How much would you/have you paid for a watch?

I can go you one better, Mr Stillwater, my kindred spirit. I have never worn a watch. And I don't have an alarm clock. I wake up at the same time every morning despite what time I go to bed. Kind of weird.
And you know what? Now that I am old and wake up in the middle of the night and have to go to the bathroom, I can think "It must be 1 am (or 3 am)" and I will be pretty darned close.

I had a workmate with a nice watch. He'd proudly announce that it was worth a shade less than $4,000 (Australian). I'd ask him how much it cost to import the time from France to run it properly. Couldn't just use any old time now could you? He'd call me a shithead and things went downhill from there...

However, lately I have been thinking about getting one. Only, how much would you spend on a reliable timepiece? I started out by just looking at jewelers and then checked out the net.

Really, there doesn't seem to be a limit on how much you can spend on a watch. And I am not talking about those made for the ultra-super-filthy-stinking rich either. Or an iconic vintage timepiece from the 1930s.

For instance; Omega makes the watches worn in the Bond films. The latest one for 'QOS' is a Seamaster that is sold for $4,800. I have no doubt that it is an accurate and good-looking timepiece, but it still can only do one thing - keep time. I figure its worth about half that - for the quality manufacturing and custom features - the rest is just the name and the vanity factor. Not good value for me...

..so, how much have you spent (or are willing to spend) to tell the time?

well, I can't answer that one, but I'm another one who doesn't wear a watch.

any time I'm sitting at a computer all I have to do is glance at the lower left corner. There's a clock in my car. My cell phone tells the time. There's a clock in the living room, and one in each bedroom. If I'm out taking a walk, I don't need to know what the time is.

heh, when I wake up at night, I'll guess what the time is, and I'm ususally pretty close too.

Neither did the real 'Real John Boy' Walton. In fact he was booted off the set for wearing a digital watch on set - ruined half a days filming.


I hear you loud and clear bro, all those dreams turned into streams....

I murder watches so I try not to spend too much on them. Most of my watches have been either corporate gifts or gifts from the hamburgers (sorry hamburgers, I killed the nice one too). Right now I'm using a very nice-looking watch that I bought for $6. It keeps time, and I won't be upset when it dies its inevitable death.

When I do get a nice watch, I will spend money to buy new watchbands and batteries to keep the thing going til I seriously kill it.

I used to be a bit time-fixated, but a few years ago I realized I only needed the watch to get to meetings on time and to get back to work from lunch, so it's almost only a work hour thing. Oh, and if I'm going out with friends to do dinner/movie/theatre/concert I will wear a watch. Don't want to miss those pre-concert lectures.

I occasionally buy a 20 dollar watch and wear it. I think I have done this 3 times in more than 20 years. They don't last long. I always thought a dependence on watches would make my own internal clock weaker. Of course now I always know what time it is because I am always in sight of a clock whether that be my computer, my cell phone, in any classroom or in my car.

I have to have a very accurate watch for timing field tests . I rely on a Tag Heuer Aquaracer with digital and analog(its got a very precise 24 hour stopwatch which only Seiko, Benrus and Tag have). Lets say I got it at a deep discount ( WAtches are like diamonds, heavily marked up. The retail prices quoted for any watch must recognize that markeups are well over 3 and 4 times actual wholesale.
A watch may list for 10 or 20K and, a smart shopper (if theyve gotta have an expensive watch that is just wrist candy) one can get the watch (like a Rolex) for about 5 K . So my Tag retailed at about 4K and I got it for about 800(guarantee and first owner is me so Im not buying "hot"). HAving said that, I only wear it in field work and this is my second in 30 years. The first one was destroyed at a drill site. ANy other time lately I just refer to my cell phone. Watches are a sort of an anachronisma anyway, ,like me, unless you rely on the time for your living (science, pilots, race horses, medicine, cooking)
I really could use one of those atomic stopwatches for my research but, Ive found, that many times I misplace **** and lose important time checks if I have a portable timer. Having it attached to my wrist is great.

I would never buy a watch that is recognizable as "expensive" , Its dangerous out there.

And that's not the end of it. There has been a return to self-winding watches - expensive self-winding watches - great. But, you don't want to take it out to wear and find that it has run down. So, you invest in a watch 'winder' - a device to.. and I am not making this up.. wind your watches for you.

And they ain't cheap either.... there's a model that will do 6 watches for $5600 (US)! Are these people just too rich or too lazy?

I stopped wearing one when I quit my 9-to-5 back in 1988. I went back to a full-time job in 1994 but didn't start wearing one again. That would have been complete surrender.

I have five, three more that belonged to my mother and a vintage Longines that belonged to my father. Nine watches. And I don't wear one. Crazy, huh?

The most I paid for a watch was a birthday gift to myself. A Seiko, somewhere between 300 and 350.00. It's a beauty.

I've seen those watch winders in some upscale mag.

My first thought was "Am I missing something here?"

I have not worn a watch in five years...have one someplace, see no need to find it

Years ago and far away, I used to be a lab tech, with timers going, sometimes several timers for the different rheumatology/immunology tests. One sunny day I quit being a lab tech and started studying landscape architecture and taking part time and then full time jobs in that field. When I was a tech, I just about never wore a watch outside of work - where I had, besides the timers, a clock on the wall and a watch on my wrist, all necessary.

After I left Timeville and Associates and a couple of years went by, I gradually got interested in watches again... as jewelry.
At some point I had to be interested, since billing in landscape architecture offices is sometimes hour related, or even quarter hour related, re what you spent your billable time doing besides dawdling and drooling.

I've bought some of my favorite watches at Venice Beach (land of knockoffs of knockoffs); I once bought a man's Timex for it's size and simplicity - the poor woman's Movado. I've bought some damn sparkley thing at KMart. I've never bought a really good watch, first for financial constraint reasons, and, second, because I've a fickle soul re watch attraction and besides I'd either 'kill' it or lose it.

My favorites in later years have been Fossil watches. One I liked because of the roman numerals and its general sort of olde silver weathered look - that one was taken by the folks who installed a car radio for me, as it was on the dash as I drove in there, dummy, it probably needed a battery - and a more recent one which might have been the men's version again, a big faux gold thing with what I consider "good lines".

So.. what did that cost? I don't remember. Might have been $89.00 or it might have been $119. or 129. Whatever, it was an extravagance for me, your basic thrift shop queen. It presently needs a new battery, but I still like it - about 4 years old now.

Adds, re RJB - my sense of what the time is also is almost uncannily right on. Not to brag as some of my other senses are blotto, but it's kind of fun to be good at it.

My everyday watch is also a heart monitor to aid me in adjusting my exercise routines and cost around a hundred dollars.

My good-looking dress up watch is even cheaper at around 30 dollars or so and the only fairly expenses watches I own are family heirlooms railroad pocket watches.

With modern technology all watches now keep very good time indeed so I see little point in spending money on costly watches.

In many science experiments, time must be kept at 0.0001% of the duration of the test. Most cheaper watches cant give that accuracy. They only appear to because of all the gizmos on the dial . A few D/ chronographs can give very accurate time checks and some of the new TAg Concept watches for physics have a series of faces (analog and digital) with a time correxction to US BS cesium clocks. These are totalized accurate to 0.000001 second per year. These concept watches (In the CArrera group of Tag Heuers) have huge faces, and look very high tech and say "STEAL ME BY SHOOTING THIS GUY IN THE HEAD". Id never wear one of those outside a lab.

Nods to BillRM..

One of my life cringes is that when I lived in a big old Eagles Lodge where we had a gallery and sublet to a gallery theater, and my stuff was packed in boxes, and then moved to a garage after that all folded... a box went missing. I figure it was via my then business partner's son, or it could have been the director-on-coke.. or the person I rented the garage from...
anyway, the box with the treasures disappeared and I didn't find that out until at least a year after. Thus my grandfather's ornate old gold watch was surely pawned. My father was born in '06, so you can guess re the watch age.

Lesson # 2491.

I've worn a Seiko for 15 years. Spent about $300 for it.

About $35.00 and another $10.00 for the band. It's a timex.

Captain Koons:

That watch, was John Mccain's, and I would have paid a lot for that watch.

or not.