Enough of this “let me look at my phone to see what time it is, ooooh, 12 new messages” thing. Here we go.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Watches
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Watches, especially mechanical ones, are jewellery: objects of desire, not of need.
They are relatively terrible at keeping time, expensive to buy and you need to be preoccupied with their upkeep.
There's value in having a simple watch, in the quiet comfort it provides when checking the time without being distracted by notifications, but any Timex or $50 Casio (great watches also btw) will do the job better than any mechanical watch ever could.
It's an obsession and a hobby, but rationally indefensible.
Like socially acceptable hobby train collecting, only you strap the train on your wrist and flaunt it about for social signalling with the pretense of needing a Vacheron Constantin to tell the time.
You don't need it any more than you need cufflinks to button the sleeves of your shirt.
If you're lusting after a watch you can't afford you can calm that desire by reminding yourself of the irrationality of it all.
Or, if you do decide to give in, then lean fully in, instead of trying to justify it with thin veneers of rationality: I'm giving myself a present. For a certain type of person that's a very hard proposition.
I'm saying all that as someone currently wearing a mechanical watch.
It works just well as a present and as a time keeper, even for me who doesn’t wear jewelry. But indeed, it needed a well-thought decision.
I guess my point was that in this day and age mechanical watches are in fact primarily jewellery, as they don't justify their existence as time pieces.
The average mechanical might drift 5-15 secs per day and have a max power reserve of 20-80 hours.
At least once per week you need to be on top of it, adjusting it against an actually accurate clock if you want to not be late at appointments (if you're in fact using it as your primary time keeper).
Do you need to know day and date? That's two pretty expensive complications - and with those you'll need to also be adjusting it at the end of every other month as it doesn't know the month or the year.
A $50 GShock will drift 15secs per year or less and might require a battery change every 10 years and have 5 complications the mechanical would only dream of. For an extra $20 purchase price it will automatically sync with atomic clocks every night and charge in the sun - you'll never have to worry about power or inaccuracy ever again.
A mechanical watch you need to baby: shock, drop, humidity, magnetic fields, the weather, all will cause issues. Hell, even adjusting day-date complications at the wrong time might grind the gears.
You need to service it by an expert every 3-5 years at a significant cost.
You drop the Casio from an airplane and it will survive fine. Service? I'll see you in a decade for a battery change at $10.
If the argument is time-keeping this is like riding a horse and buggy to go to a meeting when you could do a video call instead.
So why do we choose to spend all that money on them?
It's pure indulgence and social signalling (look at what I can afford // see what this says about me) - aka: jewellery.
If we buy really expensive or rare ones we hope they'll go up in price in the future, but probably won't - aka: jewellery.
We combine them with different straps and some of us have collections of different ones for different occasions or moods - you guessed it: jewellery.
Their utility of keeping time very, very expensively and rather badly by modern standards is simply the thin veneer of logic we need to justify the rest of the cost.
I submit that instead we should admit that we buy them as an act of pure self love.
For the same reason we might buy and display a nice piece of art. It needs cleaning, it needs to be protected and sometimes we choose to display it in a prominent place.
We can see a million pieces of art on our phone for free - but many of us still buy them and display them in our home or work.
Because we're social creatures and owning nice things that we can admire both on our own and others can admire with us and about our choices makes us feel good, and that's it.
Good mechanical movements - and I consider the ETA C07.811 to be one - are not that bad at keeping the time, and the need to let someone “service” a perfectly functional watch is a myth in my opinion. One could also argue that not requiring any battery is an absolute necessity, given that humanity mostly agrees that we should harm the environment as little as possible these days. (Which is a major advantage over quartz, “smart”, eco-something, … watches.)
But I do agree that a mechanical watch requires special care while being used, and it feels good to have a shiny gadget where others have nothing or a touchscreen or something. :-)
But If ecology is the argument then all consumption is bad for the environment - any watch is unnecessary conspicuous consumption.
BTW, I've seen unserviced movements that were ridden to death - it's not pretty. Gaskets fail, oils wear out, dust and humidity creep in, rust expands.
Either way, enjoy your new watch.
Thank you. :-)