Collecting watches can be a fun, if not expensive, past time. It's the perfect hobby for those who love fashion, or perhaps for someone who doesn't have any creative skills. Collecting can be fun and rewarding. Here are some things that you should know about before you jump into the world of watch collecting.
Be familiar with brands
Watches can be divided into tiers which will help you know more about the craftmanship and the cost range. These are the tiers:
Basic Watches - These are watches that are the least expensive. Brands like Movado fall under here. You can find watches that will cost less than $2000 and use materials like steel.
Low end Luxury Watches - These watches will generally cost between $500-$4000 and they use materials such as real gold, with sapphire crystals.
Luxury Watches - This is where watches like Rolex and Cartier fall. These watches use the highest quality materials. They will generally cost anywhere from $1000 to $20000.
High end luxury watches - These are the best watches you will be able to buy and will often cost $5000+. These are watches for collectors that truly have a disposable income.
Budget
Now that you are familiar with the different watch tiers, you can decide on your budget. You can either do this by deciding how much you'd like to spend per watch in your collection, or give your entire collection a set budget and buy watches of all various prices. Having a budget can often make collecting more fun and challenging since you will also be trying to find things that meet your price point.
Find a place to store your collection
If you're going to have many watches, you're going to need a safe place to keep them all to protect them from damage. You can find many watch boxes online, but you can also easily make your own by using an old cigar box or a jewelry box and then padding it.
Maintain your Collection
Some watches need to be winded, so in order for your watches to always perform, you'll need to regularly do certain things to keep them functioning even when they are not being used. Automatic watches should be stored on watch winders, while manual watches will need to be wound daily to make sure they stay precise.
Be Unique
To really have fun with your watch collection. You should consider collecting watches that are unique and say something about your personality. For example, if you travel a lot, you could collect watches from all the locations you travel to. Or you could have watches in each different type of metal. Rose gold watches are beautiful, and not a metal that many people usually own. Those are just a few ideas to help you start being inspired. The rest is up to you.
Photo from here
