You’re gonna disagree with this, but here’s how I would build a $24,000 watch collection. You may also ask, wouldn’t a round number like $25,000 make more sense? Yes, but we’re Chrono24, so we had to put our own spin on it.
If you look through the Chrono24 Magazine, you’ll see how many of my colleagues tackled this problem. Now it’s my turn. $24,000 is a healthy and not too unrealistic budget to work with. It’s easy for impulse buys to add up in this hobby, so a roadmap can be quite helpful. That brings us to the strategy portion for building this hypothetical, or maybe not so hypothetical, watch collection.
Most people who are lucky enough to not be obsessed with watches would probably think “$24,000?! Just buy the best watch you can and be done with it. How many do you need anyway?” That’s a rational way to approach it, but watch enthusiasts are often not rational people – I’m wearing a watch from the 1940s as I write this. If you were to take this one-and-done strategy, you could certainly go for a Rolex Daytona, or a Patek Philippe Calatrava, or a Vacheron Constantin Overseas and be done with it. For a one watch collection (if you want to call that a collection), I’d do maybe a Lange 1 or maybe an exceptional 5513 Rolex Submariner, but I don’t think I could ever own just one watch. Where’s the fun in that? My colleagues, for example, chose 3, 4, or 5 watches.
So, here’s my strategy that you can steal: figure out a personal cost-per-wear ratio, and budget a proportional amount for each category. For example, if you only wear a dress watch on occasion, don’t blow your entire $24,000 budget on a rare Cartier. Simple enough, right? Personally, I’ll do 40% of the budget for a daily driver, 40% for a dressy watch (which is a lot, I know), and the remaining 20% for a no-frills sports watch.
Tudor Black Bay ref. M79000N
Let’s start with the sports watch: The Tudor Black Bay ref. M79000N. I don’t need much for a beater, and you’ve got a lot of value here given the build quality of Tudor. It was already a popular choice among my colleagues for good reason. Starting around $4,000, you’ll get a watch that will outlive you, and it’ll only look better the more beat up it gets. It also captures that vintage look and feel without having to worry about the potential fragility of vintage watches.
I could shave a bit off the budget by going for a Seiko diver or a DOXA or even an Aquastar for the funk factor. Even a G-SHOCK would be acceptable here. Actually, how funny would that be? Spending $23,900 on a Calatrava and the final $100 on a Casio. Ok, but realistically, we’re one watch in with only about $4,000 spent.
Vacheron Constantin Overseas ref. 42042
Next, the daily driver. And I’ll say this, the worst part about my job is that every so often I have to shoutout a watch that I’m planning on buying. I’d prefer to keep this a secret, but I’ve really been loving the first generation Vacheron Overseas lately, specifically the ref. 42042 that’s 37mm but wears more like a 39mm. I’m undecided on dial colors, but the specs here are solid. It’s only about 8.5mm thick, and it has 150m of water resistance which is 3x more than the Royal Oak and 5x more than the Nautilus.
You’ve got amazing details on the bezel and the bracelet. Just look at all the edges and finishes they’ve squeezed into this bracelet. It’s even black polished on the underside. Price wise, you can find these for around $10,000 which is obviously much less than a Royal Oak. In this same price range with the same look and feel, you could also consider a Bulgari Octo Finissimo, but it’s too large for most wrists. You could do the gorgeous Cartier Santos 2319 with luminous numerals. There are only 2,000 examples floating around, but there’s really no water resistance. And of course, there’s the Rolex Explorer which is one of the best ready-for-anything watches in the industry, but I think the Vacheron has a more distinctive personality, and I’m not naturally a Rolex kind of guy.
IWC Romana Perpetual Caledar ref.2050
We’ve got $10,000 left to spend, and I’m going all in on a dress watch that’s so much more. It’s a little crazy, but I think I would get a lot of wear out of a perpetual calendar. Apparently, Thierry Stern of Patek Philippe wears a 3940 perpetual calendar as his daily watch, so why can’t you and I? The only tricky part is finding a perpetual calendar for $10,000. That’s where IWC comes in.
The brand has quite a few perpetual calendars at surprising deals, and they’ve made a name for themselves within perpetual calendars over the last few decades. The one I have my eye on is the IWC Romana perpetual calendar. When it debuted in 1994, it was the slimmest perpetual movement at only 3.1mm. That’s it. The watch measures 36mm in diameter by only 6mm in total height. It’s the smallest, thinnest, and by far the most complicated watch on my list. Platinum would be ideal, but yellow gold is easier to find and easier to afford. IWC perpetual calendars are one of the best deals in watches period, so I knew it would be a great choice for this hypothetical thought exercise, especially since the repair costs are also hypothetical
