We at The Watch Collectors’ Club are bringing a new kind of watch event to the world. We want to make it easier than ever to learn more about watches. We want to help you explore the watch world and learn more about the watches you are interested in. You might then ask yourself, what makes it a Club? What is a Watch Club? Are there any watch clubs near me already? What do people do at a Watch Club? This week, we will answer all these questions and more.

What is a Watch Club?

A Watch Club is an organisation where people come together to talk about watches and share their interest in them. Most of them are small and based in a town or city so that members can meet regularly. Some have grown to have large and diverse memberships, such as the Redbar Crew, or Time4aPint in London. Since most of these organisations are amateur run and focused on socialising, they do not market themselves (other than on Instagram: @redbarcrew @time4apint) and are not that easy to find. I only heard about them by word of mouth after I moved to London.

A Club by definition hosts events regularly. They want to become a place people can rely on, and see the same faces at regular events. This is so that people can become comfortable with the event format, know the locations, and of course, start to make friends. The more comfortable people are the more fun they will have and the more they will want to come back. This is why Clubs are successful across so many aspects of life. It is exactly the same for Watch Clubs.

What a Watch Club is NOT

It is NOT a watch buying club. In recent years, some businesses have been established that take a subscription and send a monthly watch in the post in return. We do not think this merits the name Club, as it doesn’t have any of the benefits of a normal Club. It is simply a different method of selling watches. Unfortunately, these businesses often have a poor reputation, as after a good start they struggle to maintain the same quality or consistency of watch delivery, and customers get very unhappy. In our opinion, they are best avoided and are not something that should be thought of as Watch Clubs.

They are also different to watch fairs and shows. These are held regularly so that people can buy new watches or trade second hand or vintage watches. They are good fun and a great place to see an amazing range of watches, but they are not about talking and learning, they are more about learning and buying. We often have a great time at watch events, and The Watch Collectors’ Club has already given talks and taken members along, however they are not Clubs themselves, they are primarily about buying or selling watches.

A Group of Military Watches brought along to a Watch Club event. You definitely would NOT get anything like this from a sales-type Watch Club

Watch Club Events

We believe a Watch Club should be similar to other kinds of club, for example, sports clubs or hobby clubs like Chess Clubs. It should be a place where people come to discuss and share their passion for that topic, thing or activity. They should come together in-person and meet people interested in the same area. The beauty of watches is that they are small, easily transportable and easy to examine. Online, there are so many great pictures available or it’s relatively easy to take your own watch pics.

In the case of watches, this means people bring along some of their own watches to a Meetup or Get-together organised by the Club. Over the course of the evening or event, they can see a whole range of watches and hear people’s stories all about them. At online events, participants will probably listen to a short presentation on a topic and discuss that, or they can discuss recent industry news and new releases while looking at pictures of the watches they are talking about.

Why go to a Watch Meetup?

These sound very simple, and maybe you are thinking they wouldn’t be worth the bother of going to. I can assure you however that they can be so much more interesting and fun than you imagine. If you are interested in watches then hearing someone else’s passion for them will only inspire you. If you’ve always wondered why something is the way it is in the industry, or about a particular watch, these are the perfect places to get questions answered, however silly they seem. People are often delighted to tell you how they bought a certain piece, how they found it, and most of all, what a watch means to them. I have had more surprises and heard more entertaining stories at watch events than at almost any other type of event. It’s why I’m building a Club to hold more of them.

They are also an awesome place to get your questions answered. You could spend a lot of time reading Blog Posts like ours, and hoping Google is delivering you useful answers to your queries, but when you want to learn about things like buying watches online, researching a vintage watch, or learning more about a certain brand, asking people with experience is often much more interesting. This is equally true at online and in-person events.

Two completely different watches brought along to a Watch Club Event. You never know what might be there, and what you can learn about!

Are there any Watch Clubs near me?

Unfortunately there just aren’t that many watch clubs around the world. While RedBar has done a great job of establishing groups in different countries, the UK has 7 different “chapters” for example, progress has been slow as it requires people to volunteer to organise and promote the events. There have been some events organised by popular Watch Youtubers, and there are fairs and shows for the buying and selling of watches.

The Watch Collectors’ Club wants to change this. We want to become a global Club that arranges online events on a regular basis that anyone can attend, and then as many in-person events as there is demand for, wherever they might be. We are starting in London since that’s where we live, and are the third watch club in London right now by our terms. In future, we hope to have events all over the UK, and then all over the world.

If you’re interested in joining us, then please try one of our events. We hold at least one in-person and online event per month, every month. We recommend you join one of our online events to find out how easy it is to have fun talking about watches from the comfort of your own home. If you are close to London, then please come along to one of our Events, either our general meetups where we share our own watch stories, or a partner event where we may have some interesting new watches to look at.