The three watches Fergus wore most in 2022: Seiko, Citizen and Omega

Fergus Nash

While the new year is often a time that enthusiasts admire how their collection has grown, mine drastically shrunk last year. After I sold my favourite watch in January for a variety of reasons, as discussed in this article, I was left re-evaluating my other watches alongside my priorities. As of now, my collection consists of four watches. One of them I never wore, another that I very rarely wore, one that I’m sure I’ll wear more, and one that I wore most days of the year. Taking out the Casino Royale Swatch which I mostly forget that I own these days, let’s look at the other three watches that I’ve still got a hold of.

Seiko SGG735

Although it only found its way onto my wrist a handful of times this year, my Seiko Sapphire SGG735 provided one of my biggest watch-related shocks. Despite only costing me around A$200 in June 2020, a curious google search one evening revealed that they were then selling for well over $1,000 more. The prices seem to have calmed down a bit since I published an article describing the rapid increase, but they still seem to be going for between $500-700 as new. It just goes to show how much people are missing some of Seiko’s catalogue before their mass overhaul, to the point that they’re willing to pay over double the original prices which attracted the audiences in the first place.

The SGG335 still charms me with its looks — that two-tone of darkened grey titanium and bright yellow gold contrasting beautifully in plenty of lighting conditions. The sapphire crystal is also a big bonus, and a rarity for a Seiko in this price range. The 20mm lug width offers me a lot of versatility, as I enjoy swapping between the jangly titanium bracelet and a variety of leather straps depending on the weather. The quartz movement is also a joy, with a long battery life and the second hand accurately hitting its printed markers.

Citizen Elegance

While it can get annoying to preach humility too much, falling in love with this $50 Citizen from an op shop really was a lesson in value having previously owned a $5,000 Cartier Tank Basculante. I would never be so bold as to suggest that this watch is better than a Cartier, but the fact that I bought it on a nice day out with my partner instead of on a whim on eBay made it connect with me so much more. If it wasn’t for the fact that I bought this watch in August, it could have easily become my most-worn watch of the year.

Even though it was a $50 second-hand find, and probably wouldn’t have costed more than a couple of hundred dollars when new, it’s a surprisingly refined watch. The yellow-gold PVD coating is a bit scratched up, but that’s hard to notice from a glance considering it’s 22mm width. The dial features two sectors with an inner and outer guilloché pattern, the outer being subtle concentric circles and the inner being quite hypnotic. The mineral crystal has quite a pronounced curve too, which gives it a very pleasing distortion when viewed at an angle.

1958 Omega Seamaster

I’ve lost count of how many times my great-grandfather’s 1958 Omega Seamaster has made its way into my articles, but it really is the centrepiece of my watch-collecting journey. The abridged version of the story is that I found it in a drawer not running and got it serviced with one of my first ever proper paycheques, and discovering that it worked without a battery kickstarted my mechanical watch hyper-fixation. Now that my career revolves around watches, I truly owe this Seamaster quite a lot.

A watch with sophisticated sensibilities will always dress down better than a sports watch can dress up, and this one just rides the line so well between smart and casual. For me, 34mm is the perfect diameter, so it’s no wonder that there haven’t been many modern watches that can challenge the Seamaster’s place of pride in my collection. The two-tone of the steel case and gold indices validates any other metal I choose to accessorise with as well, and it easily takes to a wide variety of straps. It was the only watch that I took on my recent holidays to Hobart/Nipaluna and New Zealand/Aotearoa, further strengthening my bond with it that gets stronger year on year.