Rosneathian
1471
It's been fun
For those who care to remember, some time ago I posted about my decision to exit watch collecting. TL;DR It's going well.
I can look at the decision in the rear view mirror and say that it was the right one to make. I'll emerge from The Great Unburdening having moved on watches that I bought to study and admire, while keeping a modest selection to wear and not think about too much. My tiny brain will be freed to do other things.
Collecting watches has been enormously enriching. One thing I learnt was that I quite like mechanical watches that some may describe as classical, or traditional, or maybe both. I never had the acuity to go full vintage so tended to gravitate towards examples from the revival years after 1985-ish. Not for me anything too avant-garde, unless of course it was avant-garde 50 years ago and has since mellowed with time.
I especially like form watches. As fellow travellers know, they had their heyday in the 1920s, and again in the 1960s and 1970s, three of the zaniest of decades in design. While none of the watches below are from those periods, some draw on them directly while others riff indirectly. And who doesn't like a groovy riff?
I won't like any of these watches less when one, more or all of them are gone. On the contrary. So I thought I'd post them here out of nothing but fondness and fascination, and leave it at that.
(with apologies for the predictably grim quality of photos taken under lamplight this weekend).
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It's been fun
For those who care to remember, some time ago I posted about my decision to exit watch collecting. TL;DR It's going well. I can look at the decision in the rear view mirror and say that it was the right one to make. I'll emerge from The Great Unburdening ...
thanks for sharing! All gone or these are the survivors?
If I had to let them all go to free my mind I would have kept the Patek at least.
Beautiful timepieces !
Thanks a lot for sharing, those are all splendid testimonies of your passion and taste for watches, and a great display of classic / classy designs ! I personally have a crush on your Franck Muller 😍
Well when I decided on this turn, I had around 30 watches, having pruned down from 40. I'm down to 24 so there's some way to go before I reach that soft target of 10 I'd set myself
It won't be a concentration of high quality watches either. I'm downgrading
I read your other post some time ago
when you decided it was enough with collecting. In a different way i have also took a collecting limit. Very Droz and Breguetisch, 8 is exactly the perfect number to round. Similar as you, my collection is very balanced and satisfying. Opposite, i have ro...
Interesting choices, for sure. I wear the FM and don’t wear the PP or Zenith, so that settles it for me.
I went to some lengths to make sure the Zenith was as complete as possible. I bought it full set, complete with scroll certificate. I was then able to squeeze an OEM strap out of Le Locle, one of the last of its kind. And of course the watch is now overha...
Huge thanks for continuing to keep us current on your watch collecting journey (as part of much broader changes in your life journey, if I understand this correctly)…
While I hope at least a few personally meaningful watches will remain with you during the next chapter of your life, I admire the certainty and determination with which you are slowly carrying out your original plans! My warmest wishes for everything Sir,...
You're too generous, as usual. I hope that posting doesn't seem too self-indulgent, but it's nice to compose and share thoughts from time to time. As for certainty and determination, well I suppose it illustrates that the purpose is true.
I should stress once again that I've not 'fallen out of love' with watches, nor do I count boredom or fatigue as reasons (I haven't been bored since I was about 13 years old!). I'll continue to be charmed by my soon-to-be-former watches. I'll admire the k...
Thanks. It was made in 2000 for the 500th anniversary of Brazil. 1/75 was presented to then President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and is/was kept at the Brazil Solidarity Centre in Brasilia
Its beautiful dial font was designed by Portuguese jeweller J. Borges Freitas. Zenith decided to ruin it by punching a hole in the 6 for its date window, an almost unforgivable act of vandalism (I might be exaggerating a little but you get what I mean )
Thanks. Art Deco delivers a satisfying symmetry that connects with the soul. Early Art Deco was more ornate, inheriting some of the frivolity of Art Nouveau. This then gave way to more restrained interpretations in the recession-hit 1930s
It was a truly international style too, after 'arriving' in 1925. It touched everything from architecture to planes, trains and automobiles, frm upholstery to dress, and of course from jewellery to watches. This watch took after designs that Zenith and ot...
Yes, I've had a number of watches that hinted at Art Deco with the case and dials to some extent but I love how your Zenith went all in with the font.
And you're right, they could have left off the date. Unfortunately having a date in 2000 was more of a thing than now when it's on your phone. Some watch companies just try to please too many people in some designs instead of being true to the concept. I'...
I would like to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting, with the designer pleading (and failing) to prevail on Zenith's product design team
I suspect the reason was probably less about aesthetics and more about convenience and cost containment for a run of just 75 watches. My guess is that Zenith allocated a date movement to this project so the watch had to have a date window. Constrained by ...
I am also a 'form watch' guy...
...round watches are great, but the odd-shaped cases with shaped movements really catch my eye.
All shapes (and more or less all sizes) for me.
There's a pattern here: an explosion of experimentation before conformity takes hold. It was the same with mobile phones 15 years ago, before smart phones arrived. I remember fondly the wild and wacky shapes and then the monotony of the rectangular case f...
He can disavow it all he wants...
...but it was inevitable...he just figured out the mechanism of how to do it. Can you imagine still texting by tapping: 4-4-Enter, 3-3-Enter, 5-5-5-Enter, 5-5-5-Enter, 6-6-6-Enter for 'Hello'?
You’re not wrong and I agree, hence “for better and for worse.”
It’s also true that a complacent majority of us are giving away individual rights and freedoms in exchange for what we regard as everyday ‘convenience.’ Most aspects of our lives are already monetized by corporates who are privy to our most private and in...
I am a very private person and HATE the modern surveillance state...
...but I don't have my FU money saved up yet, so I haven't realized my goal of living off the grid and having a military-grade, custom VPN : )
Looks like it was fun while it lasted.
Enjoy your new found “freedom” and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
