Watch collecting can be an expensive hobby. For those of us who collect mechanical watches, you can’t reasonably expect to spend much less than about $200 on a decent watch and the ceiling for watch prices has not stopped rising despite a perceived slow down in recent watch sales. On top of the cost in purchasing new watches, there is also the fact that with very few exceptions making a profit in a watch ranges from hard to impossible. With all this in mind finding ways to enjoy the collections we have, rather than adding to them, can be a good idea. Because of this I thought I’d describe one of my ways for enjoying my collection, by creating other collections within my main one.

So What’s A Mini Collection?

A mini collection is exactly what it sounds like; a small collection within a larger one that combines similar pieces together in order to create a smaller group. This is something that comes up frequently in enthusiast circles with people talking about the perfect two, three, five, ten etc. watch collection. The very first time I came across the term was on my favourite watch forum Watch Crunch about 2 years ago and the topic continues to grow with posts such as this. Now this is going to be something that’s open to the interpretation of whoever is talking about it, but for the purposes of this post I’ll say that a mini collection is a collection of between 3-9 watches that has a clear theme, and really this theme can be anything you’d like it to be from watch types, complications, material and anything else you want.

And Why Do This?

Because it’s fun. Do we really need another reason? If you feel like the answer to that is yes, how about the fact that it gives you another perspective on your collection, allows you to see your collection in a new light that may allow for new insights into how you should approach your watch shopping. And lastly why not. Lets be honest nobody needs a wrist watch now. It’s been said over and over again, but that doesn’t make the fact that most of us have a phone in our pockets that are more accurate than the most accurate COSC or Metas certified watch, and if you were to get anything a smart watch would make a lot more sense and be a lot more useful, than a mechanical watch. And as we’ve concluded that we don’t need a watch we certainly don’t need a collection of them, we buy these because we get enjoyment out of it, so why not find other ways to enjoy our collections, you may even find some benefit can be gleaned from your mini collections.

And The Benefits Are?

Getting another perspective or seeing another side of something is generally a good idea, and I don’t believe that the collection of watches is an exception to that. After you’ve organised your watches into different groups, or mini collections you might get a better idea about what it is you like in a watch, alternatively for those of us with overly large collections (I personally have 26 and do consider that number excessive for me), we can see if maybe we can let go of some of our watches. Also a lot of us with larger collections sometimes don’t use our watches as often as we’d like making mini collections can highlight which ones you should make more of an effort to wear.

The last benefit I’d like to point out is that it’s fun. Finding other ways to enjoy our collections can help quell that urge we all have to buy that next watch, and it requires no special tools; a camera, which we all have on our phones is all we need. Of course there are also a few negatives that can go along with this benefit.

Any Negatives?

So yes while there are some positive things linked to creating mini collections, there are, as with everything, some negatives. The largest negative that I’ve come across is linked to that last positive aspect of it being a fun way to enjoy your collection. It is possible when you find yourself creating mini collections that you get too into the idea of ”completing” your mini collection. By this I mean that you find yourself loving a mini collection and feel that it’s just not complete, this is something I see a lot of on Watch Crunch with people talking about how they’ve completed or on their way to completing their watch collection, I’ve said this to, and I’m here to tell you that that’s not going to happen. I do not have a fix for this, all I can say is as with watch collecting generally you need to be able to exercise a modicum of self control and remember, with the exception of some limited editions you can always wait a bit before making a purchase, that watch you want will be made again and you can buy it then. In fact even in the case of limited editions you may well find a similar watch or even that same watch on the secondary market.

What Are My Favourite Mini Collections?

• I’ve inserted pictures of some of my favourite mini collections here, so as you can probably tell, what I enjoy most is making these mini collections and it really is a case of the more the merrier. However, having said that, one type of mini collection I do often is grouping my watches by where the brand comes from. Earlier in the post I had my British collection and below I have my Swiss one, more photos for some of these can be found in the Mini-Collection Portfolio.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day this is just a bit of fun, and really a description of one of the ways I enjoy my watch collection. As I said before, we don’t need these pieces of jewellery, we just like having them, and our reasons for why vary hugely, but I can definitely recommend this as a way of enjoying what you have, and you never know you might get something out of it, and it might even help in directing where you should be looking when making your next watch purchase.