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At the moment I have: 15 American mechanical hand-wound pocket watches, of which 11 are Railroad Grade and the rest 3 are US military with a 4th UK military with an American (Elgin) movement. 15 mechanical hand-wound wristwatches: 4 Roamer, 3 Hamiltons (1 with a Swiss ETA 6497 movement), 3 Wittnauer, 1 Enicar, 1 Elgin, 1 Paul Jobin, 1 Longines, 1 Smiths. All pre-1970 with the exception of the Swiss Hamilton. 2 modern quartz watches: 1 Certina DS Podium chronograph and a Seiko Solar.

If all I was interested in was telling the time (like sane people) I probably wouldn't bother with a watch at all as there are more than enough time references around any way and in desperation I could always look at my mobile phone. In fact my kids don't own watches at all for that very reason. I own 4 quartz watches. 2 conventional battery analogue watches which were presents and as such have sentimental value, 1 Seiko Kinetic, also a gift (from my wife) which also has sentimental value but is of technical interest too because of it's mechanical element, and an old Timex Iron Man LCD watch that came in a job lot of watches that I picked up for the mechanicals that were included. The quartz analogue watches will go through whole battery cycles without ever going on my wrist and the Seiko Kinetic gets used a couple of times a year to try and keep the capacitor in good shape. The Iron Man was in such poor cosmetic order when I got it that it couldn't be sold on but it works fine and curiously enough I use it more than all of the other quartz watches put together. This is because it is expendable and I do quite a lot of work in environments which would destroy mechanical watches and mobile phones very quickly, but I still need to track the time. The remaining 90% or so of my collection is vintage mechanical and is used for probably 90% of the time. For me the argument that quartz watches are more accurate is irrelevant. Even my worst mechanical can manage +/-15 sec/day, and most do very much better than that. If I were to try and live my life to tighter time tolerances than that I would go mad. What ever I'm doing, be it catching a train, or keeping an appointment, or sitting down to watch something on the telly, scheduling the activity with less than 15 seconds lea-way is ridiculous. To me the only advantage that quartz has over mechanical is reliability in extreme environments, and since those conditions only occasionally prevail, it's not that much of a issue. To me, part of the pleasure of owning and wearing a vintage mechanical watch is to do with the nostalgia of an age when real people actually made things, when things were expected to last, and when quality and craftsmanship were valued attributes; there was a reason why even mid-range mechanical watches used to be expensive items which your grand children would be proud to inherit (I don't suppose there are too many quartz heirlooms out there). Also though I get a lot of pleasure out of wearing something that I have managed to restore to life myself. It kind of validates the time and money that I have invested in it, as well as adding to the fun and sense of achievement in doing the work. As such, even modern mechanicals don't really cut the mustard, and I sold on the only brand new mechanical watch that I had (a Seiko 5), because I just didn't get any fun out of wearing it. As to manual versus automatic, I love both but for polar opposite reasons. I have a number of auto's, including an old bumper movement and a 21 jewel pin pallet beastie, which I love for their technical complexity. But I also have a lot of manuals for which the attraction is their simplicity and purity of purpose. There is a technical argument that, provided you maintain a reasonable amount of activity, the main spring in an auto will maintain a more consistent "state of wind", and as such will be less prone to isochronism than an equivalent manual movement that is only wound up once a day. However, to me this is just a technical argument and not a practical consideration. So there you go, so long as it's old, and I fixed it myself, I'm happy :-)

I haven't done too badly out of car boot sales but you do have to be patient and be prepared to do a lot of rummaging in boxes of junk. I also find some of the less well informed sales spiel that you get when someone senses that you're interested in an item extremely amusing, although that amount of "up selling" invariably means an unrealistic asking price.

It really depends on what you want, a Quartz watch is a bit like a PC, soul less but very efficient. A mechanical watch seems to be very much alive and probably has the life force and DNA. I watched a video of a Rolex technician fitting the balance wheel and bridge, as it went into place the watch came to life, no doubt in my mind that it's a living thing. If I was not so careful with money I'd have rushed out and bought one there and then. RogerC

I used and abused a Seiko Navigator (15 jewel) for about 10 years, eventually the only none jewelled train wheel pivot hole elongated causing the watch to stop. I managed to shrink the hole back to something like it's proper size and the watch still works today. My conclusion is to buy the 17 jewel version of the Seiko 5 which has all train wheels jewelled and should be bomb proof and last for ever, or at least a very, very long time. RogerC