Leave the seat down: a search for a vintage watch collecting philosophy

When I was about fifteen, God got up abruptly, and left by the back door. As the door shut quietly, he said, “I’ll be back soon enough, carry on for now.” It certainly took something away from Christmas and Easter in the short term. Rituals became shallow and lost meaning. The direction and purpose that I had taken for granted had evaporated.

So, I turned as all young men must, to intoxicants, the fairer sex, and the study of philosophy. Only two of those combine in anything resembling a fun evening. I usually combined the wrong two: a stiff bourbon and the Critique of Pure Reason. (Kant is impenetrable sober, impossible after three Jim Beams.) I wallowed in the German Enlightenment and even went to so far as to try to adapt the World as Will and Idea into some fictional form, filling notebooks with drivel. (Perhaps, it would have worked better as a musical, the world may never know.) I engaged in many cosmological arguments with myself, never winning.

It took nearly five years to give up on Schopenhauer and his pessimism. I realized that I could not hold an entire all explaining world view in my head. My deepest thoughts were expressed as aphorisms, pithy little things. The one paragraph nuggets of the self-discipline of Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus were as much as I could retain. Stoicism is a good structure upon which to build the simulacrum of a good life. You could and can do worse.

When I had children, I tried to impart to them the lessons I had acquired that would lead to a good life. This is what I have learned. It will be easier for you if you just listen to me. Listen! No, I am serious, listen. Ok mister, you are in time-out. One of those lessons involved bathroom etiquette: leave the bathroom in a better condition when you leave it than when you entered it. Pick up the tissue from the floor. Wipe off the water on the sink. Straighten the hand towels. For God’s sake, flush.

Leaving the bathroom in a better condition than when you found it has broader applications. It is almost always the case that you wish to do your job, whatever it may be, so that you leave the task or work-place better off than when you first got there. When I leave a hotel room I put the used towels in the tub and a small tip on the nightstand, not better, but not hard to clean.

As a mostly vintage collector I apply this simplistic philosophy to my watches. I try to leave them in better condition than I found them. They get serviced. They receive new crystals. The tarnish is wiped clean. They become functioning watches again, not just junk in grandpa’s dresser drawer. I bring them back and then I usually move on.

This was rescued from oblivion. Once it became a functioning mid-century watch I passed it on to a new owner who presumably does not, as I do, have too many. When I sold this one the purchaser later wrote me to tell me how much they really enjoy having a vintage watch that works and has a distinct beauty. It gives him more joy than it did me.

I am not a steward of any watch. I will not give in to Patek’s ad copy. However, I do want to clean it up and pass it on in better condition. Incrementally, watch by watch, I can put them back into use. They can be someone’s heirloom or cherished possession. Over the last five years or so I have spent some measure of repair, restoration, or servicing on nearly one hundred and fifty watches. My collection never exceeded seventy watches. Most of these have new homes and are, hopefully, making new memories. Leave it better than you found it: my deep philosophy of collecting.