Hi, having recently reached +200 postings I think it’s about time to introduce myself to the OF. My love for watches dates back to my childhood. I still cherish my first Swiss watch received as a gift from my godfather back in the seventies. Since then I have wasted a lot of money on the wrong brands and paid plenty noob taxes. I guess most of you have experienced it can take a while before you are rewarded with some level of watch collecting wisdom. Due to circumstances I “lost” my complete collection of roughly 25 pieces about 5 years ago. I had a suspicion where they went but couldn’t prove it. Having that collection going MIA turned out to become the genesis of something better. So I decided to start all over again, this time however I had a bit more resources on hand and decided to buy my first Rolex. A brand new GMT was my choice of poison. Because it fitted my budget and the AD had it in stock (yes, that was not impossible back in 2014). After that, it went rapidly crescendo and a considerable number of watches followed, mainly Rolex and a few Tudors as well. All brand new. First vintage piece ended up in my lap by coincidence. A friend asked me whether I was interested to offload a 5513 from one of his friends. The guy received it as a gift but was too shy to wear it as he had nothing with watches. It was a heavily beaten up example in full original condition. After some minimal cleaning and servicing this turned out to be a great deal. In 2016 I bought my first Speedmaster, a watch I never really liked before. I thought “why spend that much on an Omega if you can buy a Rolex for nearly same money?” My first Speedy was a new silver Snoopy and yes, I paid a 80% premium on it. Second Speedy was the ST1 and here I paid 50% premium as well since I missed the introduction. In past months I have decided to drastically clean up my collection and sold at least 5 Rolex pieces on top of a dozen of other watches. Currently I keep focus on very few certain Rolex, some Patek Philippe and a small collection of Speedies. With the exception of a few watches I keep for fun (i.e. G-shock) or because I got attached to them (i.e. Grand Seiko). There’s still some pieces left to separate from so you may see some occasional sales posting in coming days or weeks as well. Some Fortis, Zenith, Nomos and Seiko are nominated to leave the stable. More interesting is next arrival: waiting for the pickup call for my ST2. Guess that’s about it as a not so brief introduction. Besides the fact that I currently reside in Europe, I prefer not to share too many private details as I have burned my fingers (and wallet) earlier in doing so. I’m throwing in a few pics to cheer up above boring story: my first Swiss watch (Pronto Sportal) received as a gift the first Swiss watch I bought for myself (Fortis B42 chronograph) my first Rolex the iconic 5513 most recent purchase (brown used Speedy) Thank you all for reading this long introduction and for the many facts I could learn while hanging around here in past weeks. As I consider myself still a noob, I feel really humble with the expertise present here.
Welcome... My GMT M2 was also my “gateway drug” after years of quartz tools and a couple of fashion brands. (Not sure I can paint MB like that anymore but it was back then) .
Montblanc you mean? It's a brand with a lot of heritage but not taken too serious nowadays because of their distribution methods I fear.
Yes MB ... just around when they acquired Minerva. I don’t think, given their recent releases, you can easily dismiss them anymore. My first mechanical was a Timewalker GMT. Still in my collection. Should have traded it when I bought my RGM 801COE. Handsome but worthless big noob tax.
Welcome @WatchWalker. Great pictures of your lovely watches and a very nice introduction. It made me smile when you wrote this bit: "I thought, why spend that much on an Omega if you can buy a Rolex for nearly same money?” (Good question to pose on Omega Forums.) A possible answer is that the Omega Speedmaster passed the tests to qualify to be part of the greatest achievement in the history of The Human Race! Sadly the Rolex failed. Quote 1: On a NASA memo dated Mar 1, 1965 they noted the following: 1) ROLEX - It stopped running on two occasions during the relative humidity test and subsequently failed during the high humidity test ... Quote 2: Four brands were in the fray: Longines (via Longines-Wittnauer USA), Omega, Rolex and Hamilton. Chronograph watches from these four brands were subject to the same series of tests that were used for every piece of hardware that was intended for space......... The watches were tested in 10 different environments and to qualify, a watch had to clear all 10 tests. Even failing one of the 10 would rule them out of contention..... Only one watch survived the extreme temperatures, vibrations, hard shocks, and unforgiving vacuums of the testing process – the Omega Speedmaster. Thus, this watch was declared ‘operational for space exploration and flight certified’ by NASA. Thankyou for sharing some of your lovely watches and including a very beautiful Omega Speedmaster!
Well, today I am aware of the full story but I wasn't back then. For some unclassified reason I always positioned Rolex higher than an Omega. Maybe it is because my dad had an Omega but could (or would) not afford a Rolex? Or maybe the Rolex marketing machine does a better job?As said, my first Speedy was the silver Snoopy and I instantly fell for the controversial design. Serious watch, serious money, not so serious appearance. In general I like anything stealth wealth or below the radar. I'm the type of guy who would (did) buy the most expensive version of a certain car model but make (made) sure all labels are removed. Back in 2015 I impulsively bought a new Daytona. It was a watch that I wanted to buy for at least 10 years but never could afford before. It sat great on my wrist and I wore it frequently but I was not really impressed by it after all. It had a black dial so the legibility was extremely poor. In 2016 I decided to buy something different for my birthday and to soften the blow, I traded in the Daytona. With my Snoopy I have been happy from day one. It sits as good on the wrist, looks far far better, is very legible and is less pretentious than the Daytona. Although I still have some Rolex watches which I intend to keep, my perception of the Omega Speedmaster has drastically changed in past 2 years. For the positive...
