The Last Time

One of the things a newbie will do, when they fall into the rabbit hole of watch collecting, is to fall in love with often disparate watches. For instance, I fell for the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Titanium watch. But I also really liked the Certina DS Action GMT, which cost a tenth of what the Bulgari did. My watch guru was real good about encouraging me to go for it when I mentioned the Bulgari, the Tudor and the Omega. But when I mentioned I was interested in the Certina, while he wasn’t discouraging (“Certina watches are well- known for precision, reliability and sporty character”), I could tell he wouldn’t be the one to recommend that watch to me. But he didn’t channel his inner Mick Jagger and recycle old song lyrics:

♫ Well I told you once and I told you twice
But ya never listen to my advice ♫

I noted his neutral stance. I realized he wasn’t recommending the watch, but he also wasn’t holding me back from buying it. If it was a mistake, it was something I had to learn on my own. In other words, he was being a good guru.

What time do you have?

How many times, over the years, has someone, out of the blue, come up to you and asked “Do you have the time?” (or was it a dime?) And, did you ever wonder if they were asking you just for the time? One little thing I have learned, in my short time as a watch enthusiast, is that this obsession with time and timepieces goes far beyond the instruments we wear on our wrists.

The Hands of Time

 

I recently realized that I have a fascination with the hands of watches. So much in fact that now it will probably influence how I buy watches in the future. Much like calibers, the hands express the care and precision a watchmaker puts into their creations.

I was looking at the time on one of my wrist watches the other day, and it hit me – Hey, I really like the hands on this watch! Conversely, other watches have hands that take a little getting used to. And oddly enough, for me, it doesn’t have to do with how much money the watch costs. I’m not going to get all geeky and technical about this. There is a good piece about watch hands on Unwound, Crown and Caliber’s watch blog, called The Nicknames of Watch Hands. It covers the technical part pretty well.

Really, what I am drawn to is the esthetic side of the design of watch hands. Some are delicate, some are brawny. Some are whimsical and some are all business.

The “Go Everywhere” Watch

The French Riviera in the summer of '85

During a leisurely lunch with my watch loving friend, the notion of the “go everywhere” timepiece surfaced. “A watch like X, you can take anywhere. Swimming in the Mediterranean, showering, the sauna. Even lovemaking.” Wait. What? Lovemaking? “Whatever happened to being naked?” I queried.

“Well, you are naked. You’re just wearing a watch, for Chrissake.” My friend defines nudity differently than I do. None the less, I saw his point. And so, I asked myself the burning horological question, “Is there a go everywhere watch?”