Never have I successfully committed to one hobby for longer than a few months. An inclination to just focus on one task and enjoy nothing else has always plagued me. But, starting today I have decided to keep myself accountable and even keep up with more than one hobby at a time. This includes rekindling some old hobbies as well.

Revisiting My Watch Hobby With a New Perspective

For people that have not delved into the horrible habit of watch collecting. Here is a rundown on a common experience, which also reflects my own.

1. Buy an affordable quartz watch or accidentally buy an affordable mechanical watch
2. Buy a lower end mechanical watch after learning about the difference between mechanical movements and quartz movements
3. Long for accuracy, but cannot justify spending so much money for a watch that performs worse than a lower end quartz watch
4. Constantly stalk Seiyajapan, Shoppinginjapan, TimelessLuxury, DutyFreeIsland, Arizona Fine Time, etc
5. Buy a mid ranged mechanical watch
6. Sell everything and become a utilitarian. Buy a lower end quartz watch
7. Think about buying radio controlled watches/ higher end quartz watch
8. If you’re lucky - DROP HOBBY

This is my basic experience in the hobby. I do not wish to get back into this torturous loop, so I will go at it with the same utilitarian mindset. This doesn’t mean I’m only going to buy quartz watches, but to think about the watches I’m going to buy differently. Many have bought vintage time pieces, which I have skipped entirely in my hobby because the Seiko 5 mechanical watch, my first watch, has filled that void for me. However, I would like to visit this lost stage viewing the pieces as merely jewelry. I’m not about to drop a fat check on some jewelry, but this will help me deal with the fact that what I’m about to buy might not be superbly accurate.

I decided to head towards Pippin’s Vintage Jewelry at 17th Street with a budget of $100 dollars.

Pippin’s Vintage Jewelry is a cozy shop with ring fittings, individual rubies and diamonds, and of course vintage watches. One wooden dresser and one section of the rectangular glass display desk made up the watch section. The jewels were accompanied by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable man named Stephen Cooper. Although he was extremely friendly to me, he was not afraid to flex his knowledge and experience in the industry and crack a few jokes at the couple next to me trying to low-ball him.

The first timepiece he showed me was a watch from a brand unknown to me, Seikosha, a branch of Seiko that split and re-branded many times. Stephen told me this watch was only produced during 1944-1945 and featured a two layered steel case, small seconds dial, and a hefty price tag. Because this was such a rarity, it cost 1650 dollars. I could not find this particular watch online, let alone find one that runs like this example. It was a beautiful piece with a chocolate dial and thin mesh strap.

The next two I picked out were lovely simple 14 Karat gold dress pieces. The Bulova’s applied markers and dauphine style hands really caught my eye. This isn’t surprising to me because I once considered buying a Grand Seiko/ Citizen Chronomaster during stage 7 of my watch sickness.

" 7.Think about buying radio controlled watches/ higher end quartz watch"

The square Hamilton on the other hand felt completely new to me. I had never considered buying a rectangular watch with no running seconds hand. The markers lined up spot on and it winded smoother than any rotor powered automatic watch I had ever handled. Tempting, but a 900 dollar price tag held me back.

The last watch I looked at was another 14K gold Eljin square dress watch with no running seconds hand. The possibly chemically blued hands are a nice contrast with the yellow dial and salmon colored minute track. The strap is a new Hirsch strap that felt strong yet supple. It captured something new about watches that I’ve never felt before. The large cog like crown is a pleasure to wind. The experience is the other end of the spectrum from the Hamilton. It produced very distinct and satisfying clicks. The best part is that it has no seconds hand so it’s very hard to tell the accuracy to keep my obsessive accuracy disorder at bay.

At 95 dollars, this watch fit perfectly within my price range so it’s the one I left with. Thus, this watch became my first and only square, gold, and manual wind watch. Three checkboxes I have never — well- checked off before.

Stephen packaged the watch in a nice box and a vintage themed paper bag.

I didn’t notice it while in the shop, but the movement keeper is either absent or fell out leading the movement to be free and shake about. I thought it would be more fun to open it myself and find out than to go back to Pippin’s to find out. Tune in for the next watch related post~

As I wrote in the beginning of the post, I will continue my watch hobby, but at the same time start something new along the way.

Preview of Next Post: