The first day of January is one where we frequently look back at the previous year and forward to the one to come. (The Roman god Janus had two faces for a reason, maybe.) Here I will discuss what I learned about myself this year (I am dictating this while staring at my visage in the mirror, never breaking eye contact. It is better than navel gazing, it is hypnotic. If I turn out the lights and repeat the name “Gerald Genta” into the mirror three times all my watches will have integrated bracelets: Hell on Earth.)
“To thine own self be true,” is the high-falutin Shakespeare version of the watch advice “buy what you like.” It places us, as the watch consumer, at the center of the universe. We really aren’t cut out to be the center of any universe worth inhabiting. No one stops to think that this advice of Polonius to King Claudius in Hamlet was most assuredly glib and wrong and meant to be mocked. Polonius was always wrong. And yet, we have placed ourselves at the center.
Well, in the universe where I am the center, last year was uneventful in watch terms. I had few goals: a Gruen Pan American to put a period at the end of my “American” phase of buying every old American brand in sight, and an early Eternamatic to highlight the “modernity” of my old watches. They were something once, both of those companies. I found the watches (and more besides). The Eterna will get some work before its debut. The Gruen was ready for its close-up months ago.
My other goal was to get off of the treadmill of watch consumption. I bought fewer watches and sold just as many. I have no real discipline and will eat every cookie in the jar if given the opportunity. But generally, I maintained equilibrium. I bought about half as many watches, but still too many. The time between purchases was still measured in weeks, not months. Mark this as “incomplete,” better but not quite at my desired destination.
I think that it is safe to say that my “Cold War” phase of buying one of every Communist bloc brand is over. My Raketa and Slava are gone. The rest are consigned to the weekend, where the misfits and oddballs go. It really comes down to aesthetics. No matter how cool and innovative the designs were, the watches are always betrayed by substandard finishing and materials. They kept plated cases twenty years after the West. I am forgiving of a little wabi sabi, but it was clear that 80-year-old Swiss watches were clearly better at their purpose than 40-year-old Soviet ones.
One last observation: I think that I am favoring automatics more than I ever have. That may lead to a change in wearing habits. Recently, I have been a 30 watches for 30 days type of collector. I have always had a mix of mechanicals, automatics, and quartz. But I have to “wear what I love.” It is about me, all me. Or it isn’t. I may fill this space with less direct watch content next year. The watch navel gazing may be coming to an end. The spell may be breaking.
The Escapement Room 