I've been a watch collector for most of my life. Although in the past, I collected stuff from most of the Swiss houses, today, I tend to collect some of the more obscure Japanese stuff. Believe it or not, companies like Seiko make some extremely high end watches that compete with most of what the Swiss make at almost any level and is one of the few companies in the world that makes all their own parts and movements in house.
You won't however see any of these watches here in the US at the local mall although there are a couple of dealers now beginning to dabble in High End Japanese timepieces.
It's only been in the last 10 or 15 years that the rest of the hard core collecting world has learned about some of the Seiko domestic products and today it's not uncommon for a heavy duty collector with a 6 or 7 $ figure collection to tell you that their Seikos are among their favorites.
So that kind of explains my Username.
That said, I actually have a Panerai on today. :-)