Watches can be tricky things to judge without getting some real world wrist time. Details like their scale or finishing details can be lost in even the best of images, and that?s to say nothing of more intangible things, like their heft or the way the bracelet wraps around your wrist. Try as we might, we still sometimes end up writing a watch off, or worse still, prematurely lauding it, before allowing enough hands-on time to appropriately confront our biases. These watches have a way of coming back to us, and like many things in life, a way of surprising us after the fact. With each example, we hope to learn a bit more about our blind spots, and take a bit more pause when scouting the landscape ahead. 
These are some examples of watches that surprised me after their initial launch, and what I learned from the experience. Jump into the comments below to share your thoughts and experiences.
The IWC Tribute to 3705: Learning to Ignore the Numbers

IWC has ridden their Pilot and Big Pilot ranges heavily in recent years, and while I enjoy the aesthetic of these watches, I?ve never been fond of the on-wrist experience with any of them. When I first saw the Tribute to 3705, I was quick to dismiss it based on some of the numbers, predominantly the thickness measurement north of 15mm. But then I got my hands on one, and it was the watch that triggered a reassessment of how I think about the numbers around watches. I even wrote an article implying you to do the same. The ...