My First Luxury Swiss Watch

Intro and Childhood Influences

Hello, and welcome to The English Watch. My name is Andy, and I’ve been collecting Swiss watches since 2001. I say collecting. I owned a single Omega Seamaster 120 for 17 years before adding more.

I’d like to say my childhood memories of watching the early Space Shuttle flights and reading about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions was the catalyst, but I honestly never linked wrist watches to any of the things I was interested in. I wanted to be a pilot, an astronaut. I enjoyed astronomy, had a telescope, read books on planes, space missions, built Airfix models and had a very creative streak that ultimately lead me to Engineering, but no watch connection. What could have been clouding my knowledge of these wonderful micro machines?

Omega Seamaster

Why did I buy an Omega? Good question and I can’t really recall the precise reason, but I do remember browsing the Goldsmiths window in the city of Leeds a number of times, clearly having the seed sown by the Bond product placement machine throughout the 90’s. I had been a life long Bond fan, and fascinated by the gadgets. My fondest memories are of Live and Let Die where Bond uses his newly refurbished Submariner to de-robe an Italian agent. Rolex as a brand was pretty meaningless to me and remained so until very recently.

                                        James Bond in Live and Let Die

Although price was a factor, I remember I was put off the Seamaster 300 Bond diver as I was not sure the aluminium bezel would hold up and I kind of preferred the polished bezel of the 120. Considering my previous watches were junk Sekonda’s, I had little experience with a fine time piece. We were coming out of the 90’s and I had just started a job where I had to wear a suit everyday, so thought a dressier piece more appropriate. Call it Bond Lite.

 

Buying my First Watch

Not long before, I purchased a Gucci Spoon watch for my wife. I was in my late 20’s, and felt quite cheeky asking for a discount. I think someone had said this was the done thing. I received a 10% discount off the £550 asking price without any additional leg work and took the prize back to my beloved who (clearly had chosen it) received her birthday gift and enjoys it to this day.

Do watches hold their value? They certainly can, but don’t forget to enjoy them along the way.

For reasons long since forgotten, and maybe because we moved away from Leeds, I didn’t purchase my Omega from a high street dealer. I did some research online and found a dealer in the north of England with the exact watch I wanted with the blue dial, advertised at a discounted price. Now I was very wet behind the ears and was only looking for one watch. When it arrived I was over the moon, I paid £637.50 with 15% off. It was a thing of beauty, so well crafted and nothing like the junk I had been wearing up to now. Considering we had just bought a new BMW in blue, this fitted the bill perfectly.

The Seamaster 120

My Omega was a 36mm in steel with the tank track bracelet all Seamasters had at the time. 36mm Diameter sounds an odd choice now given 40mm is considered the starting point for a mans watch. When I bought the piece I was wearing a 36mm Sekonda, so it didn’t feel out of place.

I never took it swimming, never took it on holiday and certainly never wore it during any DIY. The watch remained in excellent condition, receiving 2 full services in its time with me.

Choosing the Next Watch

With the passing of my father in 2018, I was suddenly in a position where I had extra cash, although would have preferred not to given the situation. My mind was filled with opportunities to spend on all manner of disposable and short term offerings. Yes, we had a nice holiday that year, but I wanted to ‘invest’ in an enduring memory, one I could look back on in years to come and know how it came to be, from my father.

On picking my trusty Seamaster 120 up from it’s most recent service from my local Goldsmiths, the salesman I had dealt with for years, who had often tempted me into the wonders behind glass, drew my attention to the Speedmaster Professional, the Moon Watch. We had a great discussion about the history, moon landings, Apollo 13, my childhood obsessions, etc., and so the penny dropped. I didn’t buy the Speedy, I would save that one for later. I was now the proud owner of the Omega Planet Ocean. Omega’s flagship dive watch. No longer with a fragile aluminium bezel, this big, beefy and manly watch was the tonic I needed, an unapologetic statement that I could enjoy forever, and dad would have approved. I discovered the coaxial escapement, METAS, ceramics, liquid metal, an engineers wet dream.

Over the next year or so, my tastes moved on. I acquired another couple of pieces, including my beloved Speedmaster and found my old Seamaster 120 looking a little sad and unloved. I probably didn’t wear it for a year. I gave my fathers Seamaster Aqua Terra Quartz to my eldest son, coincidentally his birth watch of 2003, but the Seamaster 120 felt dated, of its time. With thoughts of future watches in mind, I felt compelled to sell the 120 to someone who would enjoy it as much as I had for 17 years. I took same classy photos to do it justice, wrote an honest appraisal, and posted on Chrono24. It lasted less than a week and I received all of the £950 asking price. Pretty much all my money back. Not bad value really.

Do watches hold their value? They certainly can, but don’t forget to enjoy them along the way. I miss my Seamaster 120, and I can still feel it in my hand, on my wrist. Those 17 years will never be forgotten, but I don’t regret anything.

SEAMASTER 120 M CHRONOMETER
Steel on steel Reference 2501.81.00

MOVEMENT – Calibre: Omega 1120
Self-winding chronometer with rhodium-plated finish.
Power reserve: 44 hours

CRYSTAL – Domed anti-reflective, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal

WATCH CASE & DIAL – Case: Steel
Case Diameter: 36.25 mm Dial Colour: Blue

WATER RESISTANCE – 12 bar (120 metres / 360 feet)

FEATURES – Chronometer Date