I spent years with unnamed digitals, and went through quite a few Seikos. Good watches, those.
About a dozen years ago, I inherited a Cartier Santos. I believe they run about three grand, and I’d never spend that kind of money on a watch. But it’s running strong and I’d never had a watch run that long before.
It might be just coincidence that I got it about the time I quit playing drums.
Four hours.
Unless it was a dog watch; they’re curtailed.
HEY!
That was me. 
So I guess ya’ll don’t really need my response, huh?
Actually - I just went though all those watches, because I was looking for one that would work. As a quick read of the other thread will show, a lot of people seem to think my problem is I don’t spend enough $$. So I spend more.
Jeez - a girl just wants to be on time ya know.
Hey, Johnny! I’ve been thinking about getting an old “beat up” sub. I doubt if I could afford one of yours, though, since your going to use the proceeds to buy a house!
DrLizardo, What kind of business are you in? :eek:
Johnny is your Sub a 1970s red letter version? I sold mine on ebay a year or so back.
Well, If I had the coin a vintage Patek would be my choice for a “show Watch”
For value it is hard to beat a vintage solid gold watch, automatic or self wind. You can find some very cool designs and you and usually purchase the non name brands for a little more than the scrap value of the gold.
My pawnbroker said you can spent a couple of hundred on an ok new watch, or you can buy the vintage gold one. The difference is if you run over them both with a truck the vintage gold one is still worth about what you paid for it.
My watch cost $2.00 at the Goodwill Shoppe and then I replaced the band for $4.00 at the El Cheapo Chintz Shoppe, and it’s been keeping perfect time for the last 4 years. That’s all a watch is for anyway…isn’t it?
I love watches.
My first “expensive” watch was a Seiko “Age of Discovery” chronograph I bought in 1992 for about $400. I wore it for 10 years, and it didn’t need anything else than batteries during that time. It’s pretty scratched up after 10 years, though.
Last year, I bought this Citizen Ecodrive in the US for $270. It’s got a chrono, a perpetual calendar (well, until 2100, really ;)), an alarm, and a local time function (useful for a frequent traveler). Plus, it runs on light. The face is a giant photocell, converting sunlight and even artificial light into electric energy. It keeps perfect time: since I bought it and precisely set the time to the second (October 5 or thereabouts), it’s lost about 20 seconds. Not bad for a watch with tons of energy draining functions.
I would love to spend more on watches, but there’s not enough money in the bank to afford the stuff I really want right now. I really, REALLY want this Jaeger Le Coultre Master Perpetual, but it retails at $22,000…
What I don’t get is what some friends of mine do. They’ll pay $1,000 for a quartz TAG Heuer. I mean, that’s silly. The inner workings of a $50 Casio, and you’re paying $950 for the brand! I can see paying $1,000 for the craftsmanship of an automatic, though. But not a quatz.
FTR, my Citizen is a quartz, and $270 is on the high end of the scale of what I’d pay for such a watch.
I paid about $75-$100 for mine, a stainless steel Seiko. I only wear it for dates and special occasions, so it doesn’t get a lot of abuse. Keeps great time, I set it every 6mo or so (www.time.gov), and it rarely is off by more than 15 seconds.
I would freely pay more for one that I considered jewelry, but I don’t wear any jewelry, so there’s no point. This one is nice enough to go with anything, as far as I’m concerned. Clean lines, simple design, not garish, just stainless band/body with a silver face.
MrPeabody: No, it’s a late-70s with white lettering.
Truth Seeker: E-mail me if you’re interested.
I just remembered: I bought a Hamilton “Ventura” last summer for about $300. (Could’ve been less, but I don’t remember.) It’s shield-shaped with chrome wings, and was purportedly designed to suggest an aerial bomb. Elvis wore one in Blue Hawaii, and they wore them in Men in Black as well. Very cool looking. Unfortunately they sent it by UPS (“Unbelievably Poor Service”) and it took about two weeks to get it from five miles away. (Had I known it was that close, I would have just gone down to pick it up!) The fiasco with Poo-is-Brown took a lot of the fun out of wearing it. 
I have that same watch. In fact, I’m wearing it today. I own five watches. The Citizen Eco-drive, a Hamilton Wilshire, a Hamilton Khaki automatic, a digital watch (for coaching) and a Citizen Elegance that is sort of a knock-off of of the Coldfire’s dream watch. I got the knockoff before I was aware of the JLC, I swear!
Since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by watches. I’m just now starting to buy reasonably nice watches, and I can see that I’ll be buying more watches in the future. I understand they’re utilitarian for most people, but they’re more than that to me.
Oh man. I’d be so tempted to wear some crappy Wal-Mart watch to such a meeting and then, when they noticed it say, “What? Oh yeah, my watch. Hang on. (takes it off, puts on expensive watch.) There, now I’m in uniform. Are you finished being a high school girl? Can we talk actual business now?”
I doubt I’d get the contract. There’s a reason I’m not in sales.
Compared to a lot of watches, Rolexes are cheap. I guess back in the ‘80s it was a status symbol to wear one, but now they’re considered rather un-hip. I knew that when I got the GMT II. But I didn’t get it for other people. I got it because I liked it. If I worked in a place where it was expected one would wear a Patek, I’d probably strap on the ol’ army-surplus, plastic-cased, manual-wind Stocker & Yale I picked up for fifty bucks.
And speaking of “status”, I was having the ol’ 911 serviced and was wearing my dad’s Seiko Bell-Matic. A woman was also in the shop getting her BMW (or was it a Jag or a Land Rover? I don’t remember.) noticed it. She said that it was a very nice watch and she wanted to know what kind it was so she could get one for her SO. I told her it was a Seiko and she immediately lost interest.
I usually spend $50 on a sports-type digital watch (dual time, stop watch, countdown timer, 50m water resist) with a plastic/rubber band. I would go through watches about every 6 or 8 years, and bands about every 2 to 4 years.
Then I switched to a steel expansion bracelet for the next watch. (Which is missing, somewhere in my room.)
Last year, my brothers got me a graduation gift of a Quiksilver dive / surf watch. Stainless steel, 200m water resist, timing bezel. I wear it when I go diving or dress up. I have intentionally NOT checked the price, but I’m guessing it’s $200ish. It is definitely the best watch I’ve ever owned.
not very darn much.
I hate being bound to material objects
I like variety (buying cheap ones means I can get more)
I lose and break things A LOT
My ex-g/f wore a Seiko diving watch back in the late-1980s. People would ask her how much it cost (I think it was about $150-$175) and they’d be shocked. They’d ask, “What does it do?” She would answer, “It tells the time.”
It was a good-looking watch. Just the right size. Nice and simple. And being a quartz Seiko, it kept excellent time.
Watches are the kind of things I would think that I’d break a lot (I go through mobile phones with alarming regularity), but I’ve only ever had 2 in my life - a digital one for my birthday when I was 10 (cost £15 and I’m 21 now), and I bought one a couple of years ago for £6. Both are still going strong, but I wear my new one more as it’s analogue (keeps time fine, looses about 5 seconds a month).
I would pay more for a decent watch, but I find most expensive watches look HUGE on my wrist (I’m very thin), and the cheaper watches tend to have smaller faces.
Can’t imagine what industry you work in where a $10,000 watch is “one of the factors you are judged by.” Entertainment, maybe? I’d consider it beneath me to work in such an industry. No matter what the pay difference, I’d rather have honest work shoveling shit out of stables, say, or serving up fries at McDonalds. Or hustling on a streetcorner.
Hijack
Yeah, I am sure that I would rather work shoveling shit then at a job where I could afford a $10,000 watch. Beneath you? That really is funny.
End Hijack
Another benefit of a $200 watch over a $20 watch; they look better for longer. Every $20 watch I have owned that lasted more then 6 months started to look really rough. You can replace the band but it never looks as good as the original. Besides, once you start replacing bands you are just adding to the cost. My $250 watch has had the same band for six years and it still looks great. My job doesn’t require a $10,000 watch but I do need to look professional.
I can’t wear a watch because they start to gain time and then die. Perhaps a really good watch wouldn’t die, but I’ve never felt the need to spend money for something that seems so frivolous. Fortunately, I do seem to have an innate sense of time. I can usuallay tell you within 10 minutes what time it is. I’m rarely more than 10 minutes late to anything (and those ten minutes don’t seem to have anything to do with whether I’m wearing a watch). I have on occassion carried a pocket watch which will work okay.
StG
[Glengarry Glen Ross]
You see this watch? This watch cost more than your car.
[/GGR]
hrh
