
Many of us have big dreams when it comes to watches. While we live within our budgets the grail watches, the unobtainable even, follow us wherever we go with blog and forum posts and flashy images from those with more disposable income. We dream, we pine, we save, we do what we can in an attempt to obtain one of our most wished for watches that we know might be well out of our reach. Now, the new start-up Eleven James has alternative way for some to apply those watch funds being squirreled away and still have one of those lusted after watches spend some time on your wrist.

Rather than applying money to one watch that you would own indefinitely (or until it was time to flip) for a monthly fee Eleven James will let you enjoy three to six watches a year. Rather than buy the watches it is more of a lease and trade in program. Users browse the offered watches in the program and select the tier they wish to participate in. For $249 a month users can wear three watches in the course of a year from the “Aficionado” collection with a total value of $10,000.

Looking at the math that is an annual expenditure of $2,988 for watches worth more than three times that. Users can have the option of going up from there with $449 monthly for six watches a year. There are two additional tiers of watches, the “Connoisseur” and “Virtuoso” collections, each with higher value of watches than the one below it. Pricing for the highest tier will run $899 for three watches a year and $1,599 for six. In addition they will even offer a concierge service to aid in selecting watches for members. The Eleven James website has a limited view of some of the watches available with the full collection being available to members only.

Quite naturally the service will not be for everyone. If you are looking to drop a couple months of salary on a watch then this might be worth looking into further. If you like the idea but perhaps the price is too much you might want to check out Ten Ten Watch Club, which we have covered here previously. The service does the same thing as Eleven James, but with less expensive pieces. In the future Eleven James hopes to offer trade-in services as well to give members another option for acquiring new timepieces. The company recently received $1.4 millon in seed money to get itself off the ground and begin its offerings. It will be interesting to see how the service is received among the general watch community and if it can succeed.

by James Enloe