A few months ago I realized that I had been in the watch world for almost two years. I’d started a nice little collection. I had a vintage Omega DeVille, a G-Shock, a Luch, and a Ruhla, which I got at a flea market in Hamburg for €40.

I was ready for a real watch. I think the DeVille bordered on real watch, but what I guess I mean by “real” is financially painful.

Financial pain comes at a relatively low threshold for me – I mean, at least compared to most watch lovers. I told myself that if I achieved a certain thing I could allow myself to spend $5,000 on a watch, and I achieved it, but then, I somehow mentally bargained that number up to $10,000

Honestly, $10,000 seemed a reasonable amount to spend on a watch. Surely, I could swing that. I had proof that it was a reasonable number because I liked so many watches that were exactly this price. I could get a pre-owned Golden Ellipse, I could get a Hublot Tutti Frutti, I could get a nice pre-owned Tank Americaine, or some pretty good used Rolex.

I don’t know what number you tell yourself you can spend on a watch that sounds realistic but definitely is not, but $10,000 was mine. In no universe is it true that I have this much money to spend on a watch. I have half that. Barely.

So reality had intruded and I was back at $5,000, which was where I belonged and was indeed also a stretch – but if it weren’t a stretch, we wouldn’t be having any fun.

After being brought back to earth I gathered a few contenders for my hard-earned $5k.

Due to Tony Traina’s article about the Rolex Oyster 6426, I considered one of these. They’re classic, they’re impressive but not ostentatious (which, as someone who wants a yellow SAXEM Hublot, not quite sure why I’m worried about that), and they’re Rolex. I never went so far as to try one on but I did look at a lot of them online, and yes, Tony, the three-six-nine dial that haunts your dreams also haunts mine, and I think that one is more than $5,000, if you can even find it.

The reasons I liked this watch: It’s very simple so the Rolex crown logo at 12 o’clock really sticks out. It’s also time only. I felt like I’d never get tired of looking at it – though, as watch owners, we always know that’s not how it works. I liked its strength and sturdiness.

Contender number two: a Cartier Tank of some kind. Here’s something embarrassing about me, I am always saying that Cartier Tanks are basic, and yet, at the end of the day, I desperately want one. The problem is that the ones I actually really want cost more than $5,000. Like, what I really want is a Tank Louis and I want it in gold and I don’t want a quartz Cartier Tank even though I know that’s silly, but this is what I want, so I can’t afford the Cartier I want.

This is probably a good time to mention that I also can’t afford the Rolex I really want — a Day-Date with a gold bracelet — which is why when I said the Rolex Oyster 6426 was a possibility, it never really was. It’s hard for me to get the compromise version of the thing I really want.

Speaking of which, I told myself that maybe I could swing getting a Golden Ellipse for $6,000. The first problem is that Golden Ellipses which cost $6,000 are kind of in bad shape. The second problem is that I barely had $5,000 let alone $6,000 and after taxes and shipping $6,000 is really $6,400.

After briefly contemplating whether I could get rich by turning my dog Ruthie into an Instagram star (even though she loathes cameras, and I would be a terrible stage mom) I did start to wonder if the hunt for a real watch was even worth it. Meaning, if I couldn’t spend $10,000, should I spend anything at all? I know that sounds obnoxious, but nothing under that number was really doing it for me. I couldn’t force myself to be happy with a watch I didn’t want. I already liked my not-expensive watches. I didn’t need another watch I liked. I needed one I loved, and maybe I couldn’t afford that and never would be able to. Worse things have happened to people than that, I have heard about them.

But I didn’t feel discouraged for long, because I had one thing on my side:  even in the process of looking into these watches that I couldn’t get, I was getting some information about what elements I liked that I could find on a watch I could afford that was not a disappointment.

One element was plainness. SAXEM and diamonds aside, I do like plain watches, and this worked in my favor because, quite often, the less a watch does the less it will cost. Of course, this is not true if you put a G-Shock up against a Nautilus, but it’s true if you put a Patek ref. 3411 up against a 2499.

Also, I had wound enough watches to know I don’t mind doing it. I wind my vintage Omega and my Luch and my Ruhla, and they all have a power reserve of maybe — a combined six hours? I jest. But a newer watch, with an actual power reserve, would be easy after what I go through on a daily basis. Plus, winding is good. I felt like it actually makes you look at a watch, and interface with it a little bit, and if the watch could manage to run for a while then winding it would not be a big deal.

I didn’t want a date window anyway, and setting a time-only watch is not exactly difficult. I wanted stainless steel because I couldn’t have gold. I wanted brilliantly shiny stainless steel indices because I couldn’t have diamonds. They have a similar effect. Don’t get me wrong, I know that if diamonds are a girl’s best friend then stainless steel is maybe just a girl’s dependable babysitter. But analogy notwithstanding, we are kind of talking apples and oranges here.

Stainless steel, plain aesthetic, time only, manual-wind caliber – these were all things that made watches less costly without making me feel depressed. One more thing, though. I wanted an absolutely stunning dial.

So when my esteemed colleague Mark Hackman and I were talking about these criteria and he slacked me the Grand Seiko SBGW283, I was ready. I kind of knew right away that this was my watch.

I didn’t know a lot about Grand Seiko, other than that it wasn’t Swiss. This might be a minus for some people, but for me it’s a plus, I like the idea that Grand Seiko told itself that it could make watches just as good as the Swiss and then went ahead and did it. I knew about its micro season color thing, and that it split off from Seiko in 2017 to become its own brand. I read a little bit about the company and saw that it was obsessed with “flat surfaces that are polished to a distortion-free, brilliant mirrored finish.” I too am obsessed with this, although I didn’t know it until I read it.

But I was more focused on the watch than the brand. I’m new enough to watches that I’m not that complicated about what I like. I liked the textured blue dial, a cool, soothing light blue, from the micro season known as Kishun, the color of the skies above Mt. Iwate at the beginning of summer. I had never heard of Mt. Iwate but Wikipedia said it was in Northern Japan, I am sure it’s nice at the beginning of summer and all year round. It had a plain old tang buckle and a lizard strap. I thought lizard straps were kind of out, but then Malaika Crawford told me that they were sexy, and I felt reassured and potentially sexy.

I was lucky enough that I could spend a little time with the watch before I decided if I wanted it. The second I took it out of the box and put it on I knew that I had the rarest of things – the watch that I could afford that would also make me happy.

The stainless steel indices and the sword hands glinted in the light, as promised by the company’s long-time fixation. I appreciated that it was sizable but not massive. One of the reasons my vintage Omega could not be my end-of-the-road watch is that it’s too small. At 37 mm this felt just right, and it felt at home on my wrist, elegant (it is from the Elegance collection) but also just not a big deal. I could wear it to the store, I could wear it on an airplane, I could wear it to the opera (I never go to the opera but if this happens I’m ready, watch-wise.) I think this watch goes with just about everything other than the tiniest of cocktail dresses and I don’t wear stuff like that anyway. And actually, it would probably look good with one of those too.

I can’t tell you a lot about the movement on this watch but I can tell you that even though I have made a little fun of open casebacks before, I was glad this watch had one. I appreciated being able to see such lovely finishing.

The most important thing about this watch is the sensation of satisfaction and completeness it brings me. I don’t want it to be some other more expensive version of itself, like the Spring Drive ‘Omiwatari’ or ‘Soko’ 2022 US Special Edition ‘Frost’ Hi-Beat 36,000. This watch isn’t a deal I made with myself. It’s just my watch, and we are at peace together.