I Probably Could Be A 15-Watch Guy

There is a mythical concept in watch collecting. It is the dream of the One Watch Guy. That guy is a man of conviction. He buys his Explorer or his Speedmaster, maybe on a significant birthday, and that is it. He wears it through thick and thin, through boardrooms and beach holidays. I admire this man. I could never be him.

Nenad Pantelic • September 20, 2025

I couldn’t be a Two Watch Guy, either. The classic pairing: a steel sports watch for the day, a simple piece on a leather strap for the evening. It’s practical, logical, and elegant. But it feels like a uniform. What about color? What about a weekend? What about just plain fun?

The Three Watch Collection seems to be the internet’s favorite prescription. Hodinkee, Fratello, Worn&Wound write about it all the time. There are tons of podcast episodes on the topic. The GADA (Go Anywhere, Do Anything), the Diver, the Dress Watch. You’ve covered all the bases.

But the moment you achieve this trinity, you notice the gaping hole in your life. That hole might be in a shape of a chronograph. So you become a Four Watch Guy. Then you realize you don’t have a GMT for travel. And just like that, you’re a Five Watch Guy, and you’re still not satisfied.

Further Down The Line

So I’ve come to realize that my own sense of horological satisfaction might live somewhere further down the number line. Somewhere around… fifteen.

It sounds like a lot. To the civilian, it sounds a bit crazy. But in my (our) world, numbers are relative. For some high-flying collectors, fifteen watches is what they pack for a trip to Europe. For someone just starting, it’s an unimaginable hoard.

Going small

I understand the appeal of the tight and small collection. There’s a discipline to it, and a curated precision. With only three or four watches, you wear each one more often. Memories are more densely packed into each piece, to paraphrase the words of Gary Shteyngart.

There is also a financial benefit. It’s simple mathematics. A smaller collection means less capital sitting in a box. If you are focused on building a small collection, the process allows you to consolidate funds. You can save for truly great pieces rather than several just-good-enough ones.

But for me, the cons create a compelling counterargument. The pursuit of a small collection can feel like an exercise in self-denial, and at its heart, this is a hobby. It’s supposed to be fun.

A small collection forces you to think in rigid categories. "This is my diver," "this is my dress watch." What if you want a blue diver and a black diver? What if you appreciate both a 36mm field watch and a 40mm pilot's watch? A larger collection allows for nuance, for redundancy, for owning two watches that do the same thing but give you an entirely different feeling. I have three Unimatics, which might look the same, but each fits a completely different use case.

Also, the perfectly curated three watch collection set can feel… finished. A huge part of the fun is the hunt, the research, the discovery of some obscure microbrand or a neo-vintage piece with a cool story. A slightly larger collection leaves room for these roundabouts and accidents to happen.

So, Why Fifteen?

It’s not a scientifically calculated number. It’s a gut feeling. Fifteen feels like the number where I could stop feeling the pull of the next thing. It allows for the core archetypes: the diver, the chrono, the GMT, the field watch, the dress watch. But it also leaves room for the wonderful weirdness. Room for a carbon case. Room for an orange dial. Room for a high-accuracy quartz piece I don’t have to set. Room for a G-Shock, because everyone needs a G-Shock.

Fifteen allows for a collection to have a somewhat completed shape. A whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It can tell a more complex story about my tastes, and about my journey in this watch collecting thing. It’s a collection that would room to breathe, and wouldn't feel compressed.

The End, I Guess

Could I be happy with fifteen watches? For a while, probably. It feels like a comfortable plateau. It's my happy a place of variety without the stress of true excess. It’s a number that says, "I enjoy doing this, but I haven't lost my mind. Still!”

Of course, ask me again in a year. The number might have changed.

And by the way, at the moment I am at twelve.