Sometimes the little moments inform our collecting more than the big ones. A big moment might be the first time Dad trusted you to wear his watch. While formative, there?d be a lot more two-tone bracelets on Instagram if those moments drove purchasing decisions. My ?big moment? came on my seventh birthday. After weeks of begging for a digital watch, I opened a package to be greeted by black resin and the coolest digital screen I?d ever laid eyes on. The subsequent victory lap through the kitchen resulted in a trip to urgent care. Though I still have the scar to remember the watch that unleashed the horological nerd within me, my watchbox is currently void of a single digital watch. On the contrary, little moments are constantly influencing how I think about and consume watches. These are often as simple as offhand remarks I hear at a meetup or a comment I read on Reddit. One of these little moments came while I was listening to Rico?s Watches Podcast a couple years ago. A RedBar chapter head was the week?s guest, and he made some brief, unflattering remarks about Raymond Weil. Sharing a story of buyer?s remorse, he cited a lack of demand on the secondary market and a design language that was an amalgamation of other brands rather than something original. These quick quips stuck with me. As a newer collector, I?d already discerned that anything with ?mall watch? vibes might not receive the nod of approval from my enthusiast peers. And, having personally noticed the less-t...