2024 has been an amazing year, not just in watches but in life as a whole. I proposed to my girlfriend in April, got married in November, and became a step-father in what felt like a few short moments. With such big life changes came many changes in priorities, especially when it came to spending money and my collecting habits as a whole. From selling off many of my various action figures and superhero memorabilia, to re-evaluating my watch collection and what I wanted it to look like moving forward.
After collecting watches for a few years now, I made the decision to elevate my understanding of watches by learning about different movements, memorizing reference numbers, and diving deeper into watches as a whole – rather than just saying “oh that watch looks pretty”. In doing so, I realized what I didn’t want in my collection and sold a couple G-Shocks as well as a Spinnaker GMT. There was nothing inherently wrong with these watches, but I hardly do any international traveling so the GMT wasn’t necessary, and the G-Shocks I had for nine plus years no longer fit the high school/college aesthetic I used to adhere to.
As many of us do, once we sell a watch we feel the inescapable need if not obsession to replace it with a new watch (sometimes the reason for selling the watch in the first place). Even trying to develop new watch habits, I couldn’t help but revert to the old ways and purchased two new watches – the all white GAB2100FC with confetti colored text and induces, and soon after the GAB2100CT-5A (which I just listed for sale on eBay).
Then looking at my almost full drawer of watches, I felt the inadequacies of not having big brand names like Omega, Rolex, or Tudor in my collection and for weeks battled my own thoughts and questioned myself: “Do I need to have those brands to truly be a collector?” “Do I even know what hacking seconds is?” “Is three Seiko’s too many?” Now my all time grail watch is an Omega Speedmaster and semi-grail being a Tudor Black Bay 58, and I have gone back and forth whether spending that kind of dough on a watch is justifiable at this stage in my life. Being a 28 year old newly-wed step-father, with many new home renovations, more children in the future, and looking for a change in my career, spending $4000+ on a watch just doesn’t make financial sense to me.
In attempts at evolving myself not just as a person but as a watch collector, I wanted my watch purchases to mean something and to represent stages in my life and not just buying something because it looks cool or for a random LE drop that I couldn’t resist to jump on – been there, done that.
Now being married, my wife was wanting to get me a wedding present and told me to look for a watch and so I scoured the internet by way of Instagram, Worn & Wound, and Hodinkee looking for my – oops OUR next purchase. Close one. The most notable stand outs were Christopher Ward, Hamilton, and Citizen, but one brand stood above the rest. A brand that like so many of us helped start and fuel our passion for collecting – Seiko. Previously I mentioned I have three Seiko’s – the SRPD53 “Pepsi” that I purchased in Portugal in 2022, the LE Seiko & Evisen Skateboards SRPF93K1, and my late grandfather’s Seiko SQ that I wore for my wedding.
I’ve seen so many people saying to diversify your collection, not to buy too many of the same brand, but on the flip side and probably in higher frequency and seriousness to simply buy what you like and buy what makes you happy. Don’t let other people’s opinion sway what you want your collection to be and be proud of how far you’ve come. And I think that has been one of my greatest achievements and growths in my watch collecting journey in 2024, to be confident in myself and in my interests. Not to be perpetually chasing the next purchase, but instead to be grateful for what I have.
Oh and in case you were wondering, I got the Seiko SPB143 as my wedding present 🙂
-Cristian
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