Unboxing my new $20,000 watch

What's up guys? It's Graham here. So yes, the title you read is correct. I just went and spent twenty thousand dollars to go and buy a watch. I realize that goes against pretty much everything I talk about here on the channel—saving as much money as you can, cutting back on everything that you can, using all of that money to go and invest, and basically not buy anything stupid. And then here I am, going and buying a watch.

But this watch that I ended up getting actually has a really unique story behind it and a ton of sentimental value that I have never shared with anyone here, really ever. I figured I would just—I'm gonna tell you this story behind why I bought this watch, because it's pretty mind-blowing, I have to say. I don't usually get very sentimental about stuff like this, but this one means the world to me.

All of this really starts back with the watch I'm wearing right now. A lot of people have asked which watch I'm wearing and what watch this is. For those that don't know, this watch is a 1969 Zenith El Primero A386. And all of this really begins about five years ago when, unfortunately, my grandpa passed away. He is someone that I really looked up to, and I really take after him a lot. I mean, if there's anyone who loves to save money, it was my grandpa. You know, I miss him; it was tough to lose him like that.

But anyway, five years ago he passed away, and my mom and my aunt were going through the house to clean it out and prepare it. They were going through a lot of the junk that was there, throwing a lot of things away and donating a lot of things. I just happened one day—my mom was working at the house—and I figured I was just going to stop by. I wasn't supposed to stop by that day; I am never really in the area. So I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up going by the house that day.

As I walked up to the house, I noticed a big dumpster that was there in front. They were throwing away a lot of stuff. As I was walking up to the house, I noticed just out of the corner of my eye a little cardboard box that was sitting right by the front of the dumpster. The dumpster was filled all the way up, so obviously, it was filled up too much that they couldn't put another cardboard box on top of everything. So they ended up putting it just at the bottom of the dumpster.

I just started looking through this box for whatever reason. I don't know why. There was a whole bunch of junk in that box, so there wasn't anything that looked special in there. As I'm looking through the box, I just came across a random box that just said "Zenith" on it. I opened up the box, and there was this watch sitting there, right here. I looked at it and thought it just looked like a cool watch. I really didn't think much of it.

My grandpa was always wearing a watch. I mean, you would always see him wearing—I think it was like a Citizen watch—always. No matter what, he had a watch on his wrist. I thought, "Wow, this is a kind of cool watch. I had never seen him wear this watch before." I was looking at it, I saw "Zenith," and I figured, like, this is the company that makes radios and TVs. I didn't know they even made watches, but I thought it was a cool-looking watch.

It didn't work. I tried to get it to work, but I think the movement in the back or something was seized up. So I brought it to my mom and asked her. I said, "Hey, you know, what's the deal with this watch?" She says, "Oh, you know, I think your grandfather used to work for Zenith back in, like, the 1960s or the early 1970s. When he left the company, I guess they gave him this watch as a gift, and he never wore it. It basically just sat in a drawer for like 45 years."

I guess she said that, like, it doesn't work anymore and they were just going to be throwing it away. I said, "Well, do you mind if I take it? I really think it's a cool watch, and maybe I could try to get it fixed up." She said, "Yes, sure." I had no idea what this watch was; I just kind of thought it looked cool. I figured, you know, I ended up going by the house, and if I can get some sort of memory of my grandpa, I think it's just a sentimental thing. Didn't you know? It's—it was worth it for me to stop by that day.

Then I get in the car and start looking up Zenith watches. I realize, like, wait a second, this is a really cool watch. I didn't realize that this watch right here, they only made 2,500 of these watches. Not only that, but this is the first self-winding chronograph to ever be introduced in a watch like this, and the movement of this watch was so revolutionary that Rolex even used it for 12 years in the Rolex Daytona.

So I was like, "Wow! What are the chances that I go and find this watch?" I ended up taking this watch in to get it serviced because I wanted to get it working. When the guy saw the watch, she was like, "This watch is incredible," because everything on it was entirely original. This watch has never been serviced before; it had never really been taken out of the box. It had the original strap; every part of the watch was original. It had never been polished. I mean, the condition of this watch basically was absolutely pristine.

So I went and got it fixed up and got it working. This is a watch that I have worn pretty much every single day because it might sound weird, but in a weird way, I feel like when I put on this watch, it's like my good luck watch. I feel like, you know, part of my grandpa's with me and, in a weird way, that he's—you know—up there like with me through the watch. I know it sounds totally weird to say that, but I do feel that when I wear this watch, I feel like he's just looking over me and looking out for me. So I wear this watch basically every day.

And then this is where the weird part starts coming in here. I looked up randomly about three and a half months ago. Randomly, I typed in Google "Zenith El Primero A386" just because I'm curious. Every now and then I like to look at the values just to see what they're selling for and just to see like, "Hey, if another one comes up and it's a good price, maybe I’ll go and buy another one or something like that."

And the exact day that I looked up this watch, it was just announced that the Zenith El Primero had come out with a 50th anniversary watch of this. It was literally this exact same watch, and they were selling 50 pieces in white gold, yellow gold, and rose gold. That was it, and it was just announced the day I looked it up. So I figured, like, what are the chances that the day I looked this up, they just announced this? This has got to be a sign. This has got to be like meant to be—that I need to get one of these watches.

So of course, I call up West. I'm in West Hollywood, and it turns out that just by random chance, they had one allocation of this watch available in yellow gold. I had just called like hours after this watch was released. So I go ahead and walk over there; I put down the deposit immediately to reserve this watch. Then within 24 hours after that, all of the watches were sold out, which means that if I didn't go that exact moment to reserve the watch, I wouldn't have gotten it.

So I basically took that as a sign that, like, wait a second, this is somehow meant to be. This is something like my grandpa's from up above basically saying, "You know, Graham, you should go and get this watch." This is my part, I think, to contribute to that—that my grandpa had this watch fifty years ago, and now I can add in my own like family heirloom and buy the 50th anniversary watch and do this on my own.

Then maybe my grandkid can go and buy the hundredth anniversary model of the Zenith El Primero, and this could just be like a family keepsake of just like of Zenith El Primero watches. That was something for me. I never spend money; I never go and buy stuff like this, but that for me was such a big sentimental purchase that feels like I can contribute my portion to something that I would love to give like my future children one day.

Basically, I could pass on this watch down to them, and I can pass on my watch down to them, and then maybe they can add on their own watch and basically have like a family line of watches. And by the way, if any of my future kids are ever watching this video, you better not sell these watches. I'm gonna be really upset if you ever pawned this for like drugs or something like that. You never do that; you never sell these watches. You keep them in the family, you take care of them.

But anyway, that brings us to today because I've been waiting about three months for this watch to come in, and it just came in last night. I have the box right here; I haven't opened it yet. I want my reaction for YouTube. I figured this is such—because I never buy stuff like this; I never do stuff like this. So for me, this is pretty big, and it really has such a sentimental value for me that I figured I just wanted to share this because this is a really special occasion for me.

At the end of the day, I mean, making money and investing in all of this is pointless if you're not able to do things with it that mean a lot to you. And for me, this watch means a lot to me. So anyway, we're gonna go over here, we're gonna unbox the watch, see exactly what it is, and I can't believe it.

Alright, so here we go. Here's the watch; this is what I've been waiting months for. This is the one where there's only 50 pieces in yellow gold that is pretty much exactly the same as what I have now, except 50 years new. So let's go ahead; we'll open this up. Wow. So we have this incredible box here; check this out—it just says "Zenith" on the very front of it. This box is crazy!

Okay, we'll open the box up very gently. So check this out; there's one of these little plastic things that you could peel off here. Do you see that? It's one of those little plastic things. I never peel that off; even on my refrigerator, by the way, I still kept that wrapping on there for way too long. It was like a year before I took that off.

Alright, let's open this up. Oh my—wow! What I'll do is put it right in front of the camera. Here we go, unboxing—this is how they package the watches. Look at this; as you can see here, they wrap the watch up really well. Oh, I'm so nervous; this is crazy! Wow, this is—oh my God, I don't even know what to say. I am just like—I'm speechless right now.

So there we go, guys; there is the Zenith El Primero A386, the 50th anniversary watch in yellow gold. Check out the—I mean, that's just absolutely beautiful! And as you can see here, it is limited edition, 34 out of 50. Now we're gonna be putting it on for the very first time, and this is gonna be the new watch that I'm most likely gonna be wearing all the time.

Oh, this is so expensive! Geez, I'm gonna be so careful with this. Oh wow, there it is! I don't even know what to say; I mean, this is just—it's so cool! But let’s explore what else there is with this box here, because this is a crazy-looking box. Oh, it looks like you could open this up here. What—what can you—see this? They give like a whole inner compartment of just surprises in here. What is this for?

So it looks like you could hide stuff in there. I don't know what this is for; maybe—oh, this is like a little watch display, I think. And then what do we have here? We have a—looks like a cloth to clean your Zenith watch. I feel like there should be more—oh, wait, wait a second—but wait, there's more! What else do we have in here?

Okay, so we have—now we have the warranty card here. And the cool thing with this watch is that it comes with a 50-year warranty—50 years for the 50th anniversary, which I think is is very cool. What else do we have here? It looks like we have a cardholder of some sort; I'm not sure exactly what it is.

Here's the thing now—here's my philosophy when it comes to buying stuff like this: I think if you're gonna treat yourself, at least make sure it's something that's really worth it and is going to add value to your life long term. This is one of those things that I knew I wanted to do, and I knew I wanted to get, and I know this would mean a lot to me.

And not only that, but again, something that I can pass down to future generations. Hopefully, in another 50 years, maybe my grandchildren can go and like get another one like the hundredth anniversary Zenith El Primero or something like that. But the other thing that a lot of people don't realize is that watches like this could actually make a very good investment.

You see a lot of these limited edition runs of watches that just end up going up faster than even stock market or real estate prices. I would be very interested to see what the 50th anniversary watch ends up doing over the next few years. Even though it goes up in value and it's cool to think of some of these watches as an investment, that's not the reason I'm doing it.

But hey, you know what? At least if I'm gonna go and buy something like this, I want to make sure it's something that is not going to lose its value. If I ever did need to sell it, I'm never going to lose money on something like this—and ideally, I would probably make a little bit of money if I ever decided to sell this watch. That's really the reason why I could buy something like this and justify it.

I don't just sit there looking at numbers in my bank account all day, getting excited about dying with, like, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. You know, but if I'm able to do something like this that means a lot, that also means that I can cut back in other areas that I don't care about, like buying $2.00 H&M shirts. I don't care about my t-shirts; I don't care about getting 20-cent iced coffee over going to Starbucks.

But I do care about getting something like this that has a lot of sentimental value, that I really believe is slowly just going to become like a family heritage of Zenith El Primero watches. Now you're gonna see me wearing this watch in pretty much every single one of my videos from now on. So instead of asking, "Graham, what watch is that?" now you know!

And did you know? $20,000 well-spent! So let me put this on. So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I hope you didn't take this video the wrong way. Didn't mean for this video to seem like some weird flex or anything like that. I wanted to share something that was really important to me, that I felt was a pretty big moment.

I don't do stuff like this, so when I do, it's big. I figured, hey, you know, if I can throw it up on YouTube, may as well and just add some perspective and context behind it. Now you guys know this story behind the watch. So again, thank you so much for watching. If you haven't done it already, make sure to smash that subscribe button. Add me on Instagram; I post pretty much daily. If you want to be a part of it, feel free to add me there.

Also, feel free to add me on my second channel. It's called "The Graham Stephan Show." I post there every single day; I don't post here. So if you want to see me now pretty much every day, you can subscribe over there. So anyway, thank you again for watching, and until next time!