A Collector's Journey: From First Watch to Fifty

James Harrington still remembers the exact weight of his first mechanical watch. It was a Seiko SKX007 -- the ubiquitous diver that has launched a thousand collecting journeys -- given to him by his father upon graduating university in 1994. He wore it daily for nearly a decade, through his early career in architecture, through travel across Southeast Asia, through the birth of his first child. He did not know then that this unassuming tool watch was the first chapter of what would become a fifty-piece collection spanning three centuries of horological achievement.

The turning point came in 2003, when a client invited James to a watch fair in Basel. There, surrounded by the full spectrum of haute horlogerie, something clicked. He purchased his first Swiss watch that year -- an Omega Speedmaster Professional, the same reference worn on the moon. It was not particularly rare, but it was the watch that taught him the difference between buying a watch and beginning a collection. Over the next decade, his acquisitions became more deliberate: a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso for its Art Deco elegance, a Lange & Sohne 1815 for its movement finishing, a vintage Cartier Tank because, as he puts it, "no collection is complete without something from Rue de la Paix."

Today, at sixty-two, James considers himself more a custodian than an owner. "These watches were here before me and they'll be here after me," he says from his home in Edinburgh, where a custom cabinet holds pieces ranging from an 1890s pocket watch by Patek Philippe to a modern F.P. Journe Chronometre Bleu. His advice to new collectors is disarmingly simple: "Buy what moves you, keep impeccable records, and never sell a watch to fund another watch -- you will always regret it." His Seiko SKX007 still keeps time within ten seconds a day. It still sits in the collection, occupying the first position in his cabinet. Some things, he believes, are beyond value.