The keeper. The watch I never sell.
In this week's column Eqotime’s Albin Johansson shares his thoughts on the concept of watches you never sell. Here he tells us about one of his few, perhaps his only, real keeper.
Text: Albin Johansson
In this week’s column Eqotime’s Albin Johansson shares his thoughts on the concept of watches you never sell. Here he tells us about one of his few, perhaps his only, real keeper.
There are as many ways to approach the watch interest as there are watches. Whether you see yourself as a collector where every object is carefully evaluated and calculated into its place in the collection, or are the person who spontaneously happened to buy a watch to let the passage of time decide whether it stays or not, there is often a method to the madness. What many have in common, though, is that there are watches one will never sell. I too have such a watch.
my grandfather had a watch out at the country place he used to use when he hammered
Over the years I have come across people who have bid watches home from blurry pictures from south america with the help of Google translate and a large dose of ability to keep a cool head. Likewise I know collectors who sit with sheets in excel and work out in detail what the next watch is going to be based on manufacturer, material, complications and more. The interest is about active choices. And whether you have one watch at a time or 25 of them in rotation, it is accepted that selling watches mostly happens sooner or later. Sometimes not to be replaced with anything at all and sometimes to be replaced by one or more watches. With this behaviour around me daily I feel secure in the fact that in the summer of 2013 I got a watch I will never sell. Kalmar stads hedersgåva is engraved in the caseback in a circle around the classic seahorse that many recognise.
In the episode of Urbildningsradion that is my collector profile I tell that my grandfather had a watch out at the country place he used to use when he hammered (that was how he put it). I suspected enough mischief to ask if he knew what brand the watch was. It turned out to be the above mentioned Omega Seamaster from the 60s that came on a period-correct fixoflex link. A type of link that at the time was popular to have on wristwatches instead of a classic leather strap. Since it had actually been used during various carpentry over decades without a visit to the watchmaker it was in need of some form of love from a watchmaker. So the first thing I did when I got the watch over a cup of coffee in July 2013 to send it for service, a crystal change and a very light polish. Important to me here was that the polish was precisely light, all so as not to ruin the shape of the case.
For periods it has since been worn and for periods it has lain in the drawer without really getting the attention it deserves. But when I recently found a worn link that I felt I needed to try on the watch and got to see the end result I fell in love again. I felt strongly that after all the watches that have passed through and that will pass through, it is nice to have something that I will always appreciate and that will always be there in that drawer or on the arm. It is the watch I will never sell.
