Here's how to identify good watches and avoid bad ones

There is no end of advice out there telling you what watches to buy. But it is much simpler to flip it around and tell you what watches you should definitely not buy. Finding nice watches is easy. But some people seem to have great difficulty avoiding the horrible ones.

The biggest problem is not being honest about why you are buying a watch in the first place. Do you want a time telling device that you find pleasing? Or a shiny emblem to let people know how splendidly you are doing?

You don’t need to be a football fan to know that Cristiano Ronaldo has done pretty well in his chosen profession. Yet for some reason every watch he wears seems like a desperate attempt to win the golden boot for most diamonds per square centimetre.

It’s not just footballers. Floyd Mayweather is perhaps the best defensive boxer of all time, but his taste in watches is hard to defend. He likes to take a handsome watch from a great brand, then ask the company to go wild with the precious stones. If it refuses, he goes to a customiser who turns it into a watch that suits the sort of man who regularly photographs himself on a bed covered in cash.

Celeb megawatches like these regularly cost north of a million dollars. But those without Money Mayweather’s funds are not immune to the pitfalls of taste. For every precious metal watch festooned in diamonds, there are a dozen wannabes with fake stones and gold painted steel. And that is somehow worse.

Maxing out on the bling is not the only way to go wrong. Almost as bad is trying to be too clever. You see a watch that tells the time and looks great. But you add a stopwatch, second time zone, a moon phase, a power reserve... on and on until it’s more like a cryptic oracle that you stare at, trying to figure out what all the tiny hands and dials are trying to tell you.

Avoid the horrors and keep it simple. The best designs – cars, watches or ballpoint pens – are all about elegant simplicity.

Image: Getty