Diminishing Returns in Watch Collecting

One thing nobody really likes to talk about in the watch collecting hobby is money. It's easy to forget that these little things we wear on our wrists can easily cost more than a car and in some cases more than a house. When I first started collecting around 25 years ago as a college student the money aspect of the hobby was a huge factor in my collecting decisions. Basically this meant if I wanted what would be considered a luxury watch at say the level of an Omega Seamaster that I would need to liquidate whatever other watches I owned to be able to afford one. Remember this was also when you could get a new Seamaster 300 for less than $3,000.

As I entered the industry a few years later it was by creating a site that sold pre-owned watches. This allowed me unlimited access to wear watches many times more expensive than I was able to afford at the time. During this time I never really thought about what a watch cost and just wore what caught my eye for the day or week. There were many times I'd wear a six figure watch and never really think about how much money that watch actually represented and what it would take to earn enough to comfortably afford those watches.



After being fully submersed in the day to day of the pre-owned watch site I took a big step back from collecting and watches in general for a few years. It's not necessarily that I was burnt out from watches but more so the business I had got involved in had taken a few sour turns on a personal level. I just bundled these feelings with a sense of indifference towards watches.

During those years we moved away from Austin and gut renovated both a house and building in the town square of the small Texas town we moved to that were both well over one hundred years old. We also started up a brew pub in the building we renovated and watches were completely off my radar even though I was still a consultant for the pre-owned watch site working on their technology and development.

Around my 40th birthday in 2021 a clothing brand I had become very interested in named Neighborhood based in Tokyo announced that they were going to release a collaboration watch with Seiko. I asked somebody I knew in Japan to try to buy the watch for me on release, but unfortunately he wasn't fast enough to get the watch and I had to resort to Chrono24 to source the watch.

Now this was a weird time for my wife and I. We had sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into renovating our house and the brew pub. Also with Covid shutting down bars, the brew pub business wasn't great. I was able to find a new version of the watch without too much markup and after all fees the watch came out costing just over $800. At the time spending $800 on a watch was nuts for us, I justified it by saying it was for my 40th birthday and it was awesome Neighborhood did a collaboration with a watch brand since so much of my professional life was dedicated to watches.

Unfortunately the watch turned out to wear a bit smaller than I liked and I never formed any connection with it. For the majority of the time I had that watch it was worn by my wife since the hidden lugs of the watch fit her wrist much better than mine. Eventually I sold the watch because in the end even my wife didn't wear it much. It was however my first watch purchase in close to two decades.



Around this time I also started watching a lot of watch videos on YouTube and the watch bug was growing inside of me more and more each day. We were however really in no position to purchase anything I really liked since so much of our money was tied up in the house and bar. As odds would have it during this period an old partner from the pre-owned watch site I helped start reached out to me asking if I could do some development work for him.

The project I did for him was decent in scope and when asked what I wanted in return for the work I replied with an IWC Big Pilot. The Big Pilot had always been a watch I had loved since the original 5002 was released in the early 2000s and I even got engaged wearing one. I was able to find the exact watch I wanted which was the newer Big Pilot Heritage in titanium for around $9,000.

This was a mind blowing amount of money to actually spend on a watch to me. Up until this point the most I had ever spent on a watch was my IWC GST Chronograph Automatic twenty years prior for around $4,000. To me this was it my end all watch and something I was going to keep forever… but things change.



A few months later I was gifted an IWC Pilot's Flyback Chronograph Top Gun from the pre-owned site I was still consulting for. The watch really wasn’t what I was looking for and it ended up being traded for another Big Pilot in the Big Pilot Miramar. Now sitting with two Big Pilots I decided to see if I could trade both on a true grail watch, a Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar. After a few months of reaching out to various dealers I was able to trade both my Big Pilots and $1,500 for a Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Top Gun.

This watch was by far the most expensive watch I had ever owned with a trade value of around $17,500 wholesale and a market value of around $25,000. Since the out of pocket price for me was only $1,500 the true cost of the watch was never felt by me.



While the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar was by far the most expensive watch or non-car or house object I had ever owned it didn't hold that crown very long. Continuing the trend of helping out my ex-partner on other little projects I had eventually worked up a pretty large sum of money he owed me. During one chat I asked if there were any other projects he'd like me to work on and he said not at that time. In our original talks I had mentioned I really wanted to work my way up to my true grail watch, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Montoya in titanium… another watch that is deeply engrained to my life in the watch world.

Totally blowing my mind, he said he knew of a dealer friend of his that had one for sale and asked if I wanted it. That was beyond generous and I believe he paid around $25,000 wholesale for the watch and at the time its market price was around $30,000. Once again a crazy amount for a watch and although I had worked for it, I technically didn't pay for the watch, so the money didn't really register.



In the years since acquiring that first Big Pilot I have slowly grown both my collection and that of my wife's. We also sold the bar and building along with our old renovated house and moved back to Austin. We did well on both but also bought in Austin during the absolutely top of the market. So we don’t feel quite so stressed about money as we did when I purchased that Neighborhood x Seiko collaboration but money is still very much a thought when it comes to watches.

My wife and her mother are getting closer to selling some property that they have had in their family for many generations and we recently had a conversation about what would you do with an influx of money. Naturally since the real estate market in Austin has cooled down a lot since we bought our house we started thinking about getting a new house. It's completely doable, but I think we both agreed after going to look at a few houses that being more comfortable with our finances is more important to us right now than a new house, especially since most people would be more than happy with our current house. This would also allow us to continue to work on Hourstriker and have it grow organically with no real pressure to force monetization.

We've already made the mistake of buying stupid things like cars when suddenly we find ourselves with some extra money in the past, so that road won't be travelled again. Especially since we took pretty big beatings on the cars we purchased after sudden influxes of cash.



That did get me thinking about watches though. Going out and buying watches wouldn't be the best use of that money, especially since it isn't mine to begin with, but it made me start to think for me personally at what level have I reached a level of diminishing returns as it comes to watch prices.

The personal watches we have purchased for ourselves in the last few years have ranged from $200 to $7,000 with the bottom and top end both being watches in my wife's collection. The $200 being a Timex with a Malachite dial she just bought and the other being a Rolex Yacht-Master 16622 she bought wholesale a few years ago, scratching her Rolex itch. The other watches purchased were all purchased pre-owned wholesale and go as follows: $3,500 IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 Titanium, $4,000 Hublot Big Bang All Black 41, $4,000 IWC Pilot's Flyback Chronograph Top Gun (Yes I bought another after selling mine) and $6,500 Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms.

As you can see we really like to stay under that $10,000 cap for our personal watch purchases. Even looking forward my wife would probably like to add a Cartier to her collection and I'd love to add a Porsche Design by IWC Ocean 2000 to mine before all the good examples are gone or have out priced what I want to spend. Those watches should be able to be had at $5,000 or less.

Ok so does mean I feel that $10,000 is the limit of what we would spend on a watch and anything over that would really not be worth it? It's kind of hard to say that with two watches in my collection being well over $10,000. So the real question is if the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar and Royal Oak Offshore Montoya are worth their price and if circumstances were different if we would have spent that much on them.



In all honesty I think at some point I would have acquired the Montoya. Even my wife offered to buy it for me if she sold that property many years ago because she knew how much the watch meant to me. When the Montoya was at its peak the titanium version was selling for nearly $60,000, which is a price I would have never paid for it. With smaller watches being the current trend and the Royal Oak being preferred to the Offshore, prices have pretty much been at all time lows for the Montoya. At $25,000 I could see myself really trying to purchase one. This would have probably been my only watch near that price and also I don't think I'd have been able to afford the other watches in my collection.

As for the Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar, I feel that would have been a watch I would have admired from afar. A Big Pilot Heritage or original 5002 Big Pilot would have scratched that itch for me. I did find myself with two Big Pilots through the above circumstances and that made the acquisition possible. I just do see myself going out and spending $20,000+ on that watch if it wasn't for that though.

So I guess personally that $20,000 to $30,000 range seems to be where my hard limit is and I don't really see much added value in a watch that goes over that. I know for some people that number could be $500 or $1,000 and for others it could be $100,000 or $1,000,000, but for me through personal experience it seems to be around there.

I'm not sure if it's subconscious but any time I see a watch new or used I like that cost over $30,000 I'm just like "that's cool" and move on. I think the biggest reason I don't give these watches any thought is that I'd have to sell either the Montoya or Big Pilot Perpetual (or both) to acquire any of these watches and that would just never happen.



While I can see spending $20,000 or $30,000 on one "grail" centerpiece of your collection I honestly feel most watches lose their appeal after they cross over $10,000. Remember I've been in the industry for a long time and have made many relationships that allow me to purchase in most cases watches at wholesale prices. So $10,000 at wholesale could be closer to $15,000 "market value".

I also have never purchased a watch from an authorized dealer or boutique, even past that the only new watches I've ever owned were my first three watches purchased well over 20 years ago, being my two Omega Seamasters and my IWC GST Chronograph. I've been around enough watches to realize that a pre-owned watch is basically new after a service, light polish and a new strap. I'd rather allow my money to go further by purchasing pre-owned. I'm also a bit stuck in my ways and genuinely prefer neo-vintage watches over their modern counterparts. Also by purchasing non-hype watches that have pretty stagnant values at low prices I can also ensure that if I have to get out of any watches I can do so without much if any loss.

At around $5,000 a watch can be worn without too much concern about damaging it or it being lost or stolen. Also if there is some correction in the market and the watch loses 20 or 30 percent it's really not the end of the world. The same really can't be said of hype watches that lost 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars literally overnight. I do see us purchasing more watches in this range than the $30,000 range, where maybe the only watch that catches my attention at all is a Richard Mille RM 028 at wholesale. Even the thought of that in our current financial situation seems a bit farfetched to be honest.

Another thing I must add to this reflection is my current interest in less than $3,000 watches. Up until starting Hourstriker I would have scoffed at watches in this price range. All my early collection journeys and prior life in the watch industry had conditioned me to think these are just lesser watches not fit for my wrist. My first real time with a watch like this was a C60 Trident Pro 300 from Christopher Ward which was one of the first watches we reviewed. I took the watch with us on a long weekend at a higher end resort and really fell in love with the watch. The only thing that kept nagging me was explaining the watch to somebody who might be wearing say a Rolex. True brand snobbery there…



As more and more less expensive watches started to come in and we kept covering new releases I started to really like and appreciate this price range of watch. Also some of the nicest people I've met in the industry work for these brands. Typically watches in this segment of the market seem to be more dynamic and daring in their designs as well. Christopher Ward for example launches more completely new collections than Rolex does dial or bezel color changes per year. It's just exciting to see what all these smaller more nimble brands keep coming up with as the old guard keeps marching along.

I do feel it's hard for a watch over $3,000 to really prove its worth over a well executed less expensive watch. For example the Christopher Ward C60 Lumiere is a complete package and costs well under $3,000. Are you really getting much more value from any diver that costs more? Not really, it basically comes down to brand name, finishing and movement. Unless the watch has a great in-house or manufacture movement, the Sellita SW-300 is a tough movement to beat in terms of accuracy and reparability. The Lumiere is stunning and crafted out of lightweight titanium with cutting edge block lume, something most higher end divers don’t even offer.

Finally I remember in the 2000s a million dollar watch was an extreme rarity. This was basically limited to the Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon. Today is seems that weekly we're seeing a new million dollar watch and $200,000 watches are extremely common. I don't even think I would mentally be able to ever spend that much money on a watch regardless of our financial situation. The way I look at it is would I rather have a 911 GT3 RS or a watch? The car wins every time…



To wrap everything up, I can see the value of a singular $30,000 watch in a collection, but it would need to be something truly special. I feel that watches under $10,000 have a great value per dollar and the majority of our collection is in that range. I also am fascinated with the under $3,000 price range and for the most part get the most excited for these releases.

I really hope this article doesn't come off as some kind of humble brag piece. It's simply here to illustrate how I find value in watches. In the very recent past $800 was breaking the bank in terms of watch purchases for us. I do really see the value in lower priced pieces and will continue to champion them. Currently I'm really like the Spinnaker Tesei Forged Carbon release from this week for example. Trust me there are people that would look at my collection and feel it's sad and $30,000 might be their beater / entry point if not higher.