I recently had a discussion with a few fellow watch collectors and innocently asked the question, “So, how many watches do you tend to buy a year?” Once I asked, I realized how wildly the answer to such a question could vary from person to person. Some enthusiasts probably have strict quotas to meet or not exceed per year, such as affording themselves two new timepiece per year. Other people probably purchase more spontaneously without tracking how many watches they tend to get each calendar year. Either way, the answer to “how many watches do you buy a year?” seems so important because collecting timepieces without a strategy can (and often does) lead to burnout. Having a limit to the watches you purchase per year can, in many instances, meaningfully extend the satisfaction that comes from acquiring new watches. Are you pacing your watch collecting journey appropriately?

You don’t need to remind me that my above statement comes with a little bit of irony. My hunger for new watches is personally tempered by the fact that as a wristwatch media professional, I get to play with a lot of loaner watches that most people wouldn’t otherwise get access to. Thus, my own desire to experience new timepieces on the wrist is, in large part, satiated by my profession. Most enthusiasts don’t have that luxury, and thus polling watch writers on their timepiece-collecting habits doesn’t really represent real-world behavior. Now, the aBlogtoWatch audience has the opportunity to share their watch buying habits.

To make people feel better, there is no real rule to how many watches you should or shouldn’t be purchasing a year. More so, it doesn’t make sense to talk about acquiring new watches without talking about how people thin out their collections over time. Our research finds that watch collectors tend to thin out their collections while at the same time acquiring new pieces. Many people do not explicitly report thinning out their watch collections, but we can infer it from the number of years they have been collecting and the reported sizes of watch collections. For example, if you typically purchase four watches per year and have been collecting for 10 years, it would stand to reason that you have thinned out your personal inventory if your current collection consists of 10 pieces. Thus, as people acquire new watches each year, less-desired pieces re-enter circulation and exit collections. What happens to those watches could be the subject of a different poll entirely.

While we will have to see what the poll data below results in, as well as what the community shares in the comments, my suspicion is that most watch collectors purchase at least one new watch per year. On average, I’d say people purchase between one to seven new watches per year, and that only a small number of active enthusiasts do not purchase at least one timepiece each year. Finally, my guess is that there is a small but active contingent of buyers who regularly purchase 10 or more watches per yer. Since this latter group is probably regularly thinning out their often ballooning collection, it probably pays to be close friends with them!

Let us know in the poll below how many watches (new, pre-owned, or otherwise) on average per year that you acquire. Thank you to the larger aBlogtoWatch community.