I loved this piece. A few days old now, so maybe a repost. But in case you missed it...

I don't want to spoil the last paragraph, which is very nice.

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Thanks for sharing that piece.

It's always fun yet humbling to read how closely one's own journey is tracked by another. I too had quit wearing a wristwatch back at the end of the last century. What was the point? One more useless thing to keep up with.

Then, a few years ago I discovered an old mechanical watch hidden and forgotten in a drawer. As I learned about it I also learned about the beauty of the little kinetic world inside the case. I was hooked.

 

Great read, but I still argue the point that smart watches are not really affecting luxury watch sales to a high degree, and at least in my view may be helping. Very few people I think would trade a luxury watch for a smart watch, the people that buy those watches buy them for completely different reasons then you would own a smart watch. On the other hand many people that did no own watches purchased smart watches are became less enthralled with them as they ran into the limitations of the devices. The Apple Watch for example is worthless as a sleep and heart rate tracker as it needs to be charged every night, defeating what a simple fitbit can do. The amount of notifications that smart watches push gets massively distracting, and most users turned most if not all notifications off. So your left with a device that turns the display off and most of the time will wake up after a slight delay when you want to check the time. You cannot easily respond to texts, and at the end of the day your not saving anything over just having a smart phone. These users on the other hand, liked the idea of a watch and got used to having something on their wrist and started looking at mechanicals.

The current issue with Swiss watch sales, is more a over production based on predictions and trends from a few years ago, and a slumping global economy. Additionally 5 years ago many of the people that got into new watches at the last peak, discovered the vintage market and the cost savings and reinforcement of the reasons we wear watches hammered home harder with vintage pieces. The Vintage market is booming, while new sales are slumping. This is not something you would see if smart watches had killed new watch sales.

 

Thank you. After the recent rare prototype debacle ... see UG Forum ... I was waxing cynical again. This thread was a shot in the arm. Steampunk Puppies.... I like that.

 

Very nice read. Truly enjoy wearing a watch. To me it is a doorway to a different time when things, at least, had the illusion of being simpler and the world was full of things just waiting to be discovered, which required hard work not a search on Google. I truly hope I can share this with my son.