Watch lunacy!

I think I may have already use the vast majority of these rationalisations in my watch buying history. Respect to tribe125!

1. It’s 1am. I was about to go to bed and now I’ve found this. One in stock. One in the world by the look of it. I could lay awake thinking about it. Or I could go to bed smiling. Now or never. I have mail. I have mail again. Bedtime.

2. I’ve been good. No new watch for three months. I’m saving up for a ‘big one’. I could buy a strap. Straps don’t count. I could buy a strap for the ‘big one’. Now then, let’s look at all the straps in the world.

3. Somebody like me should have a watch like this. Exactly this watch. I could sell some. I’d never sell this. Just imagine looking down at your wrist and seeing this. Out of my league really. But just look at it. Thank you, I’ll take it. Look at the box!

4. I got it as a beater. Not that I beat, or fully understand the nature of beating.

5. I had never thought of buying one, but they were so cheap I bought two.

6. Women have many pairs of shoes and different handbags, it’s exactly the same thing.

7. It’s not as though I spend money on computers, cameras, or remote-controlled helicopters. Er….

8. I have a limit on the number of watches, and a strict ‘one in, one out’ policy. This one doesn’t count though, it’s just a work watch. And the five in the drawer don’t count either. And the G-Shocks are just for when I’m felling trees or drilling for oil.

9. Of course it’s worth paying more for a decorated movement. You can see it when you’re not wearing it.

10. A good, representative collection should have one of each type, and I haven’t got a purple one.

11. They only made 200, so I won’t be wearing it. The standard model looks the same, so I might get one of those for wearing.

12. It’s Russian. It might not work for more than a week but it’s got a tank on it. Fantastic value.

13. It’s a Casio. Everybody should have a Casio. I’ve got 348.

14. I needed a Rolex Submariner. My other watches are only rated to 200m. I go swimming in the sea, and the sea is deeper than that.

15. Two hundred pounds might sound like a lot for a plastic watch, but most of these were thrown away, and there’s an eBay seller who can provide new movements, bezels and straps.

16. It costs a lot of money because it’s Swiss. If it was made anywhere else it would cost less. But it wouldn’t be Swiss. You see?

17. It’s not expensive when you consider the centuries of tradition and craftsmanship that were abandoned in favour of more efficient methods of production.

18. I have to buy lots of watches so I can work out which one I would have if I could only have one.

19. Yes, but it went to the moon. And it came back. And it worked. Which makes it ideal for going down the pub.

20. Cheap watches are a false economy. A £20 watch might only last two years, so over the course of a lifetime you might be spending £600 on watches. Whereas my Rolex…

21. Of course accuracy matters. Not even twenty seconds a year is good enough. Take the watch you got for Christmas. A year from now, do you want to start singing Auld Lang Syne twenty seconds early? You’d look a fool. Five seconds, and you might get away with it. And what about timing your re-entry to Earth after a voyage to far-flung galaxies? You should think about these things…

22. It’s an investment. I got a 20% discount, so I’ve already made a little bit of money. When it’s out of production the value will rise.

23. The watch is stealthy. Nothing to reveal my position to a sniper. If necessary, I could be flown straight from my desk to covert operations behind enemy lines without having to change my watch. You have to be ready.

24. I don’t have a digital SRL but I NEED one with an IQ of 150, a tripod and a light tent so I can take photographs of packaging. Sometimes, instead of looking at my watches or wearing them, I look at photos of my watches.

25. When I had one watch, I didn’t have to think about watches. Now I have lots of watches, I have to think about them all the time. Is there a watch I should buy? Is there a watch I should sell? Which one should I wear today? Which one is ‘the one’? Which ones are ‘the others’? People with one watch have a watch. People with lots of watches don’t have one.

26. When I go away for more than a week I take two watches. The second watch is to stop me running into a watch shop after wearing the first one for a week.

27. I can recognise the shape of a watch parcel at a distance of 1,000 yards.

28. I bought it because it was perfect. I wore it because it was great. I kept it because it was good. I sold it because I bought one that was perfect.

29. It’s a keeper. I’ll also keep the little carrier-bag with thick cord handles, the swing-tag, the sticky bit of plastic, the square of thin foam and the mysterious little piece of yellow paper with the letter ‘N’ on it. You never know.

30. I used to buy expensive watches. I bought one or two and they gave me a lot of pleasure. Then it dawned on me that I was crazy to spend thousands on watches. Now I buy a G-Shock every week and all that madness is behind me.