want

I drive a nice car and have a nice house, and I am clearly considered well-off in terms of my finances (and it's not an inheritance). I can afford gens, but all my 5 of my watches are reps. Reason is simple, I love watches, and I love the brands. Homages don't work for me. I admire my watches as how you'd admire an ad for the watch. I never buy reps that have too obvious tells. Things like AR that are too blue, screws that are blue, the wrong markers, or a unreliable movement, are reps that I don't buy. I am fascinated by watchmaking, but I haven't had the time to start even exploring it. I can stare at the movement of my open-back Pam 111 all day, just watching it tick. One day, I hope I can dissemble a watch myself and assemble it back myself again. I've never had people call me out on my watches, because people normally assume that they can't be rep based on my lifestlye. When people do ask me about the price of my watches, I tell them what a gen costs. And if people ever ask me if the watch is a rep, i'll answer: "what do you think?" with a wink. The way I figure it, if the person can accurately tell me that it's a rep, I can have a good conversation with him/her about watches. Thing is, I've never been asked this question before. What I won't do is to attend AP get-togethers with AP owners, nor compare watches with a stranger with an authentic Pam. I wish I could, and I wish they'd accept me, but realistically speaking, I know I'd receive disdain and disgust rather than curiosity and friendliness. It's a lonely hobby, but one that I enjoy, because I can never see myself springing for a gen when I know a good rep is there. E.g. a Pam 111 is not a watch with a horological background that I would be impressed with. Whether it is a nice watch, is a totally different matter. A good patek complication, or a JLC, or an AP (not the commercial ROO trash) would be one that I would buy and invest in, and keep it within the family as a heirloom.