My Knowledge Problem

I knew that there was a saying that something “was the thief of joy.” I have been feeling a bit joyless in the collecting part of watch collecting recently. I looked it up and it was “comparison”. Well, that covers FOMO pretty much. It is a very stoic way of looking at the world. Teddy Roosevelt, the originator of the quote was surely well versed in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. He may have been schooled on them in Latin, as all properly educated young men of his time.

But comparison with the collections of others wasn’t my problem. It took me well into my fourth decade on the planet before I stopped judging myself against others. It is a hard lesson to internalize. With that being ruled out as a potential thief I had to look elsewhere. The collection itself was not the problem. I like wearing my mix of vintage generic Swiss watches, legacy American brands, Soviet oddities, and the occasional Chinese original. It is the collecting: the active search for the next thing.

I like rectangular “tank” watches from the 1940’s and 1950’s. I have over twenty of them. I really have all bases covered for that style. Chris inspired me to buy a number of military-style watches from the 1940’s. I have five or six. That is enough. I have the 1960’s elegant three hands and just enough of the 1970’s, a devolution of style, to satisfy. But like any compulsive snacker, I also have room for one more cookie (biscuit to some of you).

I settled on knowledge being my thief of joy. I have a knowledge problem. Not Friedrich Hayek’s knowledge problem. Here it is just me, not a huge bureaucracy without the ability to collate diffuse knowledge. I may just have a little too much of it. I have looked at too many watches for too long.

Here is an example of a watch that recently sold as a Hamilton. When you have owned a few vintage Hamiltons you immediately know that this is not a Hamilton. The case and the dial are the first clues. Hamilton was remarkably consistent over the decades in their design choices. They were rarely flashy. Their quality came in their movements and the gold content of the cases, not embellishments. They used 18k numerals because they would not tarnish. The dial colors were usually cream or black, no coppers. A reverse image search did not turn up any matches, but the closest were late 1930’s Helbros or Waltham. Waltham struggled in the 1930’s and produced large numbers of forgettable seven jewel movement cheapo watches. The seller did not post a picture of the movement. That is a tell. It probably said Helbros.

Here is another one that I considered. I love me some Wyler, the anti-Timex. Wyler were mass market solid and boring watches. But they were well made and always had a Swiss lever, unlike the pin pallet Timex. EBay is full of listings of non-running Timex, but the Wyler always have some life left in them. What drew me to this was the military-style dial which had patinated to a ghostly gray. It also had a stainless-steel case when I would have expected a chromed brass one. This seller included a picture of the movement. It was period correct to the dial, 1940’s. He also included a picture of the inside of the case back. With some magnification I could read “Hong Kong.” Buzz kill. This watch was re-cased in the 1960’s or 1970’s when Hong Kong became a major source of less expensive cases. I don’t know that the seller knew this, but I did. No sale, at least not to me.

I had a hearing downtown this week and took the opportunity to visit my watchmaker. He had six of my watches. He gave me back two, and I am grateful. I try not to let him have more than a few at a time. I get slower results if I burden him. We talked and he showed me a box of things that he was about to put on display. He had questions about a few. The Ulysse Nardin was a fake. It was obvious from the dial. They appear sometimes from foreign sellers on eBay. The plastic movement holder was another big clue. The Mimo jump hour was real. I explained that it was a Girard-Perregaux, before GP. I almost bought a jumbo Certina. What stopped me was that the handset was anachronistic: it belonged to an earlier era of watch. I wish that I did not see that. The watch was pretty.

I know that the preceding paragraph can seem like a humble brag: my watchmaker asking me about watches. It isn’t. Watchmakers are concerned about making broken things work. They will replace handsets or cases to get to a working product. Collectors are the custodians of the esoteric knowledge and that knowledge has kept me from buying a wonky Hamilton, a re-cased Wyler, and a perfectly good Certina. My store of joy has not been increased. I may have to find a new subject to learn.

(The cover photo is of chemtrails, which I was assured would end with the government shutdown. So, they are still doing the mind control thing. My conspiracy theory is that chemtrails are designed to make watch collectors buy Tudor Black Bays. Certain taste receptors in the brain are compromised. We are all pawns in the game controlled by Big Snowflake.)