Downsizing

[yokied]

So far, my most successful downsizing strategy has been to give them away to my wife, friends and family. My purchasing decisions are either detailed or impulsive, so I have a very hard time rationalising anywhere other than back to the original decision. I just finished re-evaluating my first serious new watch purchase (Rado True Thinline). I had convinced myself to sell but after wearing it for a few weeks, it's staying.

I wish I was truly unconcerned with what others thought of me. Then I would just hit the button that rhymes with bucket, get rid of everything except the heirloom, get the Rolex platona and just wear that most of the time. Even then, I still envisage myself falling down the rabbit hole because the platona is such a brick of a watch. I would probably sell that, get a 14060 and then really hate myself for being conformist. Then I would come crawling back to Zodiac for a diver with character and then I'd be back down the rabbit hole again.

[tribe125]

^^^

Authentically and convincingly expressed.

[chuckmiller]

No one else around me, family nor friends, understands this hobby. If I no longer want a watch I have little else to do with it buy sell it off, cheaply.

[KennethRSloan]

My spreadsheet says I have 122 pocketwatches and 91 wristwatches.

That seems like a reasonable number.

I have 2 8-watch boxes that keep my current favorites handy. These are the ones I usually choose from for a special occasion, or for travel. For the rest, I rotate weekly. When I come across one that causes me to say "really? No...I don't think so", it goes on my "dispose of" list. Sometimes this is because it's too much work to keep up with watches that need batteries and aren't worth the hassle. Sometimes it's because there's
a technical problem - although if I want to keep it I don't shy away from servicing.

On this pass through the PW, I'm being alert for duplicates, esp. in cases where one of the duplicates is significantly lower quality.

My main problem is: if the watch is worth keeping, it's worth servicing. If it's not...it's hardly worth the trouble to sell it. I don't really buy watches that are such a significant investment that I need to care about recouping the money spent.

[yokied]

A somewhat cautionary tale detailed below has prompted a new mindset. In short, I'm reducing the collection based on wearability. I won't even be considering a purchase if I think wearability could be a concern. I've accepted that some watches I like are best enjoyed in photos, even if I look at them hundreds of times, with ownership neither necessary nor desirable.

I will confine myself to my current 10-watch box, with one wrinkle: that box will also contain my wife's watches. The discrepancy between her collection and mine is bad enough, but I feel like I need to leave at least 3 gaps for her. So, it's looking like 5 to 7 is a good range as @Raza said, with a few other little overlaps with his experience. My list is shaping up nicely, even if I am battling some skull-rattling cognitive dissonance planning more watch purchases to achieve this.

Long version: I was swimming in the infant pool with my son wearing my Zodiac Astrographic reissue. It's 100mWR and looks and feels robust, and the infant pool is only a foot or two deep. Enter the pebble pool floor. Fooling around, I find myself dragging my hands and arms along the floor to restore balance. A few good scrapes. The net result was a couple of little scratches on the case and a lot on the bracelet. I have a replacement bracelet. No big deal.

But it got me thinking about watch profiles and tangents. I realised that even though I love the Astrographic, which is a funky old CRT of a watch, there are just too many tangents from the edge of my wrist that hit the band and/or the watch itself. I want to know that whatever watch I put on, I want it to be of an acceptable profile so it won't find itself getting scraped.