The Watches We Keep for Reasons We Can’t Explain

Collecting watches is filled with easy choices. The movement makes sense. The design has historical importance. The reference fills a gap or represents an important moment in the manufacturer’s history. When someone asks why it’s in the collection, you have an answer at the ready.

Then there are the others. The watches you’re somewhat at a loss to explain. They might not be especially rare. They might not represent some important technical breakthrough. You might even struggle to articulate why that particular watch continues to hold your attention. Regardless, it stays.

Not every watch needs a reason to be in a collection.

Sometimes people ask you why you bought a watch. Why that reference? Why that period? Why that manufacturer? Why that dial? These are fair questions, especially if someone is trying to understand why you collected what you did. But they can also create undue pressure, as though every watch you own needs a bulletproof argument in its defense.

It doesn’t. Obviously, well-researched reasons are always nice. But sometimes you like a watch and that’s it. It sounds unsatisfying, I know. Especially as collecting grows more serious and fewer details can be ignored. But taste doesn’t always fit into neat criteria. A case might simply feel right in your hand. A dial may have an indescribable balance. Or the proportions of one watch might work when an otherwise similar example does not. The point is, you may not be able to explain it, but you’ll know it’s there.

The Watch That Shouldn’t Matter as Much as It Does

This watch doesn’t wow you like others. It doesn’t necessarily excite you when you put it on. It may not even look as good as some of the other watches in your collection. But for some reason, it stays.

When you look at your collection, this is the watch that shouldn’t matter as much as it does.

Compared to the other pieces you own, there’s probably no obvious reason to keep it. But you do. Maybe it was your first vintage purchase. Maybe you don’t have as much money to spend these days, so it will always have a place. Maybe you got it from your grandfather and wear it on his birthday.

It doesn’t matter why. You just know it does.

Collecting isn’t always rational.

As mentioned earlier, collecting can be a rational pursuit. You compare references, study movements, dig into production periods and assess condition. You look for consistency between examples and identify why one might be different from another.

The funny thing is, once you’ve done all that research, the decision often feels anything but rational. You could spend months reading about and studying two watches, only to find yourself inexplicably drawn to one of them, as though there’s something you can’t quite put your finger on.

This isn’t to say all the research was for nothing. Far from it. Research is about understanding a watch. Instinct is about deciding whether or not you want to live with it.

Living With Watches

Some watches earn their place in a collection simply by being around for a long time. Not because anything notable happened while wearing them, but because they were there.

Life happened while you wore the watch. Morning routines, matching outfits, familiar locations and finding the right watch for every day of the week. You learn to associate these things with your watch until they become hard to separate from the object itself.

This can lead to a strange attachment to a watch that might otherwise seem wholly ordinary. It’s not special. In fact, there are plenty of ways it falls short of other watches you own. But you wear it all the time. The difference should be obvious.

When you take the pressure away, you start to see things differently.

As collectors become more comfortable in their hobby, they slowly realise that not every watch needs to meet some abstract standard before it earns a place in their collection.

You don’t have to justify your collection to anyone. You don’t need to prove your favourite watch belongs there because it’s rare, important or a technical achievement. If you like wearing it, that’s reason enough.

Now, this isn’t to say every watch you like deserves a place in your collection. We only have so much room, time and attention to go around. But if a watch has lived past your initial curation process and still remains for no reason you can articulate, it’s worth paying attention to. Trust me, there’s something there. You just haven’t figured out how to describe it yet.

Things We Like Without Knowing Why

Watch collecting is about noticing subtle differences. The thickness of a bezel. How a lug sits against the wrist. How a dial and its hands interact. Or how smoothly a case sits around your wrist.

When you first start collecting, you might not know how to pinpoint these details. But after years of looking at watches, you will. You’ll start to see something you like about a watch before you know why you like it.

Calling it a “gut feeling” makes this process sound mysterious. But there’s usually a method to the madness. Years of exposure. Thousands of watches compared silently in your head. And eventually, your reaction occurs faster than your ability to articulate why.

Some watches just seem to defy explanation.

Doesn’t that feel good? Not every watch in your collection has to be accompanied by an annotated bibliography. There’s no need to find some historical anomaly or force some overarching narrative to explain your preferences. Some watches answer a question you had about your collection. Some just feel like they belong. And some you keep around because, after years of collecting, research and comparing watches, you look at them and say:

“I just like this one.”

Hopefully, that’s okay.

Luke Hughes is the founder of Antique Watches Magazine and instant-loan-mortgage.businessweb.jp. He first developed an interest in watches at the age of eight when his father taught him to wind an Omega Speedmaster. Since then, he’s worked in various roles in the watch industry but now primarily focuses on the editorial side of things. In Luke’s spare time, he loves to surf and play volleyball.