time + tide
Small New Year’s resolutions can be very powerful. Even though many resolutions are broken sooner or later, the mental discipline of evaluating your life and working on improvements is still useful. This is similar to flipping a coin, and while you might end up ignoring the outcome, it actually helps you realize the outcome you’ve always wanted. Now, Buffy was curious about how New Year’s resolutions can apply to our watch collection journeys, savings goals, and even just our wearing habits. And we all thought it was an interesting idea and were on board. This is our goal for 2025.
Buffy: Buying Cartier and actually keeping it.
I fooled myself once and was embarrassed. I felt even more embarrassed because I had fooled myself again. The third time I fooled myself, the shame was far stronger than any previous shame. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it’s the fact that I’ve owned and sold three Cartier watches. The first one was the Cartier Pasha Ref. 1033 with an 18K yellow gold diving bezel and power reserve indicator on the dial. I fell in love with its quirkiness and quirky features, making it seem like a watch a magician should wear. I also had a custom strap made because the original alligator leather was confiscated by customs during shipping. Unfortunately, I too fell in love with Cartier’s Tank Vasculante.
I sold the Pasha, along with one or two other watches, to finance the purchase of a Tank Basculante, whose reversible case fascinated me. And I indulged in using it as a miniature desk clock whenever possible. Unfortunately, that love didn’t last long. It might have something to do with the steel case missing the two-tone gold look I craved, or it might just be that the Pasha was really the watch for me. In any case, I ended up selling the tank and the money went towards other hobbies. My third Cartier was recently developed when I stumbled across a 25mm Santos Octagon in pretty rough shape on an eBay auction. It was only AU$800, but I couldn’t resist. I repaired the broken crown myself at home, and other than some scratches and spider webs on the lacquer dial, it was like new, and I liked everything about it even more. However, I was short on money and was getting engaged soon, so I sold it.
In an attempt to fill the Cartier-shaped hole in my heart, I purchased a vintage Credor that pays convincing homage to Santos. I certainly like it, but it’s not Cartier. To make matters worse, it wasn’t until I sold it that I realized that the Santos Octagon was worn in one of my favorite movies, 1996’s The Wachowskis. So my resolution for 2025 is to buy a Cartier and never sell it, no matter how much I want to buy something else. Pasha Ref. Price After the Pasha Collection was revived in 2020, the 1033 has skyrocketed in price, but it’s possible to get another Santos Octagon before the end of the year.
Borna: To repair a vintage Zodiac Astrographic SST.
Maintaining a vintage watch can be difficult, especially if it’s not a standard three-hand watch. Well, the Astrographic SST is no ordinary thing. And best of all, because it looks like a space helmet that could have come out of a 1960s Star Trek design studio. This retro-futuristic darling also features an automatic high-beat 5Hz movement based on the A. Schild 1688, a hand-wound 3Hz caliber from the 1960s. Dubbed the Zodiac 88D, this model is the result of a collaboration between Doxa, Everard, Girard-Perregaux, Favre-Leuba and, of course, Zodiac. The difficulty with such an obscure movement is that parts are missing, and of the four watchmakers I took it to, one just ate it and three I refused to touch it. Unfortunately, my maintenance skills are beyond my level of skill. Winding repair work.
Even though the bracelet, crown, and crystal are all original parts (someone accidentally installed them at a 90-degree offset), I couldn’t wear them because the crown was in danger of falling off at any moment. As a result, this great looking piece of 70’s nostalgia sits in one of my watch boxes. Apart from its looks, this watch is also very dear to my heart as it was the first watch my partner gave me as a gift. I was lucky that this wasn’t the last gift watch she gave me, but I definitely want to restore this watch to its past glory and wear it regularly. So this is both a formal resolution and a plea. If you know of a watchmaker who is willing to take on this challenge, please get in touch.
Jamie: I ended up buying my first vintage mechanical watch.
It may be a little blasphemous to admit this as the editor of a watch publication, but I have never bought a vintage mechanical watch. Although I own a vintage mechanical watch (my grandfather’s Eterna-Matic Dato) and have purchased vintage quartz watches (including a ton of Seiko Grand Quartz and early Swatches that I fell in love with). I have never hunted. Then I got myself a vintage mechanical watch, either manual or automatic. Maybe that’s a bit of an arbitrary distinction, but I feel like it’s a necessary step in my watch collecting journey.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Zach and Borna were the angel and devil on my shoulder respectively. I’ve been bugging them for the last 12 months with Loupe listings and things I’ve found on eBay. What I really need in my collection is a proper mechanical dress watch, and I’ve always admired white gold Audemars Piguets and Vacheron Constantins from the ’70s, but I’ve never been able to buy one. What makes my decision even harder is that I’m also eyeing contemporary vintage-inspired pieces like Echo/Neutra’s Ribanera and Furlan Mari Disco Volante…hopefully , in 2025, I want to get off the fence and buy something.
Zack: Give some love to a watch you don’t use much, or let it go.
We all talk about the honeymoon period with a watch when a new watch joins our collection, but we don’t often talk about the period of time when a watch once went on its honeymoon only to rest and collect dust afterwards. No. It’s in a box. Please watch over my a** forever. I’ve certainly had my share of impulsive watch purchases, where I was totally hooked on the item the moment it arrived, only to find it “meh” a few weeks or months later. “It’s not you, it’s me,” I say to such a watch as I prepare for hibernation in my watchbox. However, I strongly advocate not storing watches that are never worn, at least not unless they are museum pieces intended for archival purposes. Therefore, I need to spend money and do a little audit of my collection.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. I’ve recently found myself wearing clothes again that I haven’t worn in months, just to bring back the glow and rediscover its place in my wear list. After several major purchases over the past 18 months and the accompanying honeymoon period, I’ve found that I’m better off repeating less and rotating daily within a week. And in this resurgence of ritual and discipline, I am able to find a sense and evaluate whether that watch is worth keeping or finding a new home after it has been put back on my wrist a few times. It will look like this.
Pietro: To expand the collection with something other than hand-wrapped sheer dress pieces.
My watch collecting journey had a very unique start in that the first proper watch I ever owned was a Grand Seiko dress piece, and I haven’t strayed too far from that genre since then. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all types of watches, but when it comes to collecting, I always decide on a type. Borna is quick to point it out every time I send him something, and vice versa. “Don’t worry, we have hand-rolled ones too,” was one of the most recent messages he sent me.
Ok, we need to diversify a little. But I assure you I don’t necessarily look for them. I like to dress up more than wear casual clothes, so an elegant watch helps. I also think that not wearing a watch when doing any kind of physical activity has an effect. Perhaps you should start with that first, followed by different types of watches. So the general rule is not to get too many watches, but I will do my best to get an automatic as my next watch. Going completely out of your comfort zone may work out in the end, but I think you’ll need a thinner model to make the leap smaller. If you have any recommended items for a sporty look, please let us know!
Russell: To finally sell a watch I no longer wear.
I recently published my most worn watches of 2024. Other than Oris, Tudor, and Universal Genève, there is only one other watch in my collection that I regularly wear. It’s a 1991 vintage Swatch Spot Flash. I have three more watches sitting in my watch box, but they are completely useless. I’ve outgrown them, I feel like there’s no situation where I’d want to wear them more than the other four watches I just mentioned, and now all I have left is my watch All you need to do is make the box look full. If these watches were to have any significant value in the world of watches (if they were sold today, they would all cost less than £500 each), I would have handed them over to a reputable dealer by now and put them in charge of sales. I would have asked him to do it for me. However, given their relatively low cost, there are no dealers that I know of that would take them. So it’s been left to me to do the work of compiling a complete eBay listing for each and dealing with everything that comes with it.
I’m not a big buyer or seller on eBay, so the thought of going through the whole process is pretty daunting. But 2025 is the year for me to make sound financial decisions, so I need to liquidate these watches while they still have some form of monetary value. So, hopefully, I’ll be back here next year to talk about how I sold my watch, bought my house, and now spend my money even more irresponsibly on watches that are more than twice my age. I think so. But who knows what will happen to all of us in 2025?
