Your First Serious Watch

There is a moment in most men’s lives when a watch stops being something that tells the time and becomes something that tells other people, and yourself, who you are. Buying that watch well is a small skill. It has less to do with money than with knowing what to look at and what to ignore.

What matters

Four things. The movement: mechanical, ideally with a proven calibre from the maker or from a major supplier, with a service network that will exist in thirty years. The case: steel, 36 to 41 millimetres, and, more importantly, a lug-to-lug length that does not overhang your wrist. The versatility: can it be worn with a suit on Monday and a T-shirt on Saturday. The maker: a company with a century behind it or a decade of proving it deserves one.

What does not matter: the waiting list, what the watch is trading for on the secondary market this month, and whether a footballer wears it.

The first serious watch should not be the last. It should be the one you still reach for after you have bought the others.

Six candidates

• Tudor Black Bay 58, around €4,200. A 39 mm diver with an in-house movement, a domed crystal and the proportions of a 1950s Submariner. The default answer, for good reason.
• Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra 38, around €5,900 new, under €5,000 pre-owned. The most versatile watch Omega makes. Sits under a cuff, survives a swim, keeps chronometer time.
• Cartier Tank Must, around €3,200. Quartz, and we forgive it, because no mechanical watch under €10,000 looks this good with a dinner jacket. The large model on a black strap.
• Nomos Tangente 38, around €2,100. German, Bauhaus, hand-wound, in-house. The thinking man’s dress watch and the best value in the list.
• Grand Seiko SBGA211, around €6,200 new, under €5,000 pre-owned. The Snowflake. Spring Drive movement, a dial that looks like fresh snow, finishing that embarrasses Swiss watches at twice the price.
• Longines Spirit 37, around €2,400. A pilot’s watch with a chronometer certificate, sensible size, and a brand that has been making watches since 1832.

The method

Try on all of them, in a shop, in daylight, with the shirt you wear to work. Photograph your wrist with each. Go home. Look at the photographs a week later. The one you keep coming back to is the one. Then buy it from an authorised dealer if you want the warranty, or from a reputable pre-owned dealer with box and papers if you want to save twenty percent. Never from a private seller for your first watch; you do not yet know what to check.

The mistakes

Buying too big; a 42 mm watch on a 17 cm wrist looks like a borrowed one. Buying for resale; watches are for wearing and most lose money. Buying a complication you will not use; a date is useful, a chronograph is a pleasure, a perpetual calendar on a first watch is a costume. And buying in a hurry. The watch will still be there in a month. So will you.