August 24, 2010
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Sentimental value.
What is the price of sentimental value? My friend posed this topic one day as we were going around Memorial Park. When does it lose to the market value of a particular product? When a particular object has no added cost (unlike, say, an aging car, which will require additional increasing maintenance costs), at what point does something with sentimental value lose its worth? He didn’t place much sentimental value in his things, while I tend to place a lot of sentimental value in mine.
The topic was watches. Or at one point, girlfriends (marriage, we both agreed, equaled finality). He was arguing, always keep your options open- something better might come along. I argued that if you’re always looking for something better, you enjoy what you own even less (these are both extremes in viewpoint- obviously the answer falls somewhere in the middle). There are even studies out there regarding the burden of choice, and how it makes people even unhappier.
I always come back to my Kenneth Cole watch my parents bought me when I was in high school as an example. It is gunmetal grey in color, very understated with a clean simple design. You probably wouldn’t even notice it if I wore it. I actually don’t like most luxury watches because they’re too flashy, too noticeable. Movado, with its simple design, still calls for attention. I remember we were out looking at luxury watches one time and one of my friends asked, “When are you going to get a watch for the corporate world?” I was secretly slightly offended, because that was implying that my parents’ gift to me- something that I really wanted and was the very first expensive nice thing I’ve ever received- was just juvenile. And granted, people in the corporate world typically do not go around sporting Kenneth Cole watches- public accounting firms display their Tags, Rolexes, and the like the higher you go up the management chain. Does my sentimental attachment to my watch warrant its value above the “market price”- as in, am I missing out on something better because I’m so attached to my watch? It’s really all up to personal taste though, and in the end, the watches that partners at public accounting firms do the exact same thing mine does- tell time.
I am not big on buying expensive luxury goods for myself, but if I do, it’s something that I’m like, man, this is a pretty big deal. If I buy or receive something particularly nice, it happens so infrequently there is an instant sentimental value attached to it. And then when you see people who buy and sell things like that so easily, I sometimes wonder if they ever really even liked it. Does something that expensive turn into something as ordinary as buying a t-shirt at Target? Does it already lose its value in the process of becoming so readily obtainable? Is there even any story behind it? People become attached to the first car they buy, the first purse they buy with their first paycheck. Things that you think about a lot before purchasing and therefore have a vested interest in it even before you lay your hands on it. And if someone asks, you can say, “This is what I got with my first job right out of college” and it instantly makes it more memorable to the listener- that this was something special. If you’re an oil magnate who can eat foie gras and a fine steak every night, would that diminish your enjoyment of it because all of a sudden, it’s not something you associate with a special occasion?
Of course, it’s all relative to your spending habits, your needs, your income. And certainly, one cannot only live in the past. I recently went to my friend’s sister’s apartment warming party. Being a college student, she had a variety of alcohols available, with two brands of vodka. One, a gift, was a bottle of Grey Goose, which she proclaimed no one could drink because it was special. That’s the “expensive stuff.” Not to say that she has any sentimental value attached to it, but as a higher end alcohol is less common at that age, there’s a certain intangible value associated with it that probably sets it above its market value. I’m sure when she gets out of college, Grey Goose will probably be much more commonplace in her social groups than well vodka, but don’t you kind of remember that feeling when the finer things in life were actually just that?
Comments (2)
oh. i really like this ‘talk board’ session. esp the second chalkboard pic. so true.
its interesting you bring up watches. once, i noticed a patient’s watch (i was at work). it wasn’t an expensive or a luxurious one, but a unique one. then he commented how he really liked watches, and when he was young, he used to own a mickey mouse watch with a red band on it. i told him i used to own one of those too. we laughed, and it was silly how two very different people under two very different circumstances both owned the same thing, and we both shared a different kind of sentimental value to it.
later on, during a trip to nyc, a friend told me how guys check out each others watches similar to how women check out each others engagement rings. seems kinda silly to me. i’d much rather have a mickey mouse watch , a trip of nostalgia, and a shared moment of laughter any day.
sorry to ramble. your talk board topic was too inviting.
@Soapie -
Yeah, one of my good friends is really into watches and he checks out watches everywhere, even in movies, and can identify pretty much any watch out there. Except he’s not “comparing”, he’s just a watch enthusiast and is more curious than anything. I learned some pretty interesting stuff about watches from him (I always like talking to people about things they are obsessed with).
On a side note, you ever notice how you see old beat up fords and chevys and you think, man, that car has seen a LOT? You never really hear the same thing about old BMWs and the like. You don’t really care about what that BMW has been through, but you’re sure there’s a story to tell with that old beat up pickup truck. There’s something about that with luxury items too. Is it because they’re just rarer to find so it’s harder to have something in common with it? Or is it because what it takes to get a luxury item is much more interesting than the item itself?