I guess I should finally respond to my own thread...
Over the years, I have gone from cheap quartz to entry autos and manuals to nice autos and manuals, even dabbling in vintage, and now I'm heading back towards quartz, but this time on the higher end. I simply found that, though I loved the look and build quality of some of my nicer autos and manuals, more often than not I ended up grabbing the quartz that was already set and ready to go. So over the last few months, I have sold, given away or otherwise divested myself of a number of watches, bringing the collection down from a "high" of around 10 watches, to two (not counting two that I'm trying to sell - so, check those out in the private sellers forum [shameless plug]).
Once I sell those two watches, buy the two new ones and give my G-Shock 5600 away, my collection will be:
First, my
Nomos Orion Weiß 33 (small wrists)-
(My pic)
This is my dress/formal attire watch that gets worn quite frequently. Though it's manual wind, the lack of a date complication makes it very quick to set and, of course, it's gorgeous on the wrist. Even if it wasn't a graduation from law school/business school gift from my mother, this watch would never leave my collection.
Next (and hopefully soon to be acquired) is the
Grand Seiko SBGX061-
(Pic from Seiya)
This will be my quasi-sporty, wear everywhere watch. I think it could easily go from sport coat to shorts or jeans and I like the ease of use implicit in an HAQ module (though, it would be perfect if it had a perpetual calendar). It's an attractive, grab-and-go that has good water resistance, a super long maintenance cycle (every 50 years, though it needs a new battery every three) and it brings a lot of versatility into my small collection.
G-Shock of some description-
And, finally, rounding out the collection with a serious beater will be one of the nicer G-Shocks. After cycle through a few, I have the standard 5600 right now, but I'm looking to acquire one of the multi-band, atomic, solars sometime in the next couple of days. I do a non-trivial amount of regular travel in "developing" countries, so I always need to have a low profile, under the radar but very durable watch. And, even though I may be the only person in Latin America that shows up for things on time, I like the accuracy, multiple time zone and various alarms for reminding me about things I should be doing instead of playing soccer and drinking aguardiente. Pic forthcoming once I settle on a model.
As an interesting aside (or not?), I was going about setting up savings accounts for proposed watch purchases and since I was seriously considering saving for a Rolex Explorer I, which I have admired from afar for quite some time, I decided to head to the local AD to try it on and be sure that I liked it "in the metal." It looked great, felt great and by all accounts is great, but for some reason I decided immediately that I would not buy it. A quick mental calculation assured me that for the same money I would rather buy and rebuild a vintage cafe racer, go on a short vacation to Central America with my wife and maybe still have a buck or two leftover for a caipirinha. It was a strange and unexpected turn of events, as I don't have any issues with luxury items per se and I'm a firm believer in buying quality. So, anyway, now I'm keeping an eye out for another motorcycle and thinking about making a caipirinha this evening.
I'm still looking forward to seeing other small collections, so if you have one please post it here.