Choosing a Rolex

Ever since I started intensively learning about watches in the early 2000s, one fact was abundantly apparent to me: I wasn’t going to be able to afford most of this stuff. Like many other watch lovers out there, my interaction with this hobby is one of both patience and abstinence. I simply cannot have much of what I find interesting. Nevertheless, I voraciously consume information about products and brands that my bank account has no business flirting with. Is it because I have a masochistic tendency to tease myself with things that are just beyond my reach, or is there a larger value in learning about products that I cannot buy?

Nevertheless, there is a larger topic to discuss related to the wisdom of even reading about watches you cannot afford. There are some people, merely seeking to limit their own levels of stress, who feel it is a waste of time to learn about watches they cannot afford. They would prefer that each timepiece choice presented to them in our human-curated aBlogtoWatch stream, or software algorithms elsewhere, be something they can afford (and ideally, suited to their own individual tastes). This approach, however, is decidedly different from my own philosophy, and if anything, I encourage people to learn about and get excited about watches they cannot afford. Take a lok to this rolex super clone.

During most of the 20th century, affordable wristwatches were designed as inexpensive alternatives to fancier wristwatches. Alternatively, inexpensive wristwatches were functional tools with little artistic or emotive value much of the time. It was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that an enthusiast watch community really started to form, bringing timekeeping as art (versus a form of utility) to adoring wrists. Since then, the market for enthusiast watches of all types has exploded, with fans today easily misunderstanding the historical narrative around how mainstream watch enthusiasts (as opposed to high-luxury spenders) are a relatively recent market phenomenon.