Frequently Asked Questions

About the Collection

How many watches are in your collection?

Just over fifty in the active rotation as of mid-2026, and I know because I log every wear. That's down deliberately from a peak of about 140. I documented that process in the 140 to 40 series. Over the years the collection has spanned more than 70 brands, leaning toward dress watches and chronographs, from entry-level microbrands to haute horlogerie. I don't keep a rigid number. Watches come and go as my taste evolves, but these days I'm focused on fewer, better pieces that I know I love.

Which watches actually get the most wrist time?

Per my first-half 2026 wear log: the Laurent Ferrier SportAuto and the Rolex Daytona Panda sit at the top in a near tie, followed by the Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda Minute Rattrapante, the A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Moonphase, and the Zenith Chronomaster Lapis Lazuli. Those five took roughly 40% of my wrist time and the top ten over half, while more than a third of the collection barely left the box. The funniest finding: the Daytona Panda leads the wear log and has never once appeared on my Instagram feed. What I wear and what I post are two different collections.

What’s your most-posted brand?

Seiko, by a significant margin, followed by Omega, Grand Seiko, Credor, and Zenith. The brands I post most aren't necessarily the ones that resonate most with my audience, though. Studio Underd0g, which I've only featured in a handful of dedicated posts, outperforms everything else on engagement. And here's the confession my wear log forced out of me: in the first half of 2026 the brand I actually wore most was Rolex, spread across nearly a dozen pieces, and it barely appears on my feed at all.

What countries are represented in your collection?

The collection spans at least 12 countries of origin. By post count: Swiss (107 posts), Japanese (65), British (33), French (22), German (22), American (20), Netherlands (8), Hong Kong (6), Swedish (5), and a few others. Japanese watchmaking is particularly important to me. Credor, Grand Seiko, and Seiko’s higher-end lines are a core part of the collection.

What’s the most expensive watch in your collection?

I don’t publicly discuss specific values, but the collection includes pieces across the full spectrum, from entry-tier microbrands under $500 to haute horlogerie from makers like Parmigiani Fleurier and Laurent Ferrier. The tier breakdown of what I post is roughly: luxury (48%), mid-tier (40%), entry (7%), and haute horlogerie (5%). I don’t believe price determines quality or interest.

Do you collect vintage watches?

I post mostly modern pieces (about 86% of my feed), but I have a meaningful vintage collection (around 30 posts) and a growing neo-vintage collection (around 12 posts). Neo-vintage pieces, meaning modern watches with a vintage aesthetic, actually generate 22% higher engagement than my modern pieces. That tells me my audience appreciates heritage design language even in new watches.

What’s your favorite watch category?

I lean heavily toward dress watches, and both datasets agree. They make up close to half of my single-watch posts, and my first-half 2026 wear log says the same thing: dress watches take about a third of my actual wrist time, with chronographs second at roughly a fifth. The data also shows that field watches resonate most with my audience, well above baseline engagement on only a handful of posts. I think of myself as a dress-watch collector whose audience secretly wants more tool watches.

What dial colors dominate your collection?

Black (55 posts), navy blue (34), silver (24), white (23), and gold (20) are my most-posted dial colors. Navy blue outperforms black on engagement by about 12% despite being posted less frequently. My audience seems to prefer considered color choices over the safe default of black.

About the Photography

What camera and lens do you shoot with?

Sony a6700 with a Sigma 56mm f/1.4 lens for the vast majority of my shots. The 56mm on APS-C gives an 84mm equivalent, close to the portrait focal length. It works well for watch photography because it compresses perspective slightly and creates pleasing bokeh without extreme distortion. These days I also shoot a fair amount on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and I recently added a Leica Q3 43 that comes out from time to time.

What’s your most common shot type?

Wrist shots (37% of posts), followed by flat-lays (30%), in-hand shots (9%), and on-stand/display (13%). Macro shots are only 5% of my feed but they generate the highest engagement, about 21% above baseline. I should probably shoot more of them.

Do you use natural light or studio lighting?

My photography has moved through three chapters: on-wrist iPhone shots, then years of working almost exclusively in a lightbox, and as of mid-2026 a full studio with multiple lights and overhead and side camera positions. I told that story in The Studio Evolution. The lightbox still comes out when the shot calls for it, and my data shows natural daylight slightly outperforming studio setups on engagement. I'm drawn to a single-light-source aesthetic that creates depth through shadows.

Do you edit your photos heavily?

Most of my posts are either untouched or have minimal warm/cool grading. I don't use heavy filters, HDR processing, or dramatic color grading. The audience on my feed responds to clean, honest photography more than to stylized treatment. The work happens in Adobe Lightroom, and I recently started tethering my a6700 through Lightroom Classic so I can see full-resolution frames as I shoot.

Do you pair watches with specific straps for photos?

Yes. Strap pairing is a hobby within the hobby for me. The strap is the one part of a watch you fully control, and I have somewhere north of thirty in rotation: alligator, Zermatt-lined calf, saffiano, canvas, and a few exotics I still can't pronounce. For bespoke leather I work with ateliers like Handdn (tagged in 29 posts, more than any other account), Atelier KAI, Jean Rousseau, Aaron Bespoke, Molequin, Bulang & Sons, Delugs, TsLeatherGoods, TheStrapTailor, and Veblenist. For sport and water duty I go non-leather: Anchor Strap Co nylon, Artem sailcloth, and Horus rubber. A well-chosen strap completely transforms how a watch reads in a photograph and on the wrist.

About the Account

How often do you post photos?

Almost exactly once per day. Over the last year (362 days), I’ve published 348 posts, a 96% daily posting rate. I’ve also run several multi-day series like “State of the Collection” and “Watch Box Unveiling” that feature multi-watch group shots. About 15% of my posts are these multi-watch scenes rather than single-watch features.

What’s your biggest post ever?

A Holthinrichs Signature Delft Blue that reached nearly 98,000 accounts, about 140 times my median post reach. My second-biggest was a Grand Seiko Moonlit Birch (SLGW007) at 27,000, and third was a Zenith El Primero Chronomaster Lapis Lazuli at 21,000. None of the top three is a mainstream hype watch. They’re all collector pieces with strong design stories.

What does your audience actually engage with most?

By engagement rate, my top-performing brand is Studio Underd0g (35% above baseline), followed by Heuer, Omega, Seiko, and Credor. By save rate, which I consider the true collector-intent signal, Zenith dominates at nearly 3x my baseline. Laurent Ferrier follows at 2.3x and Grand Seiko at 1.5x. The people who bookmark my posts are making considered collector decisions, not casual scrolling ones.

When do you typically post?

I post in the early morning EST, usually between 6am and 10am. My analysis shows this window happens to be the only part of the day where my US East Coast audience (morning), European audience (lunch break), and Asian audience (evening) are all simultaneously active. Saturday mornings perform particularly well on save rate, nearly 1.7x my baseline, likely because weekend browsing is more intentional across all timezones.

What’s your posting philosophy?

I buy watches I love and then photograph them honestly. I’ve never purchased a watch because I thought it would do well on Instagram, and I’ve never changed what I collect based on engagement metrics. The data analysis I’ve done has influenced how I present my collection (spending more time on underrepresented pieces, leaning into vintage and neo-vintage stories) but not what I collect.

Do hashtags matter on your feed?

Barely. My analysis shows that most caption-side levers (length, questions, emojis, mentions, sentiment) have essentially zero correlation with engagement on my feed. The one real finding: posts with 4 to 8 niche hashtags have a 54% higher save rate than baseline, while posts with 9 or more actually perform worse. The photography matters far more than the caption.

About Taste and Philosophy

What draws you to a watch?

Character over pedigree. The brands that perform best on my feed (Studio Underd0g, Heuer, Zenith, Grand Seiko) share one quality: they each have a clear, unmistakable point of view about what a watch should look like. I’m less drawn to watches that feel like they were designed by committee, regardless of how prestigious the brand name is. I also love stories behind the watch. For instance, my Tudor 7016 is signed by a Venezuelan Oil Company. I love a good story like that.

Swiss or Japanese?

Both, but the data says my audience leans slightly Japanese. Japanese watches outperform Swiss by about 5% on engagement across my feed. Not a huge margin, but consistent across 65 and 107 posts respectively. I think this reflects a collector audience that appreciates Japanese watchmaking as its own tradition, not as a budget alternative to Swiss. I’ve been a Credor enthusiast for a decade, and Grand Seiko’s finishing at its price point is genuinely world-class.

What’s your view on microbrands?

I’m a strong believer as a former entrepreneur. Microbrands are where risk lives in watchmaking. It’s where designers try new things, experiment with materials, and zig where the heritage brands zag. My collection includes pieces from Studio Underd0g, Baltic, Fears, Farer, Halios, Selten, Trafford Watch Co, Imperial Watch Co, Awake, and others. Some of them are my best-performing posts.

Do you flip watches?

Watches do leave the collection, but I don’t think of myself as a flipper. I buy what I want, wear it, photograph it, and sometimes realize it’s not getting the wrist time it deserves. When that happens, I let it go to make room for something else. The collection is always evolving.

What’s an “IYKYK” watch to you?

A watch that doesn’t announce itself to the average person but immediately catches the eye of someone who knows. Credor is the quintessential IYKYK brand. It sits above Grand Seiko in Seiko’s hierarchy, produces some of the finest finishing in the world, and is virtually unknown outside of serious collector circles. Laurent Ferrier, Holthinrichs, and D. Dornblüth & Sohn are similar in spirit.

What's your horological holy trinity?

Not the classic Patek, Vacheron, AP answer. My collection is only a few years old, so I think of it as a personal trinity rather than an earned one: Laurent Ferrier and Parmigiani Fleurier locked in immediately, and Vacheron Constantin takes the third seat with the incoming 1921. H. Moser & Cie. sits just outside, close enough that I wouldn't bet against it working its way in. The full reasoning is in My Horological Holy Trinity - Sort Of.

What’s your dream watch?

For years it was the Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Silver (LCF039.R5.G3N). I called it my holy grail everyday watch, it sat in the Shreve, Crump & Low case as a grail for a while, and in 2026 I finally bought it. It remains my goosebumps piece. The grail list has since refreshed. At the top now is the Andersen Genève Jumping Hours Rising Sun, platinum with a rose gold guilloché dial, possibly 2027. I admire the Chopard L.U.C Quattro Spirit 25 lineage and keep my eyes open on the secondary market. I'd still love the Holthinrichs Ornament Nouveau, which would be my first skeleton, and the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor Evergreen is working its way onto the list too.

How did you analyze your own collection?

I ran a full data analytics project on a year of my posts. I exported all 348 posts from Instagram, pulled engagement metrics (reach, saves, shares) via the Graph API, and ran every image through Claude’s vision model to extract 30+ features per photo: brand, model, dial color, strap type, shot composition, lighting, mood, and more. Then I enriched each unique watch with reference specs (country, tier, movement type) via web search, joined everything into one dataset, and built an interactive analytics dashboard. The whole project cost about $13 in AI API credits. I wrote about the findings and the methodology on this site.