High-End Wrist Watches - Do They Improve the Time Telling Experience?

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tobefrank

Lifer
Jun 22, 2015
1,367
5,008
Australia
I think there is possibly judgment in the body of your reply! :) Regardless, no harm no foul. I actually own a Patek Phillipe but I keep it in a lock box and it's no where near that amount, but worth quite a few "high end" pipes.
It was to illustrate my point, no more, no less.

And I am so good looking that good jewelry detracts from my visage.....
They are beautiful watches. I'm a total noob when it comes to watches. I wore a titanium Seiko kinetic that my grand parents gave me for my graduation for years until it got stolen from the backseat of a car.

I recently bought a new Defakto Vektor Radial automatic watch that I fell in love with.

If I ever buy another watch it will probably be a Sinn U1 dive watch. I love the utility look and minimalistic design of it.
 
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rmpeeps

Lifer
Oct 17, 2017
1,147
1,847
San Antonio, TX
I generally destroy jewelry and other adornments. I have a titanium wedding band that I wear when not working.

When I get "gussied up" for an outing, I also pop in a pair of "black diamond" stud earrings my wife's son gave me and bust out the $20 Citizen watch from that damned auction site. Sometimes, I even wear a shirt with buttons!

Those are the items I've not yet damaged or lost.

When wearing the watch, I often still just look at the phone for time out of habit. :rolleyes:


View attachment 44346
Austin....right??!!
I’ve worn the same Tag Heuer for about 20 years. The new kids think I’ll get robbed just for wearing it.
Concealed Carry...., just saying.
 

georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
6,087
16,687
All they do is keep track of time:



All they do is roll:



All they do is cover your skin:



All they do is hang on the wall:



All they do is hold burning tobacco:



For some reason, though, most people aspire to own the first three---and all kinds of similar things, from custom motorcycles to handmade musical instruments---but think anyone who spends more than $200 on a pipe is crazy.

.

Screen Shot 2020-09-28 at 1.13.01 AM.png
 
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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
45,244
119,230
For some reason, though, most people aspire to own the first three-
?
-Most expensive watch was $30 and haven't seen it since high school.

-Most expensive car was $14,000.

-Have yet to find a reason to own a suit as I have a strong distrust around those wearing them.

-Paintings never fascinated me.

-Outside my Savinelli collection, most of my pipes were $400+.
 

sfduke

Starting to Get Obsessed
Apr 14, 2012
279
406
CA
@georged
Time keeping is relative ;)

My watch has a crown guard and another has a pressure valve, but I don't do water activities.

Expensive watches are like an expensive car. They cost a lot for maintenance and repair.
 

JimInks

Sultan of Smoke
Aug 31, 2012
64,828
654,953
I've worn a watch since the first grade, and I can't do without one. I've never worn an expensive watch, and never felt that I needed one. My Seiko keeps great time, just as the last Seiko did, which I wore for 27 years until it finally croaked. @sablebrush52 and Russ Ouellette helped me pick out the one I've been wearing the last three years.
Jim's_Watch copy.jpg
 

jpberg

Lifer
Aug 30, 2011
3,251
7,687
I've worn a watch since the first grade, and I can't do without one. I've never worn an expensive watch, and never felt that I needed one. My Seiko keeps great time, just as the last Seiko did, which I wore for 27 years until it finally croaked. @sablebrush52 and Russ Ouellette helped me pick out the one I've been wearing the last three years.
View attachment 44359
Untrustworthy pair at best. Probably picked you pocket at some point.
 

Jaylotw

Lifer
Mar 13, 2020
1,062
4,069
NE Ohio
I worked for my brother’s watch company for a while. He sold his own brand, prices ranged from $400-1400. Dudes thought they were cheap.
We were surrounded by expensive, boutique watches, but we opened and closed shop by a dollar store clock on the wall. We had to adjust our expensive watches all the time for people, some kept great time while others sucked. None were as accurate as a $5 digital Chinese watch.
Much of the business relied on collectors, guys who, like us in the pipe world, just couldnt get enough. Dropping 700 on a watch was just a normal thing, and they’d trade/buy/sell on forums just like we do with pipes.
I don’t wear one. I use my phone/clock/stove/coffee pot or any other time telling device. Only time I’ve wanted one is while out in the wilderness.
 
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DAR

Can't Leave
Aug 2, 2020
355
1,115
Tiburon, California
It's all relative to what you value in a watch but yes, they improve my time telling experience. I am a watch collector with over 75 watches in my watch box so my opinion is slanted. They don't tell the time any better or more accurately than a drugstore quartz watch but they do make the experience of looking at the time an improved experience from the lower end watches. Of course if you are not into watches, it sounds silly. Just like if you are not into pipe smoking it sounds silly that a $600 + pipe "improves the smoking experience" over the $25 pipe. It may not smoke better but the experience may be better.
 

jerseysam

Can't Leave
Mar 24, 2019
456
4,566
Liberty Township. OH
I think georged started this thread as more a general musing on "why is luxury peacocking 'X' right as rain but pipes we all lose our minds if.. ". Taken literal though, be happy this isn't the watch world in terms of social competition.....it makes the pipe version of "$20, $200, or $2,000" look like a quaint and low-key ?

Income + popularity (of product) in the market place....to me that's why the pipe discussions differ compared to watches and luxury cars. Pipe smoking is pretty niche and its devotees, as a group, probably skew right at the domestic income average. Probably more folks on the left side of that median than right as well. No right or wrong, just economics. So a $2,000 S. Bang.....average US income that purchase is a real deal thing to the majority of the pipe smoking crowd. Cars and fashion are the playgrounds of the top 5%+ earner bracket (widely stated, there are of course excellent savers/spendors out there) and with huge differentiation at each % to 1% (my Mercedes and Tags are mid-market baubles to my neighbor up the block with an Aston Martin and Pateks). There's just numerically a lot more people in those brackets/markets than in pipes. So when someone casually drops some pics of $500+ pipes in this hobby, I think it attracts more comments than if someone was showing their vintage Omega on a watch site.
 
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