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The Beckertime Beginners Guide to Buying a New Watch
In our comprehensive blog archive, you will find a whole host of articles dedicated to giving you the best, most up-to-date insights on a range of watch collecting subjects.
Now, obviously, as a preowned Rolex dealer, much of the information is skewed in the crown’s favor. We have, for example, already published comprehensive guides to buying both new and preowned models from the manufacture.
However, horology is a very broad church and there are countless other brands out there, ranging from great conglomerate behemoths to tiny, near-one man bands. Some of these offer vastly different takes on the whole business and can be fascinating in their own right.
The problem is; if you are a total newbie, where do you start? You know you are in the market for a watch but even the most perfunctory bit of research soon leads you down a rabbit hole of goliath proportions.
Every collector knows the feeling and, if it makes you feel any better, we are all still learning new things all the time too.
But, we can make the most important steps—the first ones—a little simpler. Below, we have put together a few vital questions you need to ask yourself before you part with any money to ensure you end up with a watch you can be proud of.
What is Your Personal Style?
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. These days, nobody really needs a watch. Everyone now has a phone which, along with a billion other things, tells you the time more accurately than just about any wristwatch on the market—unless it’s a smart watch, of course. In fact, you might well be reading this on your phone.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s address exactly why the watch industry is currently experiencing pretty much the highest profits in its history.
There are actually a number of reasons. You can point to factors such as their convenience. Wristwatches usurped pocket watches in the early 20th century because they could be read much quicker. Pocket watches had to be retrieved from inside clothing to check the time; remind you of anything? There are also aspects such as their functionality, their craftsmanship or their reliability (mechanical watches don’t run out of battery).
Many people point to the memories associated with a particular model. For instance, there are pieces in my own collection I may sell in time, but the one I was wearing as I watched my children being born will stay with me forever.
But the number one reason watches are so fantastically popular in the modern day is that they are perfect demonstration of your individual style.
For men especially, they are the wear anytime, go anywhere accessory that most convey personality and character. Watches speak to other people before you do, so you have to ask, what do you want yours to say?
That comes down to a great many decisions. Wearing a dive watch (even if you are not a diver) says a particular thing about you, a dress watch something else. In the same vein, a piece in stainless steel is a completely different animal than one in yellow gold, even if they are the same model.
Then there are dial colors to consider. Do you go for classic monochrome blacks and whites or do you prefer brighter, more unorthodox shades?
The choice of bracelet also has a massive effect on the overall look and, consequently, the persona you put across. Two otherwise identical pieces on either a leather or rubber strap versus one on a metal bracelet can look so far removed from each other they might as well be different watches.
This is the time to have a long think about exactly the kind of image you want to convey, what qualities are most important to you and choose your watch accordingly. Are you the more active type, or more formal? Do you want your watch to turn heads or are you happy to be noticed only by those with an inside knowledge of these things?
The most important rule though, is to not let yourself be influenced by a third party. Just because someone else might be trying to persuade you towards a particular model does not necessarily mean it is right for you. Only you know the ideal match, and you will know it when you see it.
What is Your Budget?
From the emotional to the pragmatic. Once you have sorted out exactly the style of watch you want, it is time to decide how much you want to spend. This is something you have to decide before you go shopping if you don’t want to come back with both a great watch and some serious regret. Set a price cap, maybe factor in just how much you are willing to go over if something unmissable shows up, and stick to it. A watch you know you can’t afford is not a watch you enjoy.
The good news here is that there is an example of almost any type at just about every price point.
Japanese manufacture Orient, for example, offers the Bambino for just $300, a superb, classically designed dress piece in a range of sizes and styles.
If you fancy a dive watch, you will find you are absolutely spoiled for choice. The most overrepresented category in the industry, you can spend as little as $70 and secure yourself a great one. Take a look at the Casio Duro (as worn by Bill Gates, donchaknow) for instance.
Clearly, only you know how much you have to spend, but one thing which has always been true about watch collecting is that there is always a more expensive option, which is why exercising a little fiduciary discipline is so critical. Elements such as material, technology, rarity and the amount of workmanship which has been employed all have significant effect on price.
At the top end of the scale, there are watches that can literally run into the millions to buy. However, by that point, strange as it may sound, many are essentially free. As with most other works of art, which these models are by the time we get to the seven figure pieces, they will continue to accumulate in value or, at the very least, not lose any over the years. Bought almost as much for their investment potential, they are a handy place for the one percent to park some money.
Happily, there are an uncountable number of incredible watches priced to sell at far more reasonable rates. I can’t tell you how much to pay, but you can ask yourself if it is something you hope to one day pass down as an heirloom and work out what that different sort of investment is worth to you.
What Do You Want Your Watch To Do?
When you start your research, you will quickly come across the term ‘complications’ in regards to watches.
All that refers to is what a watch can do over and above telling the time. In its simplest form, a date display is a complication. And in its very not simplest form, you can take a look at something like the Franck Muller Aeternitas, currently the record holder for most complicated wristwatch ever made, cramming in 36 functions, including the likes of a perpetual calendar (one that compensates for the different number of days in the month as well as leap years), moonphases, additional time zones and a minute repeater (which strikes out the hours, quarters and minutes on request).
Of course, some complications are more useful than others. As well as the aforementioned date display (probably the handiest, on balance), a so-called Day-Date, which shows both the day of the month and day of the week, is even more helpful. After that, the chronograph, the name for a mechanical stopwatch, has myriad uses away from its originally intended home of the racetrack. Basically anything you need to time, whether its cooking or restricting screen time for the kids, a chronograph makes it easier to see how much time has elapsed.
If you travel a lot, a GMT complication which can show you two time zones at once, has been proven to help stave off jetlag or, if you want to take it one step further, a world time. These display all 24 of the earth’s time zones and allows you to know what hour it is anywhere on the planet.
As you might expect, the more complications, and the more complex the complication, the more expensive a watch generally is. In addition, fitting a number of functions into a single watch can mean it needs to be larger physically, and can compromise the readability. This is where seeing the watch in the flesh becomes important.
What Type Of Movement Do You Want?
Outside the electronics of digital and smart watches, there are really three different types of movement to know about before you decide which model is right for you.
Quartz
Quartz watches are powered by batteries which provide a charge to a piece of quartz crystal causing it to vibrate at an extremely consistent frequency to regulate the time.
Stemming from the 1960s, they have a number of advantages over more traditional watches. Firstly, they tend to be far cheaper than their mechanically-driven counterparts, due to an easier construction process and fewer moving components. Fewer parts also means less maintenance, restricted usually to a battery change every three to five years.
Most of all though, a quartz movement is infinitely more accurate than even the best mechanical caliber (the fancy name for movement).
However, for all their benefits, many hardcore collectors consider quartz watches the poor relation to the heritage and craftsmanship of a conventional watch.
Automatic
A watch described as an automatic has a mechanical movement which winds itself via a spinning weight, called a rotor, attached to the mainspring.
The mainspring serves the same purpose as the quartz watch’s battery; it is a power source that transfers its energy to the time telling hands by way of an escapement, which parcels out that energy in one second increments and through a series of gears.
What that all means is that you rarely have to wind an automatic yourself; the movement of your arm makes the rotor spin and does it for you. Should you leave the watch unworn for a while, the mainspring will, of course, expend all its energy and the watch will stop. After that, you do need to wind it to get it going again. That period of time, what is known as the watch’s power reserve, can be anything from 36-hours or so up to around 8 days depending on the watch.
Manual
A manual watch is, surprise surprise, one you have to wind yourself. That is, one without a self-winding rotor.
These predate the automatic variety, but rather than being an outdated concept, some true icons of horology, past and present, are hand wound.
Perhaps most famous of these today is Omega’s glorious Moonwatch, the Speedmaster. The model worn when man first set foot on the lunar surface in 1969, Omega has retained the Speedy as a manually wound variant ever since.
Just as with self-winding movements, you will find hand wound calibers inside watches at every step along the pricing spectrum. From Hamilton’s vintage-inspired Khaki Field costing a few hundred dollars, through to many of Patek Philippe’s six-figure Grand Complication collection.
Again, similarly to automatic calibers, manual movements also have a power reserve which can keep the hands turning for several days without any input. But many owners, myself included, enjoy the ritual of winding their watch every morning. And some traditionalists even suggest a hand wound watch is more accurate than an automatic due to that routine, with the mainspring always receiving a consistent tension—although I think the jury’s out on that one.
Either way, there is something wonderfully tactile and calming about turning the crown on a beautifully constructed movement.
In our next article, I’ll go into the ins and outs of buying a preowned watch and what you need to look out for.
Featured Photo: JESHOOTS-com via Pixabay (cc).
