Page 5 - Bloomberg Businessweek-October 29, 2018

WATCHES Bloomberg Pursuits KNO W October 29, 2018
WHEN

by the same brand on the same day may décor. Lamdin would knock on doors of TO
sell for wildly different prices. One owners and collectors to find watches.
may be pristine, kept in a collector’s box He now gets his pieces from pretty much S TRIKE
for decades, and worth $500,000. The anywhere—auctions, estate sales, some
other may look fine but in fact be overly guy he meets at a bar. The best stuff
polished or restored by someone who comes from collectors because they’re Stephen Pulvirent, the
didn’t know what he was doing, making already so picky, though Lamdin often managing editor at
it worth less than $25,000. has to pay a premium to get a coveted watch website Hodinkee,
The question that vintage watch busi- item off someone who loves watches. points out the tiny
details that separate a
nesses are wrestling with as they grow Most items in the store and online good vintage watch from
is whether there’s enough space for all cost $40,000 or less. Analog/Shift keeps a spectacular one
of them. EBay Inc. remains the giant for its highest-end items, such as several
anything that’s resold, watches included. military- issued Tudor Submariners
The auction houses are increasingly from the French navy, early TAG
offering online-only sales at a lower price Heuer Chronographs, and platinum
point than what goes under the gavel. Cartiers from the 1920s, off its website
And watch manufacturers including and locked in a vault. Lamdin doesn’t
Audemars Piguet, Maximilian Büsser & want to scare away newbie watch buy-
Friends, and F.P. Journe have even begun ers with big-ticket listings, because he
buying, restoring, and reselling their wants someone to feel comfortable
own pieces to not miss out on this part picking up a $500 watch to get started.
of the market. Those looking for the expensive items
Like preowned high heels and don’t often buy them on impulse on the
clutches and even art by dead artists, internet, anyway. GILT DIAL ROLEX
the world’s supply of vintage watches For a select group of clients, Analog/ Before switching to matte-black
is limited. These watches become older Shift manages entire personal collec- dials with white printing in the late- 69
and rarer with each day, which is good tions. It’s something like an investment 1960s, Rolex sport watches featured
for their value but provides a challenge fund for those who don’t want to han- glossy black dials with so-called gilt
lettering, a galvanic process. The
for businesses that depend on forag- dle the operation of their own watch result is something with warmth and
ing for fresh options to sell. hoard; Lamdin’s staff store some of the character that you won’t find on later
“Watches are the great talisman of watches and suggest new purchases or watches—or on many other wrists.
days gone by,” says Lamdin, seated trades. They also help museums acquire ($25,000 or more)
on a couch inside his watch boutique. watches for their exhibits and assist
“They’re a memento.” The 34-year- companies in tracking down their own
old started Analog/Shift out of a sub- watches for a heritage department or
PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTORIA HELY-HUTCHINSON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. REMAINING COURTESY VENDORS
let bedroom in Harlem in 2012, when archive. Many makers haven’t chroni-
he was working in outdoor equipment cled their own history, and they don’t
sales. Armed with his cashed-out retire- know how to sift through a network of
ment savings, he started buying and collectors to locate a single item that’s
selling watches and mustered a profit been largely lost to the ages.
within the first month. These days his Analog/Shift had about $275,000
appointment-only showroom is in the in revenue its first year. Lamdin now
penthouse on the eighth floor of a build- puts that figure in the “many mil-
ing in Manhattan’s Midtown East. Glass lions,” though he declines to share
cases filled with watches sit in the living an exact number, and he’ll sell about SPEEDMASTER PRE-
room, outfitted with shelves of dusty 1,000 watches this year. “Are vin- PROFESSIONAL “ED WHITE”
books. Lamdin rushes down the stairs tage watches as a category a bubble? Omega’s so-called Pre-Professional
from his office to sit on the couch and Absolutely not,” he says. “I’ve literally models from the late 1950s and
early ’60s (they don’t say
pour a couple of fingers of whiskey as an bet everything I have on that.” “Professional” on the dial) have
old movie plays on the TV. “A lot of the He’s far from alone in this gam- straight lugs and smaller profiles than
accumulated goodies in here are old–old ble; Analog/Shift is part of a trend that their cousins, which joined
clocks, old advertising,” he says. “We’re began in the early 2000s. Chrono24 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on
trying to create a little bubble in time.” GmbH is an international platform that the moon. ($20,000 or more)
In Analog/Shift’s early days, it wasn’t boasts more than 10,000 dealers and
so much whiskey and worrying about private sellers and a catalog of more Continued, next page