The pros and cons of owning a watch box

Buffy Acacia

If you’re a watch enthusiast who hasn’t seen Doctor Strange, you’ve missed out on an incredible scene. Near the beginning of the film, Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange pulls out a drawer to reveal a heap of watch winders with all kinds of expensive wrist candy. We can’t all be living that high-level surgeon dream, but we can still get watch boxes of our own. Whether it’s a modest leather roll for travelling or a more elaborate affair with moving parts, dedicated watch storage is the next logical step for a dedicated watch collection. But what exactly are the benefits, and are there any drawbacks?

Pro: Ease of storage

This is pretty self-explanatory, but keeping every watch in its original box just isn’t practical. Often they’re loaded up with accessories you rarely touch, unnecessarily huge, or designed with a gimmick that’s fun at first, but wears off quickly. If you’re the type of person to rotate through your collection, then having all of your watches in one place makes life all the easier. You’ll be reminded of the state of your collection whenever you go to put one on, and it’s far less likely that anything will get misplaced. It’s also a more compact solution, fitting plenty of watches in a drawer or on a desk rather than spread out all over your house.

Con: The temptation of empty slots

There is nothing more satisfying than filling up a row on Tetris, ticking every box on a checklist, or popping the last bubble on some bubble wrap. Conversely, there’s nothing more irritating than a loading bar stuck halfway, seeing burnt-out bulbs in a string of lights, or spotting a tile which has been placed backwards. In essence, humans are completionists. A 12-slot watch box with only a handful of watches inside is just begging to be filled, and that may lead to some intense impulse purchasing. We all know how hard it can be to wait for the perfect watch to come along, and when there’s an empty slot begging to be taken up, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to pull out your credit card.

Pro: They look fantastic

Organisation is the key to anything being aesthetically pleasing. Even if you like things messy and chaotic, there’s usually a level of consistency which binds everything together. There’s nothing nice about an array of boxes placed next to each other, all in different shapes, sizes, and colours. A single box with slots for your watches cleans everything up, and even ignoring the tidiness, the boxes themselves can be made to be admired. Automatic winders provide movement to get lost in, and different materials can contribute to your personal style whether it’s exotic timbers or carbon fibre.

Con: The lament of no empty slots

So you’ve filled up your watch box. What then? No more watches? That’s just unrealistic. Even if you do reach a point in your life where you’re completely satisfied with your current collection, time has a way of changing things. Some use this conundrum as a way to force themselves to sell some of their watches, but regretful sales are always more painful than regretful purchases. If you want to keep everything you already have, you’re essentially increasing the cost of your next watch by the price of a second watch box.

Pro: Keeping up to date, and time

Even if you’ve got all of your watches on winders, or your collection is entirely made up of quartz watches, it’s inevitable that you’re going to have to adjust them eventually. The most annoying scenario would involve a static watch box full of automatics with date displays, as you’d probably need to adjust the date and time on every watch as you go through your rotation. However, keeping them all in a single box will ensure that you’re on top of these menial duties. Having at least one quartz watch in there is also useful as a reference time keeper.

Con: Convenient for you, but also for burglars

Unless you keep your watch box in a safe, there is certainly a consideration that all of your watches will be in a single, portable box for quick nabbing. Hopefully you’d have decent security and contents insurance if your watch collection is highly valuable, but nobody wants to be robbed even if you can get a full insurance payout. We love to have our luxury goods on display for a multitude of reasons, but for the eagle-eyed thief, a box full of watches will end up straight in the sack of goodies.

However you weigh up these pros and cons, we always recommend investing in the appropriate storage for your collection. It makes this hobby that much easier, when you know everything is one place, with the right amount of protection, and looks good while doing it. There are so many levels of watch storage, and we are very lucky to have pretty much all of them on hand in our online store and in our Melbourne Studio. With stands, boxes, and winders for home, and rolls and travel cases for when you’re on the move, it’s pretty much always a good idea to have some type of storage solution, no matter the size of your collection.