5 TIPS FOR BUILDING YOUR WATCH COLLECTION

1 SEEK A SPECIALIST

Tim Bourne, international director of watches, Asia at British auction house Bonhams, says every auction house has several specialists and you should seek to build a relationship with one of them.

“A specialist will almost become your own personal adviser and so forth, and he can help you almost sculpt the way you want to build your collection,” he says.

2 BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH SUPPLIERS

If you intend to add more limited-edition watches to your collection, you will need to start building your relationship with your desired brand now.

“If you’ve never purchased anything and you call them, they’ll say they can’t help you,” says Carson K Chan, head of mission, Asia at Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie.

“It’s like going to Ferrari and saying: ‘I want the brand-new one.’ They’re going to ask you: ‘What is your Ferrari résumé?’”

3 PLEASURE MUST COME BEFORE INVESTMENT

Bonhams’ Bourne says that although “investment” used to be considered a “dirty word” in the watch auction business, more and more people are buying watches as investments these days.

However, investment should certainly not be the primary goal of building your watch collection.

“Overall, what we like to see is that people build a watch collection through their own passion. It’s an extension of their personality and character and that is the most important thing,” Bourne says.

4 DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET GO OF WATCHES YOU NO LONGER WEAR

Once you have accumulated a collection of watches and held them for some time, you may fall out of love with some of the pieces in your collection, says Tay Liam Wee, chairman and co-founder of Watchbox Hong Kong.

“At different stages, people have different motivations. Sometimes they want to re-curate their collection. They want to get out of things they don’t like anymore.”

5 VALUING YOUR WATCH

Watch-collecting newbies may not realise the huge number of factors used to determine a watch’s value. “There are so many slight variations of particular types of dials, crowns, the actual case dimensions – and all these factors actually culminate in whether a watch is highly valuable, or just a little bit valuable,” says Bourne.

“It’s a very, very detailed subject and I think that’s almost why it has become so fascinating to everybody.”