Hello good people of the internet.
This month, I put together something a little different compared to my usual writing and asked - without caveats - for anyone in the watch community to send me some questions. Though admittedly slow-moving at the start of the month, especially because I’ve not yet caught the internet fame bug *sighs* and gone viral (too soon?), eventually questions picked up and I’ve got a solid list of Q&A goodness to share with you all:
Leather or rubber?
Not to be mistaken for the first question on a BDSM club membership contract, this is a tough one. While I can entirely appreciate the argument that a rubber strap in the summer is just the move, I’m going to give the nod to leather. Part of that is due to the climate up here in Boston/New England, where it’s only typically hot in the June-August months, so I get to wear leather straps without sweating through them for the rest of the year. I find that leather wears in like no other material, and the straps end up fitting just right after a bit of time on the wrist. They get softer, their tones change, and it’s almost like they grow and evolve with the wearer; there’s something poetic about it that really appeals to me. Contrast this with rubber straps, which are more so engineered to hold their shape and construction through whatever elements are present, and they make for very different wearing experiences. However, if there’s one irritating detail that will keep me from buying more rubber straps, it’s that you can see literally every single spec of dust that has ever existed when it decides to land on you. For most people, this matters as much as the sock drawer of the local mayor, but for me, it’s one of those weird things that I can’t get over once I see it. Maybe someday if I find myself living somewhere that’s warmer year-round, I’ll soften my stance, but for now, it’s leather all the way!
A friend is in the market for their first watch. Which would you recommend?
Oh to be starting this hobby all over again, looking for a first watch, wide-eyed and excited. Last week, we had an on-site workshop series for my job, and we had an a small Q&A warmup put together as faculty just love to do. One of the questions was this: What is a feeling that you wish you could experience again for the first time?
It was 9:14 in the gahtdahm (a la Sheriff Buford T Justice) morning. I was not awake enough for this level of emotional inquiry. The answer I gave was, admittedly, a good one: I wish I could go back and hear my favorite song for the first time. That song is “Stop This Train” by John Mayer, in case anyone was going to wonder. But the question did get me thinking of how I felt, the first time I bought a watch on my own, how excited I was to unbox it and wear it everywhere, the fact that I no longer have that watch, and what I wish I would have done differently. That watch was a Tudor Black Bay Steel & Gold, which, at the time, I felt ticked all the boxes that needed ticking. It was from a reputable brand with a significant heritage, it had a little bit of flash but with an industrial look and feel, and when I tried it on at the AD, I thought it was perfect.
Well, it was a really cool watch, but as I now know from having tried on and owned a pretty large number of watches, it just wasn’t for me. As you can probably see from the picture above, it didn’t quite sit right on my wrist, and I didn’t know enough at the time to know just how much this would end up bothering me. Though a very solid watch, the lift case side was a very sensitive, high-polish surface, making it an absolute scratch magnet. And since it was rather top-heavy, the watch would fall from one side of my wrist to another frequently, more so laying on my wrist than fitting to it, and this was in part due to not being able to buy it on a bracelet. Tudor’s straps are great, don’t get me wrong, but the fit just wasn’t quite there for me. So, eventually, it left the collection; for what it cost to purchase, it didn’t make sense to hang onto it if the wearing experience wasn’t what I was hoping it would be, and I felt like I’d wasted that experience for myself (I know, that’s harsh, but it’s true).
How this relates to the original question: I know now which watch I would have bought at the time, and which watch I would buy now, as a first watch. Same boxes ticked, but at a much more affordable price, and in a package that screams one watch collection should that ever be a thing. I’m talking about the Seiko SPB155, the “Baby Alpinist” that can be a single daily beater or a gateway into the hobby.
38mm case diameter, 46mm lug-to-lug (which you can see in contrast with the Tudor, which was 50mm ltl, and note how differently each sits on my wrist), and a hair under 13mm thick, this watch is just about perfect. I don’t currently own one, but I will at some point, and this picture is from when a friend and I were gifting it to another friend as his first “real” watch. In my eyes, it’s the total package, and considering you can get it for $725 at the time of writing, it’s an insanely good deal for what you’re getting.
Weirdest watch that you like?
The Kudoktopus. Have a look and tell me with a straight face that you don’t want one. This thing is outrageously weird, outrageously cool, and outrageously out of my budget.
Which brand is the most nostalgic for you?
This is an easy one: Tag Heuer. A brand that is sometimes divisive given its storied, yet letdownish history (aka, the “Tag” vs. “Heuer” argument pre and post Tag takeover). While I think, generally, the brand’s designs from its Heuer-only days hold up better than some of the more modern ones (looking at you, Tag Connected…just…why), I have an absolute love affair with many of the quirky references of the 90s and early 00s. The reason for the deep nostalgia is that my first “real” watch was a Tag Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph, ref. CAC1110.BA0850, a birthday gift from my grandparents 17 years ago.
I was obsessed with this watch, hardly taking off for a minute for years. I wore it to the beach, scuba diving, hiking, in school, at work, to shower, to sleep, only really taking it off when I had to running cross country or playing baseball. The concept of having a timer on my wrist with pushers like this one was incredible, and I spent countless hours timing everything I could. The rubber on the left side of the case, as well as around the pushers, eventually crumbled into nothing, requiring a full case replacement. The movement also needed replacing, having flooded after a dive that went just a bit too deep for these non-screwdown pushers. I’ve also since lost the bezel (if anyone out there happens to have, for some unknown reason, a spare F1 bezel out there, give a shout). Of the original piece that I received all those years ago, only the dial, hands, crystal, and bracelet are original, but that doesn’t bother me. That there’s anything at all remaining of the original is a testament to how many miles this watch has traveled, how many meters under the ocean it’s pushed through, how many times I’ve smacked it against a tree or a rock out in the mountains, and everything else I’ve put it through over the years.
Watches are all about storytelling. Sometimes those stories, if told, leave us in vulnerable spaces. How do you navigate that openness with a wider audience?
This is a writer’s question if there ever was one - good and complex - and there are a few things to consider when sharing some of those potentially vulnerable points of personal narrative or history.
It’s important to remember that while the watch hobby may be therapeutic, it is not therapy. It’s okay to be transparent, to be vulnerable, and to share our stories, and I for one enjoy hearing and experiencing that type of authenticity, but the question we have to ask ourselves when traversing near the point of no return is this:
What will the impact be of what I am about to share?
This impact is a double-sided coin, mind you. There’s the impact on the listener, the reader, or whoever will be combing through what is shared. More importantly, there is the impact on the person doing the sharing, the one who is being vulnerable, and the one who, ultimately, needs to establish for themselves just how much they want, and need, to share. The goal, and often the difficulty, is to know for ourselves just how vulnerable is too vulnerable, and just how much sharing is too much sharing. We’ve all been in conversations, both as listeners and as contributors, where a takeaway impression has been, “oof, that was too much.” There’s a line there, but that line is for each of us to discern for ourselves.
So, how do I navigate this for myself? I make a conscious effort to have soft boundaries on those vulnerable spaces, especially when that vulnerability is attached to an object, such as a watch. For example, if I take some comfort in having had a watch with me when navigating a particularly challenging time in my life, I might share that part of the story as not much more than that; it’s not always imperative for the impact of a story to include its full range of detail, and sometimes, namely in a publication or conversational setting, less is more.
This concludes the first of, hopefully, many monthly Q&A write-ups! A big thanks to everyone who took the time to send me a question, and if you’re reading this and have a question that you’d like to be included in the next Q&A edition, send it on over! The more the merrier.
As always, wherever you are, and wherever you’re going, many thanks for stopping by.
Watches are about telling stories....... that’s such a true statement I’ve had over 300 watches over the last 3 years, why did I keep some and flip others 🤷🏼♂️
No story
Great article Mike 🥰