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Q: How did you get into watch collecting?
I can’t pinpoint exactly how I got into watches, but I have been enamored with them since I was a child. I remember looking at in-flight magazines with cool coin watches, playing with the indiglo on my ironman, loving the aesthetic of the Tag logo. My watch collecting started when I was 11 at sleep away summer camp. I was gone for two weeks and my parents gave me $50 spending cash for, presumably, extra snacks or little extra things I might want in town. The weekend held a trip to a mega mall which I knew had a watch store that sold Freestyle watches. The entire week leading up to this I wouldn’t spend any money (despite all my friends buying ice cream and other fun stuff at the gag store) so I could buy a watch. I didn’t really earn an allowance or have any money of my own, so this was my only chance of the year to buy something for myself. At the time these Freestyle watches had interesting dials with different characters or bezel designs etc- much more interesting than the singular digital watch they are doing now. For the 3 years I went to that camp I bought a Freestyle watch every year. I still have that first one, and a second one that got replaced- a story for a subsequent question on this profile.
Q: What was the first watch you ever owned?
Timex Ironman ~1993
Q: Do you have a watch with a particularly interesting story behind it?
The details of this are a little fuzzy as this happened when I was a child, about 25 years ago. I had a few analog Freestyle watches and one of them came with a questionnaire within their instruction material. The questionnaire basically asked you to design your perfect watch. It had several aspects of watches with different materials or features that could be desired to be included- they were taking a poll. I selected common features of a dive watch (the company’s M.O.); bezel, date, backlight “nightvision”. They also asked what kind of band I would like to see in their watches. They had basic options, like the other categories, that you could check off- but I wrote in a material that I thought would go with the surf culture of their brand and one I had never seen before (or since) on a watch- Neoprene. I mailed in my questionnaire and didn’t think much else of it. Sometime later, from what I can remember was only out of the blue I received a watch in the mail. It was the watch that I had spec’d out on their questionnaire, complete with Neoprene strap. I still have this watch and have no way of proving this story, even to myself. I feel like I must be missing some detail to make this all make more sense. But maybe it is as simple as I became a watch designer over a mail in poll and the brand sent me my design??? What I do know is true is that the watch is real, the questionnaire was real, and I really wrote in Neoprene, I even clarified “wet suit material” because my 12 year old mind didn’t trust a surf watch company to know what I was intending. I know it’s crazy.
Q: What is one piece of advice you have for someone just getting into watches?
Buy what turns you on, then learn more about the stuff, buy what is supposed to turn you on, then sell that, then buy what you like with the knowledge from both those experiences.
Q: What brands have been getting your attention lately?
Maen Serica Autodromo
Q: What is your grail watch and why?
Naoya Hida Their handmade carved dials and hands epitomize the art and craftsmanship of watches as an object of obsession & design
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