Horological Meandering

and one to which for me the answer has changed over time.   Fifteen years ago I bought my first "high end" watch, an entry level Rolex, because I loved the way it looked and it was a statement that I had arrived.  I had just graduated from medical school, was finally making some money and wanted a status symbol.  I was 27, and knew nothing about watches.   In Knoxville, Tennessee, Rolex, Omega, Tag, and Breitling are the only high end watch brands one is going to find.  In America Rolex is by far the most recognizable luxury watch brand and the average person knows of them.  Very few people in my neck of the woods know about Patek, VC, GO, Lange, Breguet, AP, etc.   I didn't at the time.   I knew nothing about manufacture movements, complications, guilloche, perlage, escapements, palet forks, tourbillons, etc.  I thought $2000 was a lot to spend on a watch and had no idea how much more expensive watches could be.   I just loved the way that Rolex looked and wanted people to know I was finally making my own money.  Ten years later I am looking through a magazine and I come across a Cartier Santos 100 ad.  The watch is stunning to me, and I start researching online.  This is when I found this website, and was exposed to the entirety of high end watchmaking and I was hooked.  I bought the Santos 100 solely for the way it looked, posted some pictures on the Cartier forum, and started to learn about watches .  I learned the watch I had bought had an eta movement that could be found in many watches, solid but unremarkable, and basically the Santos was a fashion watch, great design, great look, not much of an engine.  Of course I want my watch to be attractive  but  as my hobby/obsession has grown I  want more than a great looking watch.  I want the movement to be something special as well.  I want it to be technically sophisticated, preferably made by the manufacture, and to have some qualities that make it unique.  Why I want this I am not sure.  I just find the mechanics of a mechanical watch fascinating, and beautiful to look at.  A finely finished movement is just as exciting or more so than an exquisite dial.   As I can only look at tourbillons and minute repeaters  I have gravitated toward mid level complications, chronographs and world time watches, and higher end chronometers.  My favorite watches these days are chronometers with newer materials or unique movement characteristics.   The GO Senator Chronometer with its minute/second synching feature,  the UN Marine manufacture with its Diamonsil escapement, the Breguet 7727 with magnetic pivots and high frequency escapement.  This plus the high end finishing that comes with these watches is what does it for me.   What is interesting to me is that I now spend way more on my watches than I did on that Rolex, but I could care less if anyone knows what I am wearing.  That $2000 Rolex was a status symbol, but my much more costly Bregeut 7727 is just a really cool good looking innovative piece of technology and I don't care if anyone else gets it but me.  In the past I might have bought a watch because someone famous wears the same brand, but today I just want to enjoy  the art and engineering that go into high end mechanical watches with others that feel the same way about them.   Unfortunately I live in an area where I am the only one who has this interest so I am thankful for sites like this where I can discuss  the importance of bezels, bridges, chapter rings,  beveling,  coaxial escapements, silicon and other nuances  of the luxury watch when I have the time.   To sum it up I buy watches that are to me the combination of  art, science, engineering  and show what  incredible and beautiful things people can create.  It brightens my day to have that little piece of metal on my wrist  and makes the 72000 beats per minute, Geneva stripes, planetary gearing and 60-72 hour power reserve worth every penny

Stewart

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