: I am working on another iteration of my presentation on collecting
: watches. In the wake of the recent Bonhams auction
: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21971/ of significant (mostly
: American) pocket watches and all of the talk about various wrist
: watch auctions here I have started to sort out my thoughts on
: what types of people buy high end watches. It is difficult and
: perilous to try to place people in to categories. Very little in
: life is absolute. However I think it is sometimes useful to
: think about motivations especially among
: collectors....so....below are some of my broad, preliminary
: thoughts about the types of people who buy high end watches.
: What do you think....and if you want...where do you fall on the
: spectrum?

: JohnCote

: TYPES OF PEOPLE WHO BUY HIGH END WATCHES:

: 1) Dealers (defined as someone who is more interested in the
: profit than the watch.)

: 2) Collectors (defined as someone who is more interested in
: the watch than the some future profit.)
: a. The man on a mission
: i. The man on a mission has to have every Autavia and will buy with
: less regard to the economics of the deal just to fill out his
: collection. This collector’ knowledge base is an obsession and
: though his focus may change over time he will drill down and
: learn about every minor variant in both the aesthetics and
: mechanics of a brand or caliber.
: b. The opportunist
: i. The opportunist is a collector who knows what he likes and wants
: but who is willing to wait until he finds a good deal. Perhaps
: his desires are more broad/less focused. He is not the guy who
: is on a mission to have every type of Autavia or Carrera. He can
: be happy picking up either an Autavia or a Carrera, or even the
: occasional Zenith ELP or Omega when the opportunity presents
: itself. The opportunist’s knowledge base is broad. He has
: studied the kind of watches he likes but may not have drilled
: down into every bit of minutia involved in a single brand or
: their calibers.
: c. The accumulator
: i. The accumulator does not have a focus and will buy whatever
: strikes his fancy at the time. Some accumulators buy because of
: price and some just buy because the goods are in front of them.
: Accumulators are probably but not necessarily less educated
: about watches both in terms of history, technology and value.

: 3) The casual watch lover (defined as someone who likes
: watches/wearing watches for whatever reason but is not on a
: mission to own lots of them.)

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You forgot quite important groups:
4) investors who want to invest their capital in safe tangible assets, at the time of the banking and financial crisis and then dying flat money
5) investors and speculators who expect high value increases for undervalued watches with the time
6) a combination of 4) and 5)