It's episode 14 of this. Watch live.
Hi, I'm Liddy Winters. And I'm Boo Booey.
And today we are going to discuss sentimental value in
watches. Go back in time with me to the
beaches of Florida. When I was a kid growing up, I
always had a treasure box of like random items that provoked
a memory so it could be like something nice someone wrote.
So that would go in there and like a lot of rocks, more than
shells. I just love collecting rocks.
There's a lot of rocks here. I do know this.
I'm not even going to get into the rocks that are all over our
house. I just love rocks.
But what I realized recently is like when I am opening my watch
box, it feels a bit like that, those old treasure boxes, but
not in a good way. OK, in a good way sometimes, but
I also feel like what I used to do is always like cool down the
treasure box, you know? So it's like you're when you.
Were young. Even when I was young, it would
be like. It didn't forever grow.
No, it didn't forever grow. It always, like, stayed
contained in the box. And so you're like this thing
I'd like, I don't this isn't my good friend anymore or whatever.
So you're like, taking things out.
And what I'm realizing is that my watch box needs some of this,
but I have attached too much sentimental value to everything.
OK. I I mean, I do understand that.
Well, yes, yes, I. But it's forced.
Yeah. Is what you're you're worried
about that the sentimental value you've attached to it is
unnecessary. It's not.
Sentimental enough? Yeah.
Well, because, OK, watch collecting is essentially
justifying. Yes, because you only need one
watch. People debate if you even need
one. I'm not even going to go there.
So let's say you only need one. But then, in order to justify
this hobby, you, you. Kind of value out of other
things. And some of those values are
like, oh, this is a tool watch which performs a specific task.
Some of those values may be oh, this has a certain look to it,
the colors, the materials made, so it goes with certain outfits
or or certain times. And then there's the.
Milestones. Yeah.
Milestones. Presence this like I I mean, you
have a watch that you just said was for the pandemic.
I don't even know what. I I It wasn't even at the
beginning or the end of the pandemic.
It was during. Middle of the pandemic and on my
list because I like to make lists and and and assign these
values justification values. I put that that the Rolex Oyster
Perpetual 41 Green was my pandemic watch.
Okay. Yes, So, but I mean.
Because I couldn't think of anything better.
No, but okay So sentimental value is the value of an object
deriving from personal or emotional associations rather
than material worth. But the reason I'm talking about
this is because in the case of watches, it is also material
worth. These are not like sheets of
paper with nice things that you just like.
Stow away when OK, well, I would say keep them forever, but OK.
No, you because you you talked. About.
You talked about culling, Yes, yes, right.
And if you have objects with no material worth, financial worth,
right, Monetary worth, then culling just typically would
mean throwing them away, unless they could be useful to someone
else. And maybe then it's donating,
like if it's clothes or that kind of stuff.
But with watches, you can't do that.
Culling is a much. Yes.
And you have a lot of sentiments and emotions tied up.
I was looking online, I wanted to see like, what are people
saying about sentimental value? Most of it was like sentimental
value is perfect milestone. Buy presents, Buy.
So wait, most of what you found was sentimental value with
watches, yes. Yeah, basically.
Yeah, yeah, do do that. So you buy more.
But I really loved our good friend Ricardo Seemay.
Ready set. Watch on Instagram.
He wrote an article for Time and Tide, and it's called
Sentimental value can be the nemesis of an Evolving
collector. Oh, that's a hot take.
Yeah, but I was like, it is. I mean, even the other day you
said I would totally be A1 watch guy, but I've actually I had
since I already have a few pieces I could never get rid of.
Might as well go all in. Well yeah.
So to me it's like, OK, I would love to be a one watch collector
or maybe more realistically A3 watch collector because if you
take sentimental value out of it, you can easily justify 3
watches for three different types of activities in your
life. But my I have sentimental value
in more than three watches and they wouldn't be the watches.
I would choose to be a three watch collection.
So then it's too late. That's why you then then I think
that justifies going all in with a you know multi dozen.
Yeah, perfect. You're like 3 or 100.
There's no in between. But so one watch in particular
that sticks out in my mind is in 2012, very randomly and as a
surprise VU bought me brought home A tag Hoyer link.
It has diamonds around it. It has pink guiche.
It is really adorable. A very small watch like I love
it. It fit my style at the time.
Oh, you're. Wearing it, yes, I have it on
right now, but it does not fit my style at.
All. Not at all.
Not now. Later, Vu got me the Cartier
tank solo in rose gold. That's the watch that got me
into watches. But it wasn't the first luxury
watch. This was.
This was but is first like, is is that actually sentimental?
I'm asking. I'm like really struggling with
this because I've talked about selling it.
You have said do it, buy something else with that, like
sell it, buy something else with it.
I'd rather you sell it there. There's so many reasons.
So, OK, OK, if we're looking at the reasons that these
sentimental values can be negative, it's like there's a
watch. It's still a nice watch.
It's just not a watch for you. Someone else could be enjoying
that. Watch I.
Know that's what I feel, sad for it.
And on top of that, you could use the value you get out of
selling that watch to put into another watch that you might
like more. Yeah, and I've done like I have
told you to do the same thing, but I I don't follow my own
advice. But as an example, like for my
38th birthday, you bought me a Nomos Orion 38, which is kind of
cool, 3838. And at the time, I loved that
watch and it was perfect. And at the time, I was trying to
wear a little bit more dressy clothes, you know, just 2015 and
I, my style has changed a lot as well.
And that watch no longer fit most of the way I dress, even
though I do think it's, it's quite an adaptable watch.
It just didn't feel right anymore.
So you told me sell it like. Put the money into a new watch
you'll wear. Put that on me, that you're
keeping this watch. Sell it.
And I sold it and I put that money directly into a Nomos
campus Club 38 Electric Green. So it's like I traded it for
something that now I wear quite often.
Yeah, but the green doesn't really have any sentimental
value. No.
So so that like it didn't transfer, but it's also OK say.
It would transfer like, Oh yeah, I'm moving the sentimental value
of this Orion over into this campus.
It doesn't. Work.
You just take the ghost of sentiment and you just push it
over. There I did a whole ceremony.
It just didn't work. It just didn't work.
Yeah, I I've got really deep into this thought about like
items and just how how we'd like deal with this emotional side
and sentimental value. And there is a professor,
Russell Belk, and he did this really cool kind of philosophy
around possessions and the extended self that I feel like
really applies very, very significantly to watch
collecting. So he says in his article,
Possessions are central to our sense of self.
For better or for worse, our possessions help to tangible
eyes, our past, our present, and perhaps our future.
They may even provide a type of immortality when they were
remain attached to our identity after our death.
Shallow, shallow materialism has been found to be harmful, but
there is another sense in which our treasured possessions
provide a focus of attachment in an age of otherwise disposable
consumption. Possessions also provide a sense
of stability and continuity in our lives.
And our relationship with possessions is seldom just a
person thing relationship, but rather a person thing person
relationship as they connect us to remind us of, and announce
something about us to various other people in our lives,
Right. There's like a million things
that apply to watch collecting in here.
I think the biggest thing is what I think about definitely no
shallow materialism at all with no, no, no, no.
It's definitely the deeper A. Sense of stability and
continuity in our lives. I have 0 shallow Materialism.
When I think about watches, treasured possessions, that was
my favorite part. I I think there's a lot to be
said about that. But I although I do think with
watch collecting it, it can become very different because
you have watches that are sentimental to you because of a
person. And then you have that other
side of watch collecting where people talk about building
memories in a watch. And those memories, you know,
some it it might be the birth of a child, it might be a wedding,
then it's very related to another person, but it may be
trips, travel, all these other things.
So when I think about my first Rolex Explorer 2, and yes, it
was my first Rolex Explorer 2 that I bought in 2014, talked
about in a recent episode. I went everywhere with that
watch and did everything with that watch.
It was my dress watch. It was my adventure watch.
It was. I just wore it all the time.
It traveled to six continents with me.
I mean, it truly went everywhere with me.
And then, you know, my life changed a little bit.
I had lost a bunch of weight. I had convinced myself the watch
was way too big on my wrist and I sold it.
And that was a huge regret. So much so that I just bought
the new one when it came out a few months later because I just
regretted it and I wanted my watch back and the model change
between these two watches, which I'll link to in the description
of this post. Like there's not a lot of
differences, so they look almost exactly the same.
And in photos, they definitely look exactly the same.
So. Then and you have photos of all
the times you wore it all around the world, like cool things.
All the memories are still there.
Exactly. And when I look at a photo of us
in Nepal, in the mountains, and I'm wearing that watch, it looks
the same as the watch that I have right now.
But. Some days I feel like yes, this
is just a continuation of my Rolex Explorer 2 Polar journey,
and some days I feel like no, this is just a cheap copy that
never did any of those things. It's not the treasured
possession. It's not the treasured
possession. So you're saying don't sell the
tag, Hoyerly? No, you definitely sell the tag
because. I don't have as much memories
wrapped up in it. It really is more about first
and I think in Ricardo's article he talks about this starts from
this sense of like I have too many watches, but my first watch
like do I keep it out of first and that.
Yeah, I guess you can value these sentiments differently,
yes, and. Sentimental, higher sentimental
value, Hierarchy of watch collecting.
But. I also think in this case with
with your tag, the person who who gives you the most amount of
meaning for that watch like it's both your first watch, but it
also was from me. Yes, I'm saying sell it.
Yes, I know, but what does everyone else think?
OK, that's a good question. What does everyone else think?
Yeah, I mean, is it OK to sell your first luxury watch?
Because I didn't sell mine my. Tell you still have it.
Still have it and it isn't my style right now.
But you've been wearing it more. Force myself to wear it and I
enjoy wearing it. And I've done that with this,
but it's still pretty sporadic. Yeah, like once a year.
In three years, yeah. But I think, I mean, for me,
there's like, like, in this article, it talks about, like,
the immortality of, like, having this thing that like lives on
after death, which is obviously something people talk a lot
about with like passing down watches.
We're not having kids. So I'm like, who wants this tag
Hoyer link? Not my nephew.
No one in our family to say like, oh wow, Vu gave this to
Aunt Lydia. You know it was the first you.
Know like they want your OP collection.
Yeah, definitely. But there is a bit of that, I
think maybe if I start to think about like what is the actual
story behind it? And this is just a watch you
brought home one day and it happened to be the first,
Whereas when I think of and tell the story of the Cartier tank
you gave me. That's a different thing.
It it's like that's really the emotion so maybe what we need to
do and watch collecting. I'm saying this for myself too
is like extrapolate those two things.
Like is it is it sentiment I tried to create to justify?
Totally fine. We all do it.
Or is this really an item that I want to have forever and don't
want it to sit sadly in its watch box without any love or
wear? Wow, that was deep.
That was deep, deep enough for water resistance.
Oh no. What's the What's the bars?
Thank you. Thank you everybody.
Have a wonderful day. Bye.