fastest damage to a new watch

When you wear enough timepieces, you will inevitably have your share of blemishes, scratches, dents, and dings on your timepieces. And of course, while you desire to keep your shiny new watch as pristine as possible, the day will come when your watch receives it's first battle scar.

Admittedly, keeping my watch free from scratches is something that concerned me, if not I obsessed over, when I first started in the watch collecting hobby. To me, I felt I should at least get a solid two months of wear out of a timepiece before getting my first desk-diving scratch. After a while though, I resigned myself to a couple facts and realities, worn watches will receive beauty marks, and you'll never get optimal resale value out of a watch that gets a fair amount of wrist-time.

But my all-time fastest, self-inflicted damage to a timepiece, happened within mere hours of receiving the package delivery. Soon after coming home from work, I received a heavily anticipated delivery of my Bernhardt Globe Master II. After a quick bracelet sizing, I went over to a friends house for a visit. While there, his 12 year old son, and a few of his son's friends, decided to play a pick-up basketball game. The adults were coaxed to join in and play, and after only a couple minutes, I went up to grab a spectacular rebound (on a lowered rim) and the bezel of my watch made contact with the basketball rim, instantly damaged bezel insert. My Bernhardt went from brand new to broken in the span of 2 hours, way ahead of my two-month grace period.

And injury to insult, I ended up having to send my new watch back to Bernhardt Watch for repair, where they were so gracious to replace the bezel insert, and I ended-up tweaking my knee on top of everything. Moral of the story, don't sweat a few desk-diving marks on your bracelet clasp, wear your timepieces well, for it could be a whole lot worse!