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POTM - September - Richard N

Dear fellows
It's Friday September 1st in Kiritimati, Christmas Island, Kiribati...
so for all our Purist friends from there that are eagerly waiting for new POTM installation
I have immense pride and you to present you RichardN our long time member.
Once again all splendor of this community in this month's POTM
Yours
D

1. Please introduce yourself!

Hey there, friends! I’m Richard N – and I’m a WIS (then again, who here isn’t 😊 ?) I’m not one to hide behind names that mask who I am as I am exactly as I appear, online and offline, so my username is pretty much my name with the exception of me not including my full surname.

I’m Malaysian and like many of us here, born in the early 70’s, so yes, I grew up not knowing what a cellphone was, and enjoyed life a lot without those devices, and work in an industry that so happens to go against a lot of my loathe for modern day devices and how they take a lot of family time away – I work in the IT field, specifically around data centers.

My wife is not a watch fan at all, though through the many years of us being together (close to 2 decades now), she’s humored me by attending numerous watch related events and even learning how to pronounce the brands 😊 I tried to get her into the game, by getting her some watches to “help”, but she’s resigned to just wearing her Rolex Oyster and on occasion, her Franck Muller Casablanca which is the only watch she’s ever thought was truly beautiful. In recent months, she’s “watchnapped” my AP Royal Oak, but I don’t see her wearing that often at all. Hmmm….

My two children are not into watches. The 15 year old girl doesn’t wear a watch most of the time, and if she does, she favors a Baby-G (she has “booked” my GO PanoInverse though), while the 13 year old boy is a G-Shock fan. At least he’s on the right track. I’ve tried, but only time will tell if I succeed in helping them love watches. I’ve recently given them a Seiko 5 each, and that’s step 1.

The watches I gifted my kids over the Chinese New Year festival earlier this year

2. How did you discovered WatchProSite and what it means for you to be one of PuristS?

I stumbled across WatchProSite some 10 years back when I purchased my first two “real watches” – a Bell & Ross BR01-97 and a Vulcain Aviator Cricket. Looking for details and information on those two landed me here – and yes, I bought two in my very first venture into this madness. I’ve since sold both – the BR was bought off a view in a magazine, and the 46mm looked utterly ridiculous on my 6.75” wrist! The Vulcain – that was sold quite early on as well as the constant clicking of the alarm hammer when not wound irritated me too much.

This site initially was meant to be a place for me to seek information, but over time, I realized that it was the friendship, advice, jester and fun that kept bringing me back. The information piece, while still interesting, was great, but the latter became the highlight. The GTG’s got me some really good exposure to fellow Purists and I made a lot of good friends over time, so to me, we are all about the community and friendship. I do sometimes wish that the information piece gets back to where it was – it seems a little less today than it was some years ago. Still, I do continue to enjoy being here daily.

3. What watch are you wearing today and how you choose watch “of the day”?

Today, I’m wearing my Glashutte Original Panoinverse XL. I do love this watch a lot, and if you could see how shiny the nubuck strap looks like now, you’d know that it gets a lot of wrist time.

I don’t really have a watch of the day anymore – I used to. At one point, I think I had over  35 watches in my collection and sometimes went through 2 to 3 watches a day, but as I “matured” into this hobby, I’ve realized that my tastes gravitate toward specific watches and those that were bought because of a certain complication or function, ended up not being worn. Over the last 2 years, I’ve been slowly reducing my collection and am down to only 9 pieces now – space to add just one more to bring it up to 10 and I think I’m done, at least with the number, not the watches 😃

My rotation these days is 2 weeks per watch. And in that 2 weeks, I wear it for all occasions. I’m hardly ever in long sleeves or suits, so the watch is really put through its paces with wardrobe and lifestyle challenges.

4. What is your favorite watch/brand/complication?

I don’t think I have a favorite brand. It started off with GO, but service has not been a consistent experience, so I ditched two of the three that I had, and don’t really have a clear favorite now. Gun to my head, I’d likely say Speake-Marin, only because I’ve met Peter on a few occasions and he’s a real gentleman and friend and that personal connection changes the whole landscape of how I view his brand.

As for favorite complication, I’m going with no complication – or just time only.

5. When and how you discovered horology?

Interestingly, it was due to my grandfather showing me the watch my mum used to wear when she was 7. It says Tudor on the dial, but I had absolutely no idea about what that was then. What amazed me was that it was tiny, and STILL WORKED! And this was when I was already in my late teens. Eventually I found a few more of such watches stashed in a drawer and took some of them to a watch repair center and the guy at the table managed to get them all working again. Comparing against my digital watches which had to be fixed and some discarded after a while – I started taking an interest into what made it different and after quite a bit of research and reading in the local libraries, I was hooked!

The yellowish one is a Timex and still works – see how small when put next to my 42mm GO PI. Amazing micromechanics!

6. What element of the watch is for you make it or break it factor?

To me – a make factor is a well designed watch, and triggers and immediate “I like it!” feeling. That doesn’t happen very often and I’ve realized today that if I don’t get that buzz, I don’t buy it.

What breaks it for me is an overmarketed, overpriced, over-ambassadorized and overly recognized watch. I absolutely do not like it when I sit at a table of non watch people and a statement of “Wow! That’s an expensive watch!” surfaces. That watch eventually will end up not being worn and eventually sold. I will not wear a watch that a football player or actor endorses unless I really like the watch.

7. If you could design your own watch what would it be and what it would look like?

I’m not a designer, but if it would be the MIH watch at half the thickness, minus the chronograph.

8. What is the watch that will last leave your collection and why?

This would be the Reverso Grande Taille. My wife bought that for me for our 10^th wedding anniversary, and she actually took a full year to pay for it. The effort and sacrifice on her part to get me that is enough to make that the cornerstone of my collection. It does help that I actually love the design, size and the movement of the watch.

9. What do you love and hate about watch industry today?

What I love – probably choices of watches. What I hate – marketing taking over actually building great products, over reliance on re-editions and fake patina, terrible service experiences. I will stop here!

10. What was the evolution of your collection and how do you see it in next decade?

As in parts above, I started out buying anything that struck my fancy – be it design, complications, some sort of history etc. At one point, I liked having a lot of things on the dials too. Of late, those things rarely ever interest me anymore.

I no longer favor busy dials and complications, unless done right. In trimming my collection – I have stuck to time only watches. I’ve gotten tired of chronographs as I never use those functions and I generally avoid dates because I’m too lazy to set them and in my frequent travels across timezones, that just becomes a pain. A watch also has to be comfortable – anything that is too heavy or large makes me tired and annoyed after 2 hours has been kicked out, no matter how much I love the design, so I tend to stick to watches 40mm or below. Some exceptions, though, but my largest are at 42mm today with short lugs.

I see this trend continuing indefinitely – manual wind, time only, occasionally a big date. I find these sort of language is timeless and as I get older, I don’t want to be spending time on setting pieces and being concerned over complications and the cost of servicing them.

No grails for me, but the Lange 1815 was a watch that I probably wanted for the longest time (5+ years) and I’ve managed to add that to my collection just a few weeks ago, so like I said, I think I’m almost done in shaping what I have.

11. What other hobbies do you have?

Sports and music – I enjoy playing music, both with friends and in church. Drumming gets the stress out, and tests the shock capabilities of watches 😉 I also do play badminton very regularly – and of course time with the family, which is paramount.

12. Your life motto and life philosophy is…

Make the most of today. Tomorrow is a different story.

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