How I Fell Back Into Watches

The Samsung was an all-black Galaxy Sport, or something along those lines, with a rotating bezel. It cost me less than $200, and I remember thinking it was a really good watch. I bet it probably still works. Having notifications on my wrist was a novelty, and for a while I thought it was pretty cool.

After a few years, though, the whole thing started getting on my nerves. Every time the watch vibrated, I’d look down, almost automatically, and there I was checking another notification. Eventually I realized I was tired of having this thing constantly asking for my attention.

Then one day the Amazfit stopped working. I had this old G-Shock lying around, a watch I’d always liked but hadn’t worn in a long time. So I got the battery replaced, bought a new strap, and started wearing it again. And I really liked it. I mean, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed having a regular watch on my wrist again.

It was funny how much pleasure I got out of that little G-Shock, because I hadn’t thought about watches that way in years. And then I started remembering the watches I’d had before. The first one that came to mind was from when I was six or seven years old.

The Childhood Citizen Ana-Digi

It was a Citizen watch that I really, really wanted. It was an Ana-Digi, one of those watches with both an analog display and a digital display, and I remember it being gold. For some reason, I was completely taken with it.

And the interesting thing is that I wasn’t the kind of kid who was always asking my father to buy me things. I really wasn’t. But this watch was different. I wanted it badly enough that I kept asking him, and I even remember getting emotional about it. My father could see that this was unusual for me. He knew I really wanted that watch, and eventually he bought it.

You know, looking back, I think that watch taught me something I wouldn’t understand until decades later. I wanted it so badly, and all I really had to do was get emotional enough for my father to buy it. And I loved the watch. I really did. But I still remember looking down at my wrist and feeling something I couldn’t quite explain. I appreciated it, but somehow it didn’t feel entirely mine.

And I think that’s what I understand now. There’s something different about getting something you really want when you’ve worked for it and earned it. You know how you got there, and there’s a certain satisfaction that comes with that. Maybe that was the universe giving me a little lesson at six or seven years old. I just needed a few decades to figure out what it was trying to tell me.

My Father’s Rolex

Speaking of my father, there’s another watch I remember very clearly. He had a gold Rolex Presidential, and that watch made a big impression on me. Back then, seeing somebody wearing a Rolex was a big deal. At least it was to me. It was the kind of watch you associated with people who had really accomplished something, and I remember how proud my father was of his.

It wasn’t a huge watch. I remember it being somewhere around 35 or 36 millimeters, something like that. But it had this presence. I could see how much he appreciated it, and I was happy for him. I remember taking it to show a friend in high school around 1987. He was impressed, and I was proud to be able to show it to him.

I was proud of him, too. I still remember showing that watch to my friend, and I think the feeling was as much about my father as it was about the Rolex.

My First TAG Heuer

A few years later, in 1991, I had a watch of my own that I was pretty excited about. I went to Hong Kong and bought a TAG Heuer diver. It was two-tone, silver and gold, and relatively small by today’s standards, probably around 37 millimeters. I loved that watch. I mean, I really loved it. I wore it all the time for years. There was just something about the way it looked that worked for me.

The Years In Between

My father passed away in 2000. And as the years went by, watches slipped into the background. Life was busy, and I was thinking about other things. I don’t even remember exactly where that TAG Heuer ended up. For a long time, I just wore whatever I had. The funny thing is that watches were still around me. I simply wasn’t paying much attention.

After I came back to Panama toward the end of 2005, I had a small Seiko sports watch with a vinyl strap, sometime between 2005 and 2009. I wore it, but that was about it. It was just a watch. I wasn’t sitting around thinking about watches, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about starting a collection.

Then I met Rita in 2009, and here’s the funny thing: she was working for a distributor that handled all these watch brands. We’re talking Omega, Hamilton, Mido, Tissot, and other brands. She was around watches all the time. There were discounts, there were people buying watches, and she had some nice watches herself. You would think that would have gotten me interested, right? Nothing. I mean, absolutely nothing.

I could appreciate a nice watch when I saw one. I remember a beautiful Guess Collection chronograph she had, with a gold-colored case and a black strap. I remember a friend’s Bulgari. And years later, around 2016, I stopped at a Tissot window in the mall and tried on a T-Touch. I even took a picture of it. It was a big, interesting watch, around five or six hundred dollars, if I remember correctly. But I wasn’t going to spend that kind of money on a watch. That was just where my head was at the time.

I did have G-Shocks. I bought the one that would eventually bring me back into this hobby around 2010 or 2011, and I wore that thing religiously. Then I bought another one, a square G-Shock with a negative display. I liked the idea of it more than the actual display, because I always found it hard to read. But again, I wasn’t thinking like a collector. I was buying something useful, wearing it, and moving on.

Rediscovering Watches

So when the Amazfit finally stopped working and I went back to that old G-Shock, it was almost funny. I’d been around watches for years without giving them much thought, and all of a sudden I was interested again. I started noticing the small things, like the way a watch looked on my wrist, and how different it felt from a smartwatch.

I’d be sitting somewhere or walking around, and I’d catch myself looking at the G-Shock from different angles. I wasn’t even checking the time. I was looking at the case, the strap, the way it sat on my wrist. I hadn’t done that in years.

I also got myself a cheap Casio, around fifty or sixty bucks. It was a blue-dial, diver-style watch, although it wasn’t really a diver. It had a fixed, very shiny bezel and printed markers. I thought it looked pretty good, but the bezel was a little too polished for my taste, and the watch was on the large side.

Still, I was enjoying it. I’d wear it when I went to see clients or meet friends, and I started noticing something else: I was looking at other people’s watches. That’s when you know something is happening, because before that I couldn’t have told you what anybody was wearing.

I remember seeing a guy with a Pepsi-style diver, with that red-and-blue bezel. I couldn’t tell you for sure whether it was a Seiko or a Rolex or something else. I just remember thinking, man, that’s a good-looking watch. And then I noticed another diver on somebody else’s wrist. It was as if I’d suddenly started paying attention to something that had been right in front of me all along.

Discovering the Casio Duro

So of course I started looking at divers myself, and that led me to the Casio Duro. I bought one with a black-and-blue bezel and a metal bracelet. I figured, hey, why not get the bracelet? I liked the idea of having that option.

Well, the watch looked great, but it was big. And that bracelet, man, that was a heavy piece of metal. I think I wore it on the bracelet once, maybe a little more, and that was enough to realize it wasn’t especially comfortable for me. I liked looking at it more than I liked wearing it that way.

That was one of the first things I learned once I started paying attention to watches again. A watch can look terrific in a picture and still be uncomfortable after a few hours on your wrist. The bracelet can make a huge difference. I was learning all this by trying things, which was half the fun.

So I started paying more attention in stores. I’d see something in a display, try it on if I could, and maybe go home and watch a video about it. I was learning what felt comfortable on my wrist, and I was having a pretty good time figuring it out.

Around that time, we got one of those really good real-estate commissions. If you work in real estate, you know the feeling. You can breathe for a while. You get up, have your coffee, and you’re not immediately thinking about the next bill. I remember feeling that I could finally buy myself a little something, just for the fun of it.

I always thought it was funny how Rita could enjoy going to places like Miniso and Mumuso and buying little things for the house. She doesn’t need some huge shopping spree. She just enjoys walking around and picking up a few things. And me, I was never much of a shopper either. I liked going out for coffee and seeing people. But now, for the first time in a long time, I was getting interested in buying a little something for myself.

A Little Something for Myself

This was around my birthday in 2024. I decided I could spend a little money on another watch, and I stayed with Casio. I bought a G-Shock GA-2100, black, with those Tiffany-colored accents and a kind of bronze or gold detail on the dial. Man, that was a good-looking watch. I was happy with it. I mean, really happy. And at the time I wasn’t even thinking about expensive watches. I was perfectly comfortable in this little Casio world.

I also bought Rita a Casio A168W, the dark, smoky-looking version, and then I bought one for myself with a cleaner gray look. I loved those little watches. They’re simple, inexpensive, and just cool.

A Whole New World

We were living in Panama Pacífico, and we’d go to Albrook Mall a lot. Part of it was traffic, crossing the bridge when it made sense, and part of it was that Rita went to the gym there. So I’d wait for her. Before, I might have sat at Starbucks. Now I was going to the watch stores, looking at the Casios, looking at the Orients, looking at whatever they had in the windows.

And I loved it, dude. Sometimes I’d go back to the same window two or three times, just to look at a watch again. Then I’d get home and watch videos about it, and pretty soon my YouTube feed was full of watches. There was this whole little world I had barely paid attention to before.

And then I started changing straps myself. That opened up a whole other part of the hobby. Before, I’d look at a watch and wonder why one strap fit and another one didn’t. Rita would explain that it just didn’t fit, and I’d think, well, how can that be? Now I was learning about lug widths, straight ends, curved ends, all that stuff. I was taking straps off, putting them back on, and even adjusting a bracelet. Little things, but they were fun. Suddenly one watch could give me three or four completely different looks.

I’ve always loved cars, especially Porsches. But you can’t exactly buy another Porsche because you feel like trying a different color this week. With watches, I could experiment for very little money. Ten minutes changing a strap and I had something that felt almost new. I think that’s part of why I got so hooked.

Discovering Seiko

With all those trips to the mall and all those videos at home, sooner or later I was going to discover Seiko. It’s almost inevitable. The SKX007 keeps showing up, and you start hearing about all these models that people love. That’s how I found the Seiko 5 SNXS79.

Buying that Seiko was only a small part of the experience. I wanted something smaller, something with a different look, and I liked that it was affordable. I think I paid around $140 through Jomashop and had it sent to Panama through my Miami mailbox. What I remember most is how much enjoyment I got before I even bought it. I was watching videos, looking at pictures, thinking about it when I was out having coffee with friends. It was like having a present waiting for you, except you were the one deciding when to open it.

Then one night I said, okay, I’m doing it. I placed the order. There was a little hiccup and the order had to be done again, but eventually the watch arrived. And I loved it. I loved the size, the dial, the whole thing. I got a couple of leather straps for it, one dark gray and another in a tan, caramel kind of color, and started changing them around.

I’d go out for coffee and catch myself looking at my wrist. Just enjoying the watch. I know it sounds like a small thing, but that’s what was so nice about it. I didn’t need anything to happen. I could just sit there and enjoy what I was wearing.

The Joy of Having Choices

Once I had the SNXS79, I wanted to see what else was out there. I’d spent years wearing one TAG Heuer or one G-Shock, and I’d been perfectly happy. Now I was curious. I’d wake up and think, okay, what am I wearing today?

And the great thing was that I could do it without spending a fortune. I bought divers in different sizes, watches with different dial colors, a few homages, a couple of Timexes, and watches from brands like Watchdives, Berny and Steeldive. I even bought an older Seiko with a beautiful green dial. Some of them worked out better than others. There were a couple of Timexes that I just never connected with, for whatever reason. One was a green GMT that I hardly wore. That’s part of experimenting, I guess. You learn what you like by actually wearing things.

I picked up an Orient Ray Raven II, a chunky black diver that I really liked, although it was thicker than I expected. I found a Seiko panda chronograph for something like ninety bucks on eBay. The listing warned that there might be an issue with it, so I took a chance, and the thing worked perfectly. I mean, come on. Ninety bucks for that watch? That’s fun.

Then there was a used Seiko Flieger with a beige, champagne-looking dial, which I ended up putting on a bracelet from another Seiko. And toward the end I found a Casio MTD-1010, a Watchdives 62MAS homage, and a Steeldive Willard homage. I got the last two almost together because the prices were so good. I normally didn’t like buying two watches at once, but I looked at them and thought, hey, I’m grabbing these.

My last purchase, in January 2026, was a Casio MTD-110. Beautiful little watch. I wear it a lot. By then I had somewhere around twenty to twenty-five watches, depending on how I was counting, and I was happy. I was also slowing down. I could feel that the buying phase was coming to an end.

Once I started watching more videos about watches, I kept hearing this idea that eventually you should sell the inexpensive ones and buy one really good watch. I understand the appeal. But I would look at my own box and think, why would I want to give up all these choices? Some days I feel like wearing a diver. Other days it’s a small Casio, or something on leather, or a bracelet. Just deciding what to wear is half the fun for me.

There is one Omega I really like, by the way. An older Aqua Terra, 39.2 millimeters, quartz, with this beautiful champagne sunburst dial. I could have put the money from a lot of these purchases toward one of those. And maybe one day I’ll buy it. But then I think about how much enjoyment I got from trying all these different watches, learning about them, swapping straps, and looking forward to the next little discovery. I wouldn’t trade all that for the experience of owning just one watch.

I’ve watched people online get caught up in what a collector is supposed to own, what counts as a real watch, which watch is respectable, all that stuff. I never really understood it. I can appreciate a ten-thousand-dollar Omega, sure. But even if I had ten million dollars in the bank, I’d still ask myself whether that’s how I wanted to spend ten thousand dollars. Maybe I’d rather take a couple of vacations. Maybe I’d rather put the money toward a car. That’s just me. Somebody else can buy the Omega and have a blast with it. More power to them.

And after a while I noticed that the fun was changing a little. I still liked finding watches, of course, but I could have a great evening without buying anything. I’d take a watch off its bracelet, try it on leather, maybe put the bracelet back on, and somehow I’d be looking at the same watch like it was new again. I mean, it’s ridiculous when you think about it, but I really enjoyed doing that.

What the Hobby Gave Me

And the timing of all this was interesting. Since around 2020 I’d been spending a lot of time thinking about what’s happening in the world. Geopolitics, money, the economy, all these things that can stay in your head long after you’ve finished working. I’d come home and sometimes I’d still be thinking about them. But then I’d open the watch box and start wondering what I wanted to wear tomorrow. Maybe the Seiko on leather. Maybe the Casio back on its bracelet. I’d start messing around, and half an hour later I’d realize I hadn’t thought about any of that other stuff for a while.

It became a pressure valve for me. That’s really what it was. Some guys build model trains, some people paint little soldiers, and other people spend hours in the garage working on things. I’d sit at my desk changing watch straps. I didn’t have to accomplish anything. I could just enjoy it, and that was pretty cool.

And I still do it. I’ll go through a phase where I want everything on a metal bracelet, and then suddenly I’m taking them all off and putting waffle straps on. A few weeks later it might be NATO straps. I don’t know why. I just get an idea, try it, and see how it looks.

Just recently I took a silver bracelet from one Casio and put it on another inexpensive Casio with a black case. On paper, it sounds like a weird combination. The bracelet has that flattened Jubilee look, and the watch has chrome hands and four little screws on the face, almost like a Royal Oak. But man, it works. I can’t even explain why. Sometimes a combination just looks good. That’s style, I guess. And that’s exactly the kind of thing that keeps this fun for me.

I’m pretty introverted, so I’ve always liked having a little time to myself. If we have people over, sometimes I’ll disappear into the room to check on the dogs. They’re a great excuse, by the way. I’ll sit with them for a while, maybe look at the watch box, and just relax. It’s a simple thing, but I enjoy it.

And I guess that fits with something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, which is how easy it is to spend your life worrying about the next thing. We had an earthquake here in Panama recently, and a couple of hours before it happened I’d actually sent my family a message about that very subject. I was saying we had to stop worrying so much and remember how precious life is. Then the earthquake came along, and suddenly everybody was thinking about the things that really count.

I mean, if you’ve got a roof over your head, food on the table, your family, your dogs, and a few things you enjoy, that’s already a lot. You still work, you still have plans, and you still want things. I certainly do. But you can enjoy what’s happening right now, too. Sometimes that’s just having coffee, or sitting with the dogs, or spending twenty minutes trying a different bracelet on a Casio.

And here’s the funny part. When I was six or seven, I wanted that gold Citizen so badly that I couldn’t think about much else. I remember how big the wanting felt. Now, all these years later, I can get a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of a watch I already own, just by changing the strap and wearing it again. I don’t know, I find that kind of interesting.

I still like looking at watches. Maybe I’ll buy another one someday. But there’s no hurry. I’ve got plenty to play with, and I still get a kick out of choosing what I’m going to wear tomorrow.

So that’s the story, more or less. An Amazfit stopped working, I pulled an old G-Shock out of a drawer, and somehow that brought back something I’d enjoyed since I was a kid. I never planned any of it. And now I’ve got this little hobby that gives me something to look forward to when I get home. That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

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