SOTC (State of the Collection) North American Watches

I have not done a SOTC in quite sometime now (almost 4 years), so I decided to do one now. Now my collection has grown significantly. About 140 watches. I have to do it in segments.

My journey began when I received a watch from a friend in the 7th grade (a friend to this day! This was in 1978). Timex Viscount Calendar. I asked my father for a watch in the 8th grade. He bought me a Casio “Ripley.” My marriage watch was a TAG Se/L (Loved the links on these). On our honeymoon, I got Citizen Eco-Drive Titanium, both of which I still have. The Ripley and Viscount Calendar have long gone, but I managed to get replacements.

Now I am semi-retired. I have been seriously collecting watches for about 12 years now, but in the last three years I doubled my collection, from 60 to over 120 watches. I have also gifted several watches to my wife, son, 3 daughters, and my brother-in-law. They have included Happy Diamonds, Tanks, Cellini, Patrimony, Stowa, Luminox, Citizens, Seikos, Hamilton, Casios, Oris, and an Apple watch (my daughter really wanted this. LOL).

I mostly collect "iconic" watches. Everything from a $30 Casio to over $30,000 watch. I look for special movements (e.g., Mondaine Stop2Go), dive watches (I love the deeper they go - e.g., H2O Kalmar2 at 25,000m), and dials (stone, enamel, guilloche, etc…), so just about anything. I tend to stay away from very complicated watches (e.g., annual/perpetual calendar, minute repeater, etc…) just because they are so complex to fix. I collect everything with a purpose.

My journey is far from over. I know I still have some watches to collect, so don’t say, “Your missing…” Trust me, I know what I am missing. LOL! All comments and criticisms welcome, except the Hublot…I love that watch! LOL! Just joking. I love all my watches and they all get wrist time, even if it is only a couple days per year. I would say, “I am a watch nerd or enthusiast, not a watch snob.”

The collection is divided into cases by countries, continents or solar.

Thank you for reading this.