If you’re in the market for a watch, you’ve likely heard certain terms. Dress watch. Sports watch. Tool watch. Casual watch. Luxury Watch. Mechanical watch. There are a great many different terms you might not yet be familiar with. It can be daunting, really. You may want to buy a watch and to learn more about it. You can also find yourself feeling foolish because you don’t know what everyone else seems to know. Worse, a lot of people in the watch community like to keep it an exclusive club. They don’t want noobs showing up and wasting their time.
First and foremost, if anyone ever intentionally makes you feel foolish because of your inexperience, those really aren’t the people you want to learn from, right? If someone selling a watch makes you feel that way, you certainly shouldn’t be buying from them. You want someone who’s interested in helping you with your particular needs, not someone interested in browbeating you about what you do or don’t know. We’re talking about watches. They aren’t a test of intelligence, importance, or value as a human being. If someone makes you feel like a rube, they’re the problem and not you.
Let me give you a very quick lesson on different kinds of watches. In general, watches break down into two different categories. There are luxury watches (or fine watches) and casual watches. There’s no hard and fast rule for which is which just like there’s no hard and fast rule for fine dining meals and casual meals. These days, you can pay a hundred dollars or more for a hamburger.
Casual watches and luxury watches have far more to do with the style involved. After all, let’s face reality. Your cell phone will keep time better than any watch on the market. Rather than a hard fast rule there are many tiny rules and distinctions.
I can say that in general, a mechanical timepiece, and especially a Swiss mechanical watch, will almost always be considered a luxury watch. However, there are non-mechanical (quartz movement) luxury watches from almost every luxury watch brand. In general, any digital watch is going to be considered a casual watch but there are digital watches that cost thousands of dollars. Noticing a trend yet?
Among the luxury watch brands are Rolex, Cartier, Tiffany & Co, and Patek Phillipe. There are more, of course. If you’ll notice, two of those brands are known mostly for jewelry. Cartier and Tiffany & Co are world-renowned for jewelry, in fact. Some well-known casual watch brands include Timex, Swatch, Citizen, and Seiko. The problem, though, is that you can get watches in the “casual” category for a hundred dollars or for a few thousand. Some people will categorize Omega in that category even though some Omega watches sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
So… how do you navigate this? Well, there’s no good way to do it, unfortunately. You can, however, learn about particular brands and enjoy them. To me, that’s what anything like this is all about. The only real questions you need to ask yourself are Can I afford it? and Does it bring me joy? If you get yes answers to those questions, the rest doesn’t really matter, does it?
If you’re looking for a pre-owned Rolex
in San Diego, reach out and experience the difference with Bert Levi Family Jewelers. You can give us a call or drop by our showroom. We’ll help you find the perfect watch to go on your wrist, right where it belongs.
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