The key to deriving maximum enjoyment from watch ownership is to create a road map for one's inevitable tendency to buy and keep watches for the long term. The purpose of a focused – themed – collection is to maximize enjoyment of the process. By focusing and honing his collection, a watch buyer overcomes challenges of the search, the chase, and the capture that would be lost in the ease of indiscriminate acquisition.
Consider the analogy of a high-performance car. A true thoroughbred such as a Ferrari 458 Italia may be an absolute hoot to slide around a parking lot or ride to YouTube fame in a cloud of tire smoke. But this is a waste of engineering.
The true connoisseur prefers to pit the Italia against the demands of a racetrack. While the track constrains the direction, speed, acceleration, and drift of the car, the result of beating a rival to the apex, shaving tenths of a second per corner, and setting the lap record creates more than gratification; it breeds satisfaction. Achieving what requires discipline and focus is more rewarding than wonton indulgence.
Finding a long-sought grail watch is the equivalent of setting a Laguna Seca production class lap record in that Ferrari.
While men's fascination with luxury wristwatches transcends national, linguistic, and political lines, individual tastes are as varied as watch buyers themselves. The greatest challenge when beginning a collection is selection of a guiding idea – a theme.
Brands provide one possible route. Many collectors who buy and keep watches for the long-term develop a special affinity for a single brand, and that brand becomes their theme. For example, Rolex's conservatism appeals to many. These collectors cherish the fact that models built decades apart retain a family resemblance and consistently excellent mechanical durability.
By the same token, certain brands such as Audemars Piguet and Jaeger-LeCoultre are notable for building watches that vary wildly from era to era and line to line. For collectors of these brands, the challenge is to amass a collection that provides a portrait in microcosm of the subject's prolific output.
Enthusiasts looking to buy and keep watches for the long term can begin their collections by asking a simple question: what watches do I like? Find a unifying thread between these examples, and let that become your theme. Blue watches can be a theme. Chronographs or dive watches can be a theme. German (Glashütte) watches can be a theme. Independent watchmakers can be a theme.
Deciding on a theme may be the easiest part of forging a collection. Collecting is the challenge of research; it's the excitement of discovery; it's the rush of the pursuit; it's the satisfaction of the mounted trophy.
