Collecting only is something cold (in my mind!!!)

I have about 50 - 60 watches of quite a different price tag... I used every one of them.. Never sold any, except once (and I bought the same model 30 years later - Omega speedmaster) . About 20 automatics turn as we speak in their watch winders, waiting the moment that I will wear them again... I love them all but I can not wear them all together!!! To have them locked and not to wear them is something that, if it has love it is a perverted kind of love.. It is love of the possession and not of the item as such and it is something cold in my mind... let us not forget that watches have an aesthetic value and are made to work and to see them dead is an insult to the maker... So, I do not consider myself a collector (read the famous book "the Collector" by John Fowles to see the perversion of just collecting )
To honor the makers one must use the watches and if there are many to use them in intervals, but to have them locked in a safe and just LOOk to the NEW one a little before it is locked with the others is a sickness
So I call myself an ENTHUSIASTIC USER who loves to use the items he loves!!!

When does an enthusiast become a collector?

By: justpen : January 11th, 2008-06:04

I was shocked the other day when I was at my AD’s. I overheard him tell one of his staff that I was a collector. I never thought that I was, and I did not really like to hear this, as I thought that I was just an enthusiast.....perceptions are interesting...

No confusion there...

By: pplater : January 11th, 2008-06:08

...surely a collector can also be an enthusiast, just as an enthusiast can also be a collector? Cheers, pplater.

I guess a collector is one that has many watches that they keep but do not use and an enthusiast is one that uses every watch. That would be my intrepretation as well but maybe I would adjust it to: A collector is one who has many watches but only wears s...