A year of buying, selling, and consolidating
As for so many other watch enthusiasts, for me the unprecedented circumstances of 2020 resulted in an uptick in my watch buying and selling activity. I acquired seven watches in 2020 but wound up selling or gifting nine watches (including two that I acquired earlier in the year), resulting in a net decrease of two watches over the course of the year. This reflected an intentional course of consolidation on my part, as I acquired two goal watches in 2020 (the Aqua Terra and the Reverso) and sold off some of the longer-standing pieces of my collection that had served me well but were no longer part of my long-term plans.
The two watches that had the short stays in 2020 were the Eterna Tangaroa complete calendar and the Hamilton Intra-Matic chronograph. The Tangaroa was on my wrist for much of my work-from-home during the shutdown, and I enjoyed it, but once things started to open up, other watches started seeing more wear, and I questioned whether a watch with such a strong association with the difficulties of 2020 was a long-term keeper. Similarly, the Intra-Matic went on many of our shutdown-induced weekend drives, but at the end of the day, my aversion to chronographs continued.
Here are the wear charts for the full year and for post-mid-August (when I acquired the Aqua Terra):
As can be seen from the charts, the biggest wear casualties from the Aqua Terra and Reverso acquisitions are the Mido and the Chris Ward C65. It will be interesting to see how the wear pattern develops over the first half of 2021, as some of the newness of the Omega and the JLC wears off.
Finally, looking back at the future considerations/goals from the mid-year post, all three were accomplished:
- Would love to get an Aqua Terra with the co-axial escapement. (Check.)
- I like having a Longines in the collection and the Hydroconquest gives good value, but I wouldn’t mind swapping it out for one of Longines vintage offerings (and they continue to release great options in this line). (Check – with recent acquisition of Heritage sector.)
- Overall, I’d like to reduce the total number of watches in the main collection by 1 or 2, to 6 or 7 total. (Check – down to 7, and may reduce to 5 or 6 this year, depending on wear patterns.)
I really like where my collection is at currently. With no goals for the immediate future, I hope to enjoy wearing my current pieces during 2021 and seeing what the future might bring.
