Stop The Watch Buying Mental Gymnastics...Part 1: Introduction

     

    I've made it clear in no uncertain terms that despite being a watch collector myself, I think the hobby is frivolous. But it's only in recent years that I've accepted that I buy watches just cause I like them. Like many watch enthusiasts and collectors, I have gone to great lengths to rationalize a purchase: "Oh, I don't have a good dress watch", "I need a watch with a brown leather band", "I need something slightly more formal", "I need a watch to mark the occasion"...and the list could go on. The worst justifications were the ones that flowed from some pseudo-intellectual nonsense I had concocted, and to this day those are the rationalizations that make me cringe when I hear them coming from someone else...like the one Kevin Hart offered to Stephen Colbert in which he more or less said he buys expensive watches because he values time. Equally as bad are the types that say they're buying watches as investments. Despite all the mental hoops and cognitive dissonance, there are a couple decent reasons to buy watches outside of simply wanting them, which we'll take a look at later in this post. 

    I originally planned on making this as one semi-long form post, but once I got started writing I realized that it was going to end up being an extremely long post. So for both your benefit and mine, I've decided to break it up into a short series. I figured it makes it easier for readers to find their topic of interest, and it allows me to post content on this topic quick. I also realized while writing what is not "Stop With The Watch Buying Mental Gymnastics...Part 2: Investment/Resale", that some of these subtopics can stand on their own as commentary on current trends in the watch market, watch collecting, etc. It also gives me the flexibility to add more topics to the series as I come across them, rather than updating a single post. I may not like modularity in watches, but modular, almost object-oriented blog posting is pretty nifty, right? Anyway, as the astute may have gleaned, the next post in this series is on buying watches for investment/resale purposes. I'm not sure what the subsequent series posts will be (or rather the order), but as I write and publish them, I'll be updating this post with links, making this a sort of living table of contents (until I've decided I'm done arguing my point). Enjoy!

Table of Contents

Part 2: Investment/Resale