Never having had the financial wherewithal to buy any upper-end watches, I’ve never let that stop me from looking at the market — just as not ever having had the money to buy a Ferrari hasn’t stopped me from looking at expensive sports cars and that market.
Yet even if I had the funds, I’d never buy a Rolex watch.
I know, Rolexes are (generally speaking) well-made timepieces and may be worth the moolah necessary for their acquisition. All the cool kids wear them — which is actually a negative for me, of course — but besides that, if you want to get a watch that will essentially last your entire life, the Rolex is a good bet. And of course, if your hobbies take you underwater, then Rolex reigns supreme. (If like me you’re unwilling to venture into an unfamiliar medium filled with things with teeth and murderous intent, then obviously this would not be a factor.)
But the reason that I’d never buy a Rolex is that they’re big, chunky and bulky, and while that may be the current fashion (another reason for my unwillingness), I’m more of the dress watch persuasion.
And of course, because I prefer a manual-wind over automatic- and quartz (battery-powered) watches is yet another reason. (Of digital watches we shall not speak: in other words, if you want to extol all the virtues of your $25 Casio-type watch, please restrain yourself because that just irritates me.)
Here’s a typical Rolex (I say “typical” because like members of certain ethnic groups, they all look the same to me):
Oh, and did I mention that I can’t wear metal bracelet straps because I have hairy arms, and the stupid things catch on and tug at the hairs until I rip the thing off and throw it across the room? (I know, the Rolex might survive such an action, but whatever.) It’s pretty much leather for me, in other words, and Rolex doesn’t like their watches to be thus equipped, so screw ’em.
Finally, like the aforementioned Ferrari, Rolex also plays reindeer games with potential customers, restricting access to certain models, thereby driving up the price and thus making them all the more “exclusive” (i.e. only available to the gullible and status-hungry). I’m not going to play that game, ever, in any market.
And for those who want something of quality like a Rolex but of sane pricing, here are some alternatives across all five popular Rolex models: Submariner, Datejust, GMT, Explorer and Daytona. I’m not in the market for any of the alternatives, of course, because they’re all still chunky and use metal bracelets straps. For the watch geeks on the same topic, there’s always Teddy Baldassarre.
My biggest fear is that my beloved Tissot Heritage model may one day break irretrievably, and I won’t be able to find a replacement. #Discontinued #OldSpiceFreshRedux
(yeah, that’s my hairy wrist)
I have an 800 dollar watch and flashlight all in one, it’s called an Apple iPhone.
I hate when good things get discontinued. If you find something you like, always buy 2. That way if it stops being made and it is no longer available you have the replacement already.
I know this isn’t always possible with very expensive items though.
I’m with you on watches. I have a blowhard brother in law who wears a Rolex and he “upgrades” it every so often. I find most of them to be big and gaudy.
I’ve enjoyed a few Seikos. I had a mechanical perpetual calendar Coutura for quite a while. wore it all the time and one or more of the holes on the metal bracelet got distorted I think. One of the pins kept coming out so I can’t wear it anymore without worrying about losing it. I was working in the OR at the time and did not want to lose it there. I have a Seiko 5 sports field watch. It looks nice but loses time too frequently. I have that on a NATO strap that is comfortable and gets the job done.
I look at some of the luxury brands and frequently I am just not impressed by their style.
I just don’t find it necessary to have a time piece strapped to my ass. I have 2 in a dresser drawer, I think. Haven’t seen em in decades, maybe since the mid 80’s.
Even if I was wealthy I’d never wear one.
Amen. Took mine off when I ‘retired’ in ’81.
If it’s important, I’ll get there early.
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I’ve never understood the allure of stupidly expensive watches.
Although, about 10 minutes into this vid, Shawn Ryan makes the only persuasive case for one that I’ve ever come across. Since I’ve never been/never will be in that world, I’ll continue to do without.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb-7zh1cc8&t=1712s
A gentleman dresses according to the occasion.
The watch, like other accessories reflect your taste.
Never been a fan of Rolex. The copies are so ubiquitous they’re sort of over exposed to me.
Damasko’s older models, I like. Some Sinns are lovely, but still overpriced. The Sinn 104 St Sa A is lovely, and I like the U50, despite its odd hands.
Pity I’m ccheap.
Nice watch, Kim.
Gift from an old friend, not unknown on these pages.
After I got it, I suddenly lost all interest in owning any more watches.
Never heard a good reason to blow big bucks on timepieces. There are many, many watches that look exactly like that rolex (but not copies) for a fraction of the cost. I prefer a more elegant design.
I’m with you. I prefer the more slim watches when I wear a real watch.
I mostly knock around with an Apple watch. At my age, the find my phone feature is crucial, since I don’t walk around with that 24×7 either. I have a handful of more dressy watches I wear if I go out or if I’m with other people. The Apple watch is kind of ugly, and I think it’s rude to fiddle with the thing when you should be paying attention to company.
Take a look at these guys. Tritium illumination matters. 🙂
https://us.nitewatches.com/
To a certain extent things depend upon what you want and need. I have a Rolex Submariner *exactly* like the one pictured. I bought it because I had trashed 3 Timex watches in 2 weeks, while sailing. (Got the last 2 as warranty replacements, so free, but they leaked!). Found my Rolex in a pawn shop which specialized in camera gear, and was just sitting there unnoticed. Bought it after doing some bargaining, as I wanted a watch that I could rely on through thick and thin, and water….
It has satisfied the ‘rely on’. A Rolex is not really a good choice if you are at retirement age: It WILL out-live you.
As stated, I bought mine in a pawn shop, for the grand price of $200.00 dollars. But that was August of 1975, and my Rolex has been my EDC for the entire 50 years, missing only a week or so, twice, while it went for servicing. Back then I needed/wanted it to work at chronometer level as I used it for ocean-racing celestial nav, back when electronic aids were not allowed while racing (and GPS was still Arthur Clarke’s (Isaac Asimov’s??) dream).
After about 30 years the pins in the bracelet wore down, and one day, I found my watch on the floorboards of my sailboat: broken pin. I wore it with a nylon strap for about 3 years (getting two pin redundant retention!). Then I found a non-Rolex brand replacement and had the snaplink closure portion replaced with the actual Rolex parts, and even a Rolex certified watch’er couldn’t tell the difference.
But a Rolex is not a good purchase for an olde pharte. It will out-live me, and my brother’s son, who also sails, already has a Rolex, from a pawn-shop, natch.
If I were a young-un at this stage, and starting in off-shore sailing, as I was then, I would get a Breitling Emergency, which has a built-in EPIRB.
Another thing which an olde pharte needs to take into consideration: whether you can read the thing! Some years ago I was offered a Lemania Elvstrom watch, which was a watch purpose built for yacht racing with a countdown capability. I declined, both in price and readability. I could not read it at a glance. So my racing start watch has a digital display with numerals five-eighths of an inch high and cost me about $100 some years ago. Now selling for $200 Cdn in Canada. Horses for courses.
BTW, the inflation calculator says that the $200 I spent in 1975 is equivalent to $1200 today. Oh really?
I have one watch that I will actually use and wear, and while it’s expensive, it’s definitely not Rolex level.
It’s a Garmin Instinct, technically a “smart” watch, but one designed for reasonable durability in the wilds, with a bunch of map and navigation features on it. As I like to hunt and hike in the back country of New Mexico, and have helped with multiple searches and rescues out there as well, the Garmin watch, while not strictly necessary, is still useful. More so than any fancy jeweled fashion statement.
I’m on my second wrist band for it.
I’ve got a cheap Timex from Walmart to where at work, where the management doesn’t want to see anyone other than management on the floor with a cell phone. If I bang it up, I won’t really give a damn. What I’d really like to do is find someone to fix great-grandad’s old Elgin pocket watch that’s been handed down to me. But there’s no one local who repairs anything but Rolex’s & Brietling’s, etc. sigh. I loved wearing that old thing.
Had a Tissot – it was the victim of an armed robbery: Me, face down on the ground with my hands behind my back, and then it was gone. Fought the insurance company about it, and when they finally gave in, that model had been discontinued.
Earlier, In the Early-60’s, walked into a PX at a semi-remote site in South Asia and at the jewelry counter saw two watches:
The usual Rolex, which looked big and gaudy; and the new hot thing: an Accutron Astronaut – which I bought. That tuning fork kept immaculate time which was important in my job, and displayed two time zones – which was also important. Unfortunately, after a day’s sailing and boat work, I left it on the wash-basin ledge in the marina head while having a serious brain-fart, and after 15-yrs of faithful service, it was gone.
Now, I just look at my phone.
My grandfather was a company director back in the 60s, when he retired he was given a gold Omega dress watch which was passed to my father and eventually me. It’s still working fine but needs winding everyday. My father sold his business in the 70s and we moved from the UK to Australia. On the way to Aus an Oyster caught my father’s eye. He replaced the metal strap with a leather one. That watch also came to me. When my wife and I had been married for ten years she surprised me with the very light Longines dress watch I have on as I type this thirty odd years later.
I quite like my Fossil mechanical self-wing skeleton watch. They make some horrible models (to my eyes), but I found one that looks quite elegant with a leather band. The only thing I would change would be to use tritium radioluminescent tubes in the hands instead of photoluminescent paint which works okay for a couple hours, and then gradually dies out completely. And the second hand isn’t on the same axis as the hour and minute hand, it’s a seperate small dial between the center of the watch and the 6 o’clock marking, with a small, hard to see little darkish red hand. I’d rather have a traditional second hand. Oh, well. Radioluminescent hands and hour markings that glow, rule. But other that, I really like it and it’s been complimented by others from time to time as a very nice-looking watch. So long as I remember to set it back a couple minutes every Sunday, that is. It’s probably about due to be serviced and regulated.
That second hand thing: I find the large second hand an irritation, and the tiny dial-type the least intrusive.
I think I last used the second hand for an actual purpose back in the early 1970s.
I used to use the second hand on my Timex for convenient approximate timings for things like ssh connection times, or how long before das blinkenlights on an interface started going in the right color and/or pattern. I know there’s an app on my phone for that, but having something quite visible on my wrist and not a touchscreen interface when I’m squeezed in somewhere tight is damned convenient. Just like having a much brighter little flashlight clipped in my back pocket next to my wallet, and the Leatherman on my belt, it’s just handy. I piss on the Leatherman’s maker’s politics, but it was a gift from my late father from before those were very well-known. If the little second hand on my Fossil was easy to see in dim light, I’d be happy with it.
When I graduated from Surface IDC (Independent Duty Corpsman), it was sort of in vogue to get a Rolex (non-Submariner, as that was for Sub IDC grads). IIRC, they were about $1400 at the NEX and that was a month’s pay I couldn’t spare. I was also headed back to Fleet Marine Force and that’s Timex silent Field Watch territory.
I toyed with buying a nice watch whilst on active duty, but I never did. I took an interest in finer watches a few years ago and since The Fetching Dr. Topcat (aka, The Last Wife) attends a fair number of hoity-toity functions, I figured as long as I was dressing up, I might as well get a nice(r) watch, so I found an original JMO (Japanese Market Only) Seiko Presage (SARBO65). Too nice for everyday wear, so I picked up a Tissot 1957 Visodate Heritage reissue. Very nice watch that I liked so much I bought another one just like it, just in case they went out of production (they did). This humble collection is rounded out by a Luminox P-38 Pilots GMT I bought myself when I got my pilot cert (at the age of 55). I never flew after my silo, but I do wear the watch when traveling, so it’s not a total waste.
I’ve resisted the temptation to stretch the collection beyond that, primarily because I barely care what time it is and I damn sure don’t care what day or date it is.
“I damn sure don’t care what day or date it is.”
That could be me speaking. In neither case do I need to look at my watch if I want to find that information.
I bought a 12 year 0pd Rolex Submariner from my uncle who was a jeweler back in 84. I was an E-3 in the AirForce and it cost almost a month’s pay. My uncle would service it every time it started loosing time for free. He passed 20 years’ ago and it has been at least 25 years since it has been serviced. It looses almost a half hour every day and is going to need the major service which will be a grand more than I bought the watch for. I couldn’t wear any jewelry do to my job so it sat most of the time. After I retired from the Air Force I would wear it to the office but I got tired of the side joke about my watch being a fake so I got a Accutron Eco to wear to work. The Rolex has been jewelry worn to special events the past 25 years. I have toyed with the idea of getting it serviced and selling it to help pay for the wife’s next new car in 4 or 5 years.
If either of us win the lotto, this would be a grand find and I would happily gift it to ya old boy.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/297792504073
Myself I stick to Seiko Kinetics, no battery (and I can/have replaced the supercap myself), no winding and so far the 2 I own keep such perfect time that the atomic clock on the wall has given up competing with them.
Yes, I own a Jeager Le Coutre inherited from dear old dad (note I am 3 years your senior), but like you, who wants to wear an over sized gold watch with hair removing band?
BTW,you might check out the metal watch bands used by Seiko, they long ago solved the hair extraction issue, my metal bands are totally smooth and do not snare hare (sic). 😉
When you win the lottery, you might look at the offering from Frank Muller(if he’s still making his five – ten watches per year, heh). Bought a fake one when I was in Saudi. Shop had copies of every high-end watch made. Funniest was a Breitling navigation watch with the emergency beacon antenna cast into housing.
I too cannot wear a watch with a metal strap: they made mincemeat of my long-sleeve shirts. So I switched to a pocket watch and a belt pouch. I have some cheaper ones and a nice one for special occasions.