Browsing an international airport duty free watch shop years ago my wife fell in love with this, and because I am a naturally generous person (!!! - mostly with myself) I got carried away and bought it for her. She loved it but has worn it only once or twice since, saying she is so rough on watches she does not want to damage it. It has been sitting in her jewellery safe all these years, while she wears various quartz fashion watches every day.

So I wonder whether this story rings any bells with other OF members.




I hasten to add that she surprised me a year or so later with a 2006 18K gold de Ville chronometer she picked up at a collectables fair. I do not wear it often, but enjoy it when I do: I like the homage to pie pan dial design, without actually being one. .

 

I don't have a watch story, but I have a knife story that is similar. I had a custom kitchen knife made for my wife that reflected her love of gardening and her heritage., It is a kick-ass petty knife that gets super sharp. She almost never uses it, as she doesn't to mess it up. It is a highly functional piece of art; I wish she would put it through its paces.

 

Any pictures

 

Yep.

 

Can't find any on this computer. I will take some tomorrow when there is good natural light.

EDIT: Found some in an email from the maker.


The knife was made by Randy Haas (HHH). Blade is stainless steel damascus in a feather pattern, made by Devin Thomas. Dyed maple handle with malachite ferrule. The top of the blade has a vine engraving. It covers my wife's love of cooking and gardening, as well as her Russian heritage (the malachite).

 

This is why i get vintage watches to my fiancé. She’s much more confident wearing one that has already 40 years of heritage and scuffs on it.

 

Think I'd grab that watch out of the safe and wear it myself. If she comments I'd say well either you wear it, or I will!

 

Wow @BlackTalon that knife is magnificent and a true piece of art. Can you tell how much it cost?

 

Have a Burt Foster knife that was quiet expensive but it gets a fair work out. Dressed a few hunting exploits over the years.
Last BBQ it got the cheese platter duties.

Do have a French Morta knife also with mammoth inlay and 5000 year old bog wood handle ( worth a look @Syrte )
https://couteaux-morta.com/knives/

 

I was very much the same when I got my first (modern) Speedmaster. At that time it was a big investment and I felt like it had to be kept pristine. So it sat in the safe waiting for special occasions, which rarely came. I finally came to my senses after a couple of years and it’s now in rotation as a daily wearer. It currently has a pusher top missing, a heavily scratched plexi and the usual minor scratches, but I get the pleasure out of wearing it. Life is too short.

 

Having owned a lot of vintage musical instruments informs a lot of the way I think about watch collecting. I was a working musician, so I didn't understand the collector mindset. A bandmate of mine had the barn-find experience of an uncle presenting him with a guitar he got in high school and left in the basement for 35 years, which turned out to be an early 1960s custom-color Fender Esquire. A guitar that was too valuable to risk taking on the road was also too valuable to leave at home, and he didn't enjoy owning it.

I guess that's pretty tangential to the question at hand. Watches are more like jewelry than tools. It makes sense to keep the good stuff secured away for special occasions, but as @Badwolf says above, those special occasions have a way of getting increasingly infrequent.

 

Well, there goes the watch budget!

 

That reminds me that my wife wanted a Cartier Tank Américaine in 18k solid gold.



After a long search I found a nice pre-owned watch with box and papers and my wife got the watch for her birthday five years ago... Since then she has worn the good piece maybe only five times because in her opinion the watch is simply too nice and valuable.

 

Sell it, buy her a swatch, reinvest the money in a nice watch for yourself. That way you have relieved the stress of worrying about it from from your wife. This will prove how caring a husband you are.

 

Exactly the same here. Brought Mrs P a Tank Solo which sat in its box until I sold it 3 years later. Women are fickle.

 

Funny you should mention that. Last year my wife took me to an estate auction and fell in love with this 18K men's, complete with its 1966 box, papers and original invoice. It was close to her birthday and I fell for it (again).

Guess how many times it has been out of her jewellery safe since then....

 

Such a lovely looking watch. You should wear it and make her jealous.

 

Well, I need some help... More or less than one time?

 

At least your partner acknowledges her clumsiness, I was toying with a nice watch for my wife so bought her a mint condition birth year Seiko diver beforehand as an experiment as it was similar to one of mine she liked.

We have a glass topped dining table and over lunch one day I watched her obliviously resting her arm via the watch face/bezel on the sharp edge, just thinking about the sound still put my teeth on edge.

Whether that was a deliberate move is contested but she ended up with another handbag which I noticed yesterday has an impressive scuff front and centre.

 

The short answer is only once.