Looking back at what came and went from my collection in 2022, I would feel comfortable calling 2022 the "Year of the Dive Watch". As we saw in part one and part two of my SOTC series, I shed a portion of time-only and vintage pieces in lieu of adventure-ready dive watches. The Doxa Army was the only watch I purchased in 2022 that was not decidedly a dive watch. Even then, the Army still had all the necessary traits to take a plunge if called on.
Though almost all of my most recent acquisitions have been dive oriented, the stalwarts of my collection are much more diverse. I struggled to find a throughline in these pieces — they were not of the same type, complication, design language, dial color, or era. This desire to group or categorize my collection is predominantly pointless. The main reason I attempt to find commonalities in my collection is to better understand myself as a collector so that I might continue to shape my collection with pieces that have some staying power. If I had to pick a throughline among this lot, it would be that they are the pieces that have accompanied me on adventures and through meaningful life moments. Maybe it is the romantic in me, but I'd say that's a lesson I've ever heard one. With that let's take a look at my collection flagbearers. Read the full post