buy a watch – but I could not find one watch to do all things for me and I wanted to try to buy and sell a little – watch trading.     So my first thing is I bought a watch box that holds 5 watches.   That means now I have a box for 5 watches, but I have no watches.     

The watch complication I want is time, date and 2^nd time zone – one time zone for USA, one for Hong Kong.    I also decide I want steel because if I get gold, it will be too expensive to wear it when I travel.   

I started shopping 2 months ago.   Now I have bought 3 watches and I have learned a lot already.   One of the watches I will try to sell again starting next week.    I think I can make a small profit on this.