Overthinking a watch collection

For as long as I can remember, I have loved wristwatches. My dad had a Rolex, a 16710 GMT Master, that I remember hanging comically loose on my scrawny kid arms.

In my teens and early adulthood I wore Seikos and G-Shocks, mostly: including a much-beaten SKX-007.

Over the years I have bought and sold more watches I care to admit, the prices sometimes getting into four figures. The delicate Nomos Metro and Junghans Max Bill. The iconic but somewhat sterile Speedmaster. The Tudor Black Bay GMT that was more or less my one-watch collection for a few years. The Hamilton Murph, both sizes, with the whimsical connection to Interstellar, one of my favourite films. Farer Lander Chrono. Serica. Traska. The bizarre Unimatics. Rado Captain Cook. I'm sure there are others.

Along the way, I have been seduced by various philosophies for building a watch collection. If you frequent watch forums, I'm sure you've seen them too.

At the most extreme is the idea of a 'one watch collection'. For many people, this is lunacy. For most of modern history, a guy would own one watch and only get a new one if his was lost or broken. A bit like one hand clapping, can you really call yourself a collector if you only own one? For me, as a guy who gets bored easily, this was never going to work.

At the other extreme are the category planners. They believe a watch collection should have a diver, a field watch, a flieger, a dress watch, a chrono, etc. Pick your poison when it comes to categories, but I guess it boils down to a belief that watches are tools, and you pick the right tool for the job. I get it, but most of those categories are useless to me. I'm not skin-diving in the morning, flying a plane in the afternoon, and timing a lap of Brooklands in the evening. Most of the time I'm just wearing a watch. Most complications are to me simply unnecessary.

For me, the best and simplest mental model is that I want some variety, and I definitely want to limit the number of watches I own. Whether it's three, four or five, I want to keep the number down. Partly for reasons of money, but more because unlike a hammer or a screwdriver, you can't just pick up a watch and start using it. If it's a manual or automatic, you have to wear it at least every few days or you have to go through the pain of winding it and setting the date, or put it on a watch winder like some Patrick Bateman weirdo.

So then, to the variety, and the collection.

Today, I would probably say I spend most time wearing my Cartier Santos, reference WSSA0037, but customised with a brushed steel bezel. Obviously, the Santos is square, which is the first point of differentiation, but this watch ticks a lot of boxes as a Deliberate Object.

The QuickSwitch straps are an engineered delight, giving you the option of switching from rubber to leather to bracelet in literally seconds. Despite being 'square', almost every part of this watch is curved, including the sapphire crystal, and at about 9mm thick it hugs the wrist. The movement is nothing to write home about, but it is accurate, has a second hand and date, and the power reserve is plenty. What I like best about this watch though is the dial: a subtle lined grey, with both those iconic roman numerals and hands loaded with lume.

The result is a watch that, honestly, does it all: in watch parlance, a GADA. It is dressy (hell, it's a Cartier), especially if you swap on a croc strap. It has magnetic resistance and 100m water resistance, plus the lume, so it's everyday capable. And it has the Cartier name recognition without the Rolex obviousness.

Next, the polar opposite in spirit: the Grand Seiko SBGE285 'Mistflake'. I go along with the Brooks Review in rating this as one of the best watches you can buy. It is a catalogue of perfection.

Zaratsu polishing, which not only makes the case incredible, but long after the case is battered up, the hands and indices will still be glittering.

The Grand Seiko dial artistry, in this case, textured silvery white like snow (quite similar to the crinkled washi paper I used as the background to these photos). In different light it changes colour; you can't help but look at it.

The tour de force that is the Spring Drive movement, with its mind-boggling accuracy and uncanny sweeping second hand. There is nothing like it, nothing.

The faceted, mecha-like case, from lightweight titanium, paired with an equally detailed bracelet that lacks micro-adjust.

And, in terms of features: great lume, GMT movement, power reserve indicator, screw-down crown with 100m water resist, the works.

Before I got the Santos, I wore this watch for months and months and was perfectly happy. It's a killer. If you haven't owned a Grand Seiko, I really can't explain to you just how perfect it is. Everything else feels sloppy and amateurish by comparison.

And that brings me to... another Grand Seiko. I have owned the SBGV233 for four years, almost to the day. I'll be honest, it doesn't get a lot of wear. But that doesn't matter a jot, because it's a Grand Seiko Quartz and it is accurate to literally a few seconds per year. I can put it in a box for three months and it will come out ready to wear.

This is a quartz made with love. Where the Mistflake is brutish, the 233 is delicate, even curvaceous. It too is Titanium, and it is thin, and light, and super dressy. The hands are sharp, the dial a clean, colour-changing teal.

Let me tell you what I love about this watch. Grand Seiko geared down the crown so when you're adjusting the time, the hands move half speed – giving you more precision over setting the time (and be honest, you won't have to do it often). When a GS quartz movement moves its second hand, it does so in two steps, minimising the backlash in the hand. The result is a second hand that seems to teleport, from index to index, perfectly. There is no quartz movement like this (well, apart from Citizen's).

Pretty teal dial aside, this is a BORING watch. From six feet away, it looks like the £50 Seiko I used to wear when I was 18, with its rattly end links. But it is made with absolute fucking precision. You have to respect it. This is the pinnacle of quartz.

For the longest time, I wanted an Anordain enamel watch. But actually I didn't much like the case designs, I didn't like the dial numerals, and I certainly didn't like the price or waiting list. I realised that what I loved was the commitment to craft, to artistry, and to their local area – which happens to be Scotland, a place I hold dear in my heart.

And that brings me to this Paulin. It is absolutely, nothing, NOTHING like the Grand Seikos. Paulin is effectively a sister brand to Anordain, and it shares the same values. Quirky designs, proud Scottish craft. My particular design is a unique, one of one, art watch by John Nicol, an abstract artist at the Glasgow School of Art, who has been painting dials for a decade. Mine is an anodised aluminium dial in purple, with daubs of pale nude pink, bright yellow, red and turquoise, flagrantly overlaying the date window. The colours shouldn't work, but they do.

Sod legibility. There's no minute track, there are no hour indices. The curvy skeletal hands don't have lume. The water resistance is mediocre, the 38mm brushed case is basic, and inside is a Seiko NH35, the most pedestrian of movements. This is a watch that is all about inspiration, not function. I was going to use the word 'appearance' there, but I don't think this is a superficial watch. Paulin has designed their own hands, they designed their own typeface. They have signed the crown. The packaging is the most gorgeous little cork box, held shut with a brass clip. This is not a case of bulk-buying some aliexpress piece of shit and silkscreening some art on the dial. This is instead about seeing the art as the important bit, making the dial a canvas and everything else getting out of the way. And all those mediocre specs – the basic case, the budget movement – they keep the price accessible for a piece of one-off art, all made in Scotland.

So it turns out I fiercely love this little watch. I wear it on Sundays, when I don't give a toss what the time is. I pull up my sleeves to look at the dial, the paint layered over itself, the burgundy aluminium shimmering in sunlight. It's great.

And then the G-Shock. Everyone needs a G-Shock. Mine is black, square, metal, with a funky coating that is basically indestructible. It is atomic-timed, solar powered, with Bluetooth, a negative display, alarm, stopwatch, timer... all the stuff I thought was cool back when I was a kid.

If Paulin is all about art, and GS is all about precision, and Cartier is all about effortless grace... Casio fucking loves technology. They love mecha. Toughness is what they're proud of. And to their credit, after years of wearing this watch to do yardwork, swimming, beach holidays, DIY, there's not a mark on it. I never have to worry about the time, or date, or frankly anything at all. This watch is peace of mind. I trust it, completely. I trust Casio, completely. I have owned three G-Shocks. No, five. Never a problem. Ever. THAT is what G-Shock is, as a deliberate object. Trust.

Last, but certainly not least, is the latest arrival. I'm wearing it now, as I write this. It's another Seiko, but this one is not grand. It's a Prospex, diver, SPB239J1.

Something about it wouldn't let me go. It's heritage-themed: beige lume, beige print. It comes on two fancy Japanese variants of a NATO strap (I am a sucker for Japanese anything). The dial has this warm sunburst, the bezel has radial lines, the lumed sword hands are just right, the rectangular indices are just so reassuringly placed. The bezel is coin-edged, the 62MAS case is so clean and elegant. I could wax lyrical about this thing. It's like the platonic ideal of a diver, seen not through 200m of water but through 50 years of time. It has the truly shocking 6R35 movement, with its horrible rated level of accuracy, but for me this is the 'relax at the weekend' watch, and when I wear it I feel like Sean Connery as James Bond, on some late-60s beach. It's like my SKX007 lost its overpolished 90s bling and grew up.

So that's my watch collection. For now, I am actually deliriously happy. I always keep my eyes open for what's next: a Zenith? A Blancpain? A Panerai? I am attracted to unique design languages, to technical weirdness, to classic stories. Unfortunately there is no shortage of those things in the watch world, so I am constantly tempted.

And what about those mental models I started with? Well, I have a diver (that's the Seiko). I have a GMT (the Mistflake). I have a dress watch (the other GS). I have a GADA (the Santos). Every collection needs a G-Shock. And I have an art watch – that one is a bit hard to categorise. Turns out I wasn't so far off following the herd though, was I? Goddamnit.