I have decided to start another collection. Actually the real truth is that I’ve got a bit obsessive about something, and now I’m trying to put a bit of shape and control on it.<\/p>\n
I don’t generally have an addictive personality but I do get occasional obsessions where I get one thing and then have to have more similar things, or research and build my kit ad infinitum, until the fascination wears off a bit. The trick is to make sure that it’s something I can afford, where ownership of multiple items makes some sense and where it is possible to dispose of the unwanted items without costing too much money.<\/p>\n
Most of my collections involve clothing, where it makes reasonable sense to buy another T shirt, or bright jacket, or endangered species tie (of which I may well have the world’s largest collection). They can all be used, don’t take up too much space, and have some natural turnover as favourites wear out. Likewise I have a reasonable collection of malt whiskies, but I do steadily drink them.<\/p>\n
Another trick is to make sure that the collection has a strong theme, which makes sure you stay focused, and which ideally limits the rate of acquisition to one compatible with your financial and storage resources. I don’t collect "ties", or even "animal ties", I collect Endangered Species ties, which only came from two companies and haven’t been made for several years. Likewise my jackets must have a single strong colour, and fit me, which narrows things down usefully. <\/p>\n
The new collection got started innocently enough. For nearly 18 years my only "good" watch was a Rado Ceramica, a dual display model. About a year ago I started to fancy a change, not least because between changes in my sight, a dimming of the Rado’s digital display, and a lot of nights in a very dark hotel room I realised it was functioning more as jewellery than a reliable way of telling the time. So I wanted a new watch, but I wasn’t inspired as to what.<\/p>\n
Then I watched Broken Arrow, and fell in lust with John Travolta’s Breitling Aerospace. The only challenge was that they are quite expensive items, and I wasn’t quite ready to make that purchase. In the meantime we watched Mission Impossible 5, and I was also quite impressed with Simon Pegg’s Tissot T-Touch. That was more readily satisfied, and I got hold of a second-hand one with nice titanium trim and a cheerful orange strap for about \u00a3200. This turned out to be an excellent "holiday" watch, tough, colourful and with lots of fun features including a thermometer, an altimeter\/barometer, a compass, and a clever dual time zone system. That temporarily kept the lust at bay, but as quite a chunky device it wasn’t the whole solution.<\/p>\n
The astute amongst you will have recognised that there a couple of things going on here which could be the start of a "theme". Firstly I very much like unusual materials: the titanium in all watches I’ve mentioned, the sapphire faces of the Breitling and the Rado and that watch’s hi-tech ceramic. <\/p>\n
Second all these watches have a dual digital\/analogue display. I’ve always liked that concept, ever since the inexpensive Casio watch which I wore for most of the 90s. Not only is it a style I like, it’s also now a disappearing one, being displaced by cleverer smartphones and smart watches. Of the mainstream manufacturers only Breitling and Tissot still make such watches. That makes older, rarer examples eminently collectable.<\/p>\n
To refine the collection, there’s another dimension. I like my stuff to be unusual, ideally unique. Sometimes there’s a functional justification, like the modified keyboards on my MacBooks, but it’s also why my last two cars started off black and ended up being resprayed. Likewise, when I finally decided to take advantage of the cheap jewellery prices in Barbados and bought my Breitling I looked hard at the different colour options and ended up getting the vendor to track down the last Aerospace with a blue face and matching blue strap in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
Of course, if I’m being honest there’s a certain amount of rationalisation after the event going on here. What actually happened is that after buying the Breitling I got a bit obsessed and bought several and sold several cheaper watches before really formulating the rules of my collection. However I can now specify that any new entrant must be (unless I change the rules, which may happen at any time at the collector’s sole option \ud83d\ude42 ):<\/p>\n
Ironically I’m not so insistent that it has to be a great "time telling" device. There are honourable exceptions (the Breitling), but there does seem to be a rough inverse relationship between a watch’s beauty and its clarity. I’m prepared to accommodate a range here, although it has to be said that most of the acquisitions beat the Rado in a dark room.<\/p>\n
So will these conditions control my obsession, or inflame and challenge it? Time will tell, as will telling the time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have decided to start another collection. Actually the real truth is that I’ve got a bit obsessive about something, and now I’m trying to put a bit of shape and control on it. I don’t generally have an addictive … Continue reading