To begin, a piece of the obvious: collecting looks different for different people.
Maybe it’s watches, maybe it’s shoes, maybe it’s guitars, maybe it’s booze…
*Booooooooooooo*
Okay, okay, no rhymes, got it. Moving on!
What is a collection, anyway? It is two of something, or two hundred? The point to which any one of us will go to feel satisfaction as a collector is, for some, finding that “feeling” and continuing to pursue it. For me, the feeling came first, and it began with a few different genres before watches.
Instruments, for one, were a major collecting area for me growing up. I’ve always played drums and different forms of percussion, but it doesn’t take a musician to imagine the pitfalls of collecting instruments that can take up half a room when assembled…needless to say, being unable to fit 40+ instruments into a box - or even an apartment - forced my focus to shift elsewhere. Maybe someday I’ll have a space where all of the instruments can live, and my neighbors will happily accept my apology gift earplugs, but we’re not there yet.
Books, now there was something more, well, collectible! I was an English major in my undergrad years (yes, I know, how appropriate to find me here now writing in the corners of the internet), and I spent hours and hours each day reading. Old books in particular were, and continue to be, of interest to me, with original copies of works from Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley, and Herman Melville forming the base of my current library. This type of collecting felt more practical, and with maybe a drum or practice pad here and there, there was a certain feeling I enjoyed pulling a dusty book off the shelf to pick up a pause point from years ago. And yet, at least while I live in an apartment here in Boston, the space I’m able to afford to a library is still somewhat limited, creating a bit of a collecting limit in and of itself for the time being.
Watches…watches! For years, I had two watches: a 2006 Tag Heuer Formula 1, gifted to me for my 14th birthday by my grandparents, and a 2002 Breitling Chronomat, purchased by my dad in the Cayman Islands when he became a pilot and eventually passed down to me when I graduated from college. Both my grandparents and my dad will play a part in my stories here, being a part of what creates this feeling of collecting, so more on the family side to come in my future writing. I suppose two watches could have been a collection; after all, it’s as close as I’ve ever been to being a fabled “one watch guy.” In fact, collecting watches seemed to be an entirely foreign concept to me. Why would I need more than one or two? What would be the point?
The point, as I’ve found tumbling down this rabbit hole for several years now, is the feeling of the watch on your wrist - new, old, heck even imaginary while we’re at it (I’m looking at you, Double Red Sea-Dweller that I’ll surely never own). Maybe it’s the feeling of a family piece passed down from one generation to the next, or an antique store find on a road trip, or walking out of an AD with a new piece at retail, but for those of us with that somewhat irrational itch to collect, that feeling can be found in a number of places. Some are expected, like with the AD purchase, and others are a complete surprise, perhaps during a late night deep-dive down into the remnants of an early 2000s forum on King Seiko references resulting in a 3 AM Chrono24 impulse buy. If that last one sounds oddly specific, well, that’s because it is, and it’s how I landed a 1968 King Seiko 45-7000, one of the best collecting moments I’ve had to date.
To me, the feeling of collecting really stems from the history and the scholarship behind the watch. I love the research, the where-why-and-how. I’ll even find myself creating stories for watches to match their era if I don’t have that part of its history documented, trying to imagine how the owner came to posses it, what may have driven them to part with it, which historical events it may have experienced first-hand (literally and figuratively). Even for one watch, this is exciting stuff, but therein lies both the advantage - and the slippery slope - of collecting things now that are, how should we say, space-friendly; it’s easy to accumulate a variety of pieces, and quickly. Accumulating, however, is different than collecting in my mind, and so the search for that feeling tows a line between quality and quantity, want and need, practical and unpractical.
Maybe you’re deep into collecting, maybe it’s not your thing, or maybe you’re just getting started - wherever you are, and wherever you’re going, many thanks for stopping by.
Yes love the blog! If you ever do a gtg in the Boston area let me know!
Loved the blog, it a great read enjoyed it very much.
Heath