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I suppose that as a retired person you would be forgiven if you thought that “time” would be something that would be in plentiful supply – and you would be so wrong!
Retired people just don’t have enough time in the day to do the things they can do – things they want to do, things I want to do. It might be golf or bowls for some people or travel or collecting or gardening or photography or painting or……well there’s so many pursuits that are there just waiting to be started up again or explored for the first time.
In my case the blog subject is “Collecting” and although I have many other interests and lot’s of them – today it’s all about “time” and not really I suppose as the title suggests “Time for Art?”, though in my case that is pretty appropriate as I would have to admit that most of my “time” is taken up with Art in one way or another.
Dugena Moonphase
But Time itself – or at least the measurement of it is indeed one of my favourite pastimes – that of Watch Collecting.
“The image opposite shows a nice elegant highly polished Dugena Quartz watch, which is not often seen. It is very, very slim even though it has analogue complications such as Day, Date and Year indications plus hour, minute and centre seconds hands in polished Gold.”
Now I’ve no wish to bore you with the subject of watch collecting and I’ve no intention of going on about it in any great length and “thank goodness!” – I can hear you say …lol….but rather just a few personal images from my own collection and some observations.
Now it’s rarely even thought about of course and why should it be – but this little accessory on your wrist is one of the most widely owned products in the world – there are literally millions, millions and millions of them and the production runs are quite incredible. It is a statistic that almost everyone buys a new watch on average every 5 years – so do the maths!
I’m not about to start giving the history of the watch. Suffice to say it sort of appeared around the late 1800′s as a “wrist” watch. That is a timepiece which was for the first time meant to be worn on the wrist as opposed to on a chain or attached to clothing. And from what was an item of jewellery where time keeping was pretty irelevent, time became something that ordinary people actually wanted to know.
Argos Botta award winning Titanium quartz
And especially just at the turn of the century when “wrist” watches were first being worn by in earnest by Officers in the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) and sunsequently during the First World War as they became increasingly used by the military.
The ability to time events was found to be absolutely critical in aerial combat situations for example and in gunnery operations, to enable the friendlies to be out of the area when things started kicking off!
Then after the war many of those same soldiers were allowed to keep their watches and so it was at home when they started to become popular with the general population.
But enough of that – The fact is the watch as it’s known now (the term wrist has mostly gone) is a most popular item and just the thing for collecting. It’s small, a marvel of technical engineering in fact and can be incredibly complicated. And with so many variations on a theme are just about unsurpassed as a must have item.
Jaquet Drox Grande Second
Stainless Steel, Silver, Gold, Titanium, Platinum, Fibre, Plastic, Resin, composite materials and that’s just the case! Watches that tell the time (yes they can do that too!), hours, minutes, seconds, moon phase, 24hr and GMT indication, Days, Months and Years even are indicated. Time in all parts of the world too with both mechanical, quartz and radio controlled versions – Military, Divers, Sports, chronographs, chronometers and fashion too are catered for with an amazing range of styles types and sizes to suit almost everyone.
But basically as a collector whilst I’m interested to an extent in watch types, such as maybe an RC controlled watch like a Junghans or an Attesa. Or maybe even a World Timer or Divers watch, a Vintage watch or perhaps one or two of the Classic watches by the best Swiss Makers and even to the Chinese watches which can be amazingly good – for me it is basically all about what I actually like and what I like to wear.
The images shown here are just a few of the timepieces I own and display, though all of them at some point are given “wrist time” – because if a watch doesn’t suit me as a wearing watch then it’s simply sold on to someone who will appreciate it more than I and that’s regardless of how good or how “in” that watch may be (though having said that there are one or two exceptions to that rule – and they are rare indeed).
Patek Philippe Gondolo
Some collector friends collect “the” in watch of the moment – ie. You MUST have a Rolex – yet for me the Rolex does nothing – I mean it’s OK even if of dubious quality for the money these days, but it simply doesn’t do anything for me. And the tendancy more and more recently is for the larger oversize watch, which for me is a nonsense. They are far too big to wear comfortably, too heavy and cumbersome, and style wise have a passing resemblance to a armoured tank! And they also look rather silly on the wrist in actual fact, like a little boy with Daddy’s watch on!
So not for me.
LG PhoneWatch
However perhaps technology is off in another direction with the advent of communications. Time is now so bound up with phones, electronic messaging, time stamps, emails and so on. It’s old hat – just part of the whole as it were and science fiction is fast becoming a reality. All cell phones automatically have a clock built in. It can adjust itself every time a call is made, so is always accurate and now appears the true “wrist phone” which incidentally is far smaller and neater than those macho lumps that so many so called collectors have to own.
This is one of the nicest -3G watch phone” has a touch-screen dialling system with a camera and a speaker built in to enable users to make video calls and gain high speed access to the internet.
Image STR/AFP/Getty Images
It also recognises voices, transforms text to speech, has a Bluetooth function and works as an MP3 player and due in Europe sometime this year I understand and sort of does everything……”Aw c’mon it’s surely not a watch is it?” – I hear my collector friends ask…….well maybe they have a point….
But I still like my Attesa -
Citizen Attesa RC controlled
Powered by the sun, gets an accuracy update on top of an already accurate quartz movement from one of the worlds atomic clocks every night automatically and indicates the time, day, date and month anywhere.
Has a stopwatch, timers, umpteen alarms and all the other gadgets you might need!
But really importantly it has a non-scratch face and clear hands I can read without glasses, tell the time in the dark without pressing a button AND it has style, it’s sleek and it looks good!
How they managed to get all that stuff into such a slim and elegant watch I’ll never know – it’s an Art, that’s what it is.
