Page 4 - Bloomberg Businessweek-October 29, 2018

WATCHES Bloomberg Pursuits October 29, 2018

here’s a stereotype in the for almost three decades. In 2017 he auc- Some consider it pre-1980s, before
world of vintage watches, tioned off the most expensive wristwatch Rolex transitioned itself more squarely
T thanks to a classic car- ever sold, Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona, into the luxury sector. Specific aspects
toon trope. A shady man in a brown for $17.8 million. Bacs says the vintage of design, such as a watch with acrylic
trench coat and a hat fit for a gang- watch market has become as established crystals or tritium lume, may push a
ster approaches you on a street cor- as those for art and automobiles, and timepiece into the vintage category
ner. “Wanna buy a watch?” he asks. thus it’s become a similarly sustainable even if it was made later. Then there
He opens the coat to reveal several alternative investment. “Certainly we’ve are the heritage brands now using
gleaming gold Rolexes dangling inside. seen unbelievable growth in values,” says design language from their own his-
They’re either fake or stolen or both. Eric Wind, owner of Wind Vintage. “The tories and producing watches that
He’s like a greasy used-car salesman. first vintage Rolex to ever sell for more aren’t technically vintage but are often
You just can’t trust him. than $1 million was back in 2011. Now it’s released as limited collectibles.
“The old way of doing things was a common occurrence.” Beyond style and technology, classic
really speaking down to the buyer,” says What makes a watch qualify as vin- timepieces can vary widely in cost
James Lamdin, the founder of vintage tage? There’s no catchall definition. based solely on condition. Two made
watch dealer Analog/Shift LLC. “It was
like, ‘I’ve got something you want. You
want in? It’ll cost you this much. If you
don’t want it from me, you’re no good
to me.’ ”
These days, vintage watches have
gone corporate. Businesses such as
Lamdin’s entered the fray hoping to
modernize a secondary market that had
become fragmented across the internet

68 and therefore untrustworthy. (The total
preowned watch market is about $5 bil-
lion a year, according to Swiss research
company Kepler Cheuvreux.) These
newish businesses employ watch experts
and restorers who comb the planet for
rare finds to buy and sell at online store-
fronts or in appointment- only show-
rooms. The rarest and most expensive
watches often end up at the world’s larg-
est auction houses, including Phillips
Auctioneers, Christie’s, and Sotheby’s.
Online watch forums and blogs,
such as Hodinkee (a content partner
with Bloomberg Pursuits) and Worn &
Wound LLC, have stoked enthusiasm
and fostered education. Watch aficio-
nados want to know about the mech-
anisms inside, the design inspiration,
and the history of a particular model.
Meanwhile, watches have flourished on
Instagram, where photos of beautiful
timepieces have found a home in feeds
alongside endless labradoodles and feet
on beaches.
“That reach has put watches into a
price level that never, if you asked me
20 years ago, I would’ve anticipated,”
says Aurel Bacs, a famed auctioneer at
Phillips who’s worked in the industry Watches and racing memorabilia decorate the Analog/Shift offices