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Talking Doxa, Neo-Vintage, Rolex, And More With James Lamdin (Founder, Analog:Shift)

Published on Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:55:00 +0000

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Synopsis

This episode of Hodinkee Radio features James Lambdon, founder of vintage watch dealer Analog Shift and current VP of Vintage and Pre-Owned at Watches of Switzerland. Lambdon shares his journey into the watch world, which began after his grandfather's death when he started exploring his life through his possessions, particularly his watch collection. This sparked an obsession with vintage timepieces that eventually led him to found Analog Shift in 2012, partly as a way to justify purchasing every great watch he encountered by making them "inventory."

The conversation covers Lambdon's passion for vintage Doxa watches, which traces back to reading Clive Cussler's "Raise the Titanic" as a child and remembering the orange-faced Doxa diving watch mentioned in the book. He discusses several remarkable acquisitions, including a Doxa from the Jamaican Defense Forces and a perfect condition original Army model from a yard sale in France. The hosts also explore the evolution of the vintage watch market, with Lambdon claiming credit for popularizing the term "neo-vintage" to describe watches that bridge the gap between true vintage and contemporary pre-owned pieces.

Lambdon reflects on how his tastes have evolved over the years, from initially focusing on steel sport watches to embracing gold watches, dressy timepieces, and even brands like Cartier and Frank Muller that he once dismissed. He discusses the 2020 acquisition of Analog Shift by Watches of Switzerland, explaining that while he never built the business intending to sell it, the partnership has allowed him to maintain Analog Shift's character while expanding its reach and resources. Throughout the episode, Lambdon emphasizes his commitment to making vintage watches approachable and fun, eschewing the stuffiness that once characterized the luxury watch industry.

Transcript

Speaker
Tony Traina This episode is brought to you by Hodinki Insurance. Collecting watches is fun. Insuring watches is not. But with Hodinki Insurance, we've teamed up with Chubb, the premier insurer of valuable collections, to offer a better and more seamless experience to ensure your watches and even jewelry. Minimizing the paperwork and maximizing the protection so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them. Hodiki Insurance, protect what you love. Visit insurance.hodiki.com for more Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Hodinke Radio. Our guest today is the one and only James Landon. After careers in outdoor equipment and cars, James started vintage dealer Anogal Shift in 2012. A longtime watch collector, James turned his passion for vintage watches into a new resource for watch collectors and enthusiasts. You might know Analog Shift for its detailed watch descriptions, often with a bit of character, and perhaps you've even been lucky enough to visit its New York City showroom, a standby for local vintage lovers. In addition to Analog Shift, James is also the co-founder of the Red Bar community. In 2020, Analog Shift was acquired by the retailer watches of Switzerland, but Analog Shift has kept its character since. Today James is VP of Vintage and Preown with Watches of Switzerland. When he's not talking vintage watches, he's drinking whiskey, driving his vintage porse and generally cosplaying his Magnum PI. Mr. Lambdon, thanks for joining the show. Thanks so much for having me. Tony. James, always a pleasure to see you both. I'm here too. Another James. Nice to see you, dude. Stay on your toes on today's episode. We've got two Jameses. Who knows who I'm calling on for any particular response, but uh you can't go wrong really with with two two great Jameses on the on the show like this. It's the more handsome Canadian one. The Canadian part's accurate. Oh gosh. Both handsome fellows in my book. Both much more apt at growing facial hair too, might I add. Mr. Lambdon, before we get into watches, anything cool you've been up to this summer? Well, uh travel has been sort of
James Lambdon my goal this year in general. I So I have've managed to sneak in a couple quick trips. I was in in Vermont um in the area that I grew up in just this past weekend, which was uh long time coming. It was sort of a family gathering. Got to see my grandfather, who' s96 years old, um, stay in the swankiest hotel in the in the region, which was uh you know something I always wanted to do, um, and uh, you know, get a little bit of fresh air, although it was hot as the dickens up there. Um couple weeks before that, I also made it out to Austria, which was amazing. Uh hang out with the uh fat international crew, Mr. Ferd Portia and his gang. These guys are the dudes. They are the dudes. Got to, you know, rip some some cool cars through the Austrian Alps and um spotted some some pretty cool uh Horsha design business while we were over there uh as well. Some some hodinky stuff that was like real good. It was the one that just launched and uh boy, that watch really came out great. I uh I sent Ben a selfie with their crew from the the top of the mountain. And uh I'm I'm not surprised that thing sold out right quick
Tony Traina . Uh, that's awesome. We love to hear it. Yeah, that was a that was a good one. You know, you mentioned it right there, actually, visiting your grandfather, uh uh a happy and healthy 96, I hope, up in Vermont. But as I understand it, that's kind of where your connection to to watches, vintage watches in particular begins. So maybe we'll just get right into it, James, and sort of start start with that and how you sort of got connected with with vintage watches initially and then how it of course led to analog shift
James Lambdon . Yeah. I mean I think it's a a story that's um become more and more common uh in this community over the last uh 10 years. Um I think it started for me almost 25 years ago. Um my uh my father's father passed away in the early 2000s and um I sort of began to, you know, study his life um through his stuff, through his possessions. And uh he was a a medical doctor and had traveled the world and was very generous with his time and and tried to make sure all the the grandchildren also got to go out and experience art and culture and travel. Uh but the best thing uh about hanging out with him was hearing his stories. And his stories were often tied to an object or an object uh was the sort of point of entry into the story. And so when he passed away and he was no longer around to to share the stories of these things with me, I I kind of went down the rabbit hole of trying to understand his life through his possessions. And uh there was a lot of stuff, uh art and music and and really uh cool you know sculpture and uh you know gentlemen's accessories from you know the last 80 years of his life and uh and a bunch of watches. And the watches were really a point of entry for me that was very easy being a guy who liked gadgets and gear. But I now had to uh go in and and begin to explore the item um and put it in the context of my grandfather. And that for me, you know, that rabbit hole, I just dove in uh headfirst and before you knew it I I needed to go and find a a special vintage watch that sort of defined my personality and my taste and could be something I could carry forward, which led to you know an all-consuming crippling addiction that uh you know required the feeding of the beast. And so I've said it before, but basically I started analog shift to justify buying every great watch that I wanted because if it was inventory, it was you know not a a a problem. It was um it was inventory. Or business. Yeah. Lowercase B. But yeah, that's how analog shift was sort of born. Um it was certainly um an industry that had begun to interest me after I moved to New York uh shortly thereafter. Uh I saw what was happening in the industry, certainly inspired by uh by Ben and what he was building at Hodinki in the early days. Some of the micro brands were beginning to take off, the accessory space, the blogs. Um, because before that, you know, all we had was the forums and uh I didn't know HTML, so I didn't upload photos of watches and that made it a a pretty uh unidirectional or unidimensional hobby. Uh but we used to, you know, we used to wait very patiently by the newsstand for the f for the glossy print magazine to come out. And then all of a sudden the internet began to move past just forums. And I was I was really inspired by that. And initially I wanted to work somewhere in the the traditional watch business, either for a brand or even at a retailer level. But what I really wanted to do is work at an auction house so I could learn more about vintage watches. And I think the learning element of this hobby is something that still gets me out of bed in the morning. I love nerding out on this stuff and learning a new anecdote or or a new niche factoid every single day. Uh but jobs in the industry at that time were not um you sort of had to work in watches uh before you worked in watches. And I spoke to everyone and they all said, Oh, yeah, you're really nice and you've got some luxury sales experience from your time in the auto industry. But um and you and you love this clearly, but you need to go, you know, start somewhere else and then give us a call in six months or a year. And that led to me sort of shrugging my shoulders and saying, I really just don't know what to do here. Um, and that's when the inspiration and encouragement um kicked in and I just went I just went for it and and launched Analog Shift um using um a a brand new e-commerce platform and and advertising through a brand new social media platform called Insta
Tony Traina gram. You know, something I've heard you mention, you kind of alluded to it there was just the general attitude of the watch industry, the luxury watch industry at the time, being uh sometimes a little stuffy or stodgy perhaps. And I'm wondering how that informed how you started analog shift, the personality you infused in the business, and then just kind of how you've gone about like navigating the industry since. And I'm also curious like if you feel as though it's changed at all in the past 10, 12 years
James Lambdon ? Well yeah. I I think that, you know, um ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, the the watch industry as a whole uh could sort of be divided into two camps. There were sort of the nerds who really loved and collected them and they were um often older and uh you know hanging out at uh at um NAWCC or IWJG conventions which, were a lot smaller than they are today. Or um they were the luxury with a capital L, you know, new watch and and sort of uh prestigious sales um auction industry. And it was it was pretty um intimidating, I think, being a young person and trying to figure out what camp you were in. Do you hang out with the old nerds, uh, which is what we did mo more often than not, or or are do we try to ingratiate ourselves to the French Swiss and uh learn how to uh dress better so that they would take us seriously when we walked into the boutique. I didn't know how to do either of those things terribly well. I I knew how to be myself. And that was, you know, a nerd who had a little bit of a an idea as to what watches meant to me. Um and it was not the mechal mechanical element totally. It wasn't just the design. It wasn't a status symbol or a or a flex kind of thing entirely. It was sort of this amalgamation that blended the history and the romanticism behind these things, and um took an otherwise inanimate object and something really special and meaningful. So when I launched Analog Shift, I really did infuse our brand and our attitude and our identity and our descriptions and our Instagram feed with things that were just direct reflections of how I looked at it, which is this is really cool. And um tried to make it as approachable as possible in that luxury with a lowercase l approach has been um a through line for analog shift ever since. I will say, to answer your second part of the question that to some degree, I think maybe some of the more traditionally luxurious brands have chilled out a little bit. Not not universally. Um but I think there's a recognition that we're not saving lives, that this is something that's fun that uh is entirely and utterly unneeded in today's uh world you know this obsolete technology so the fact that as many people care about it and are enthusiastic about it as there are today is it's really exciting. And uh we should all be very glad that it's happening because we all have jobs and we get to do something we love. And I think that goes from um, you know, beginner collector to an industry executive who's who's running a whole group. It's a cool thing
Tony Traina . Mr. Stacy, I'm curious when you first cross paths with uh James number one for the day, we'll call him
James Stacy . Yeah, sure. Uh uh James number one. That's actually a good question. As as he was telling his uh kind of backstory there, the the origin story for analog shift. I was trying to remember. And I can't recall if it was the palace uh for Basel World in like maybe twenty thirteen or if it was New York. I don't remember where we first cross paths
James Lambdon . Person I I couldn't I I would struggle to say. I feel like one day you were there and and then uh you never left it does that yeah it's it's got it's probably has been the like ten years oh for sure i i think um we were both on the masthead at uh blog to watch uh um
James Stacy and we hung out at SIHH like 2015 because you had a really killer movado chronograph that I remember you showing to me in the hall. So my memory's not gone. It's just very focused on watches, apparently
James Lambdon . I could probably tell you what you were wearing, but yeah, I I have no idea uh where it was. Yeah, it sounds right. Yeah. That's been a long time. And um, you know, um you know Tony, we we um only more recently met in person, but I can tell you that uh it's it's one of the coolest things about this area, the business in the um in the editorial and content creation space, there's some really good people. You know, really good people. I count you both in that category from my perspective for sure. Um as you know, I've dabbled in writing, but I'm not a a real journalist the way you guys are. So I'm I still count myself uh, you know, getting to hang out with the the real professionals here and um and you're and you're both good dudes to to boot, which is great
Tony Traina . James, something we do often on the show is something cool on our desk. Still a working title, thinking of something catchy. Uh you, know, it looks like you're sitting there in your office in the analog shift uh space in Midtown. Anything cool on your desk you can you can show to the YouTube listeners or the the podcast listeners at home? I mean, I've got a bunch of
James Lambdon watches. I've got a bunch of vintage objects. I've got this nineteen eighty one made in France Michelin man that I just picked up this weekend at a antique fair in in Vermont, which is I couldn't live without. That's over your little left shoulder, I guess, huh? Yeah, right over here. Uh great. You know, uh but it's made in France, so the plastic is, you know, luxury. Um here's a neat one. This is a um this is a a Gruen sort of pocket trouble clock uh with a enamel case, uh a whole lot of radium on it. And it it just sort of it closes up into this little square um and then pops open. And it's not an alarm clock. You know, a lot of the the sort of travel clocks from this era would have had an alarm feature, but I don't know. It's it's just super well preserved sort of uh two-tone dial with again just, super luminous uh I don't know if we can see that on there, but uh super luminous Arabic indices and and this really cool jet black enamel case. So that's a fun one. I picked that up at a uh at the National Association of Washington Clock Collectors National Convention in Chattanooga earlier this summer. Uh boy, they have some cool stuff just uh hiding in the corners. And also, this is a fun one. This is a dial for Girard Perrigault, which I'm going to predict is from the 70s. Um I found this loose in a in a bag of dials at one of my uh suppliers. And it's oversized, it's a 29 millimeter dial
Tony Traina . Mr. Stacy, anything cool on your desk today or have we have we run through everything at this point?
James Stacy No, I have a recent addition and I think it it it kind of hits in the overlap of both Tony Traina and James Lambdon. I need to lean forward and grab it. Um the last time I was in Chicago for wind up, I went to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. And while I was there, uh they had a great James Bond exhibit on, and obviously Lambdon's a huge James Bond nerd, one of the biggest I know. But they also have uh a fully restored and live set of a uh German U boat uh basically just in the basement. Uh it's the coolest basement I've ever seen. And on the walk to the U-boat, which you can go right through with a docent and learn all about it, absolutely incredible story. Uh which we don't have to belabor at this specific moment, but I do recommend it and we can put the put it in the show notes. But while you're walking there, you pass one of these things called a moldorama, which is like a late sixties, early seventies machine that takes like injection molding, like if you remember like creepy crawlers or that sort of thing, maybe one or two levels above that in terms of the quality of the outcome. But for five bucks you get like a little desk trinket. So I've got myself a U-boat. It's pretty sick. He
Tony Traina y, that's pretty cool. Uh yeah, you you hit the Venn diagram perfectly and James Lambdon is holding up something similar, actually. I can't quite same one. Yeah, it's very similar, ye
James Lambdon ah. It's it's the same one. Uh T C from my team uh made the same journey. Oh yeah we we hung out for the day at at the 505. Oh that's cool. Lovely dude. It's I've been there before, but I I did I didn't I didn't get one of these, so he brought uh he brought that for me. Uh that's fantastic back from the trip. I picked perfectly. That's that's that U boat really does have an interesting story. Um so I highly recommend um digging into that if you're a fan of military history and um the near scuttling of uh of a captured non-CU boat um off the
James Stacy coast of New Hampshire. One of Chicago's finest sons brought it brought it back home so people could look at it. And then it lived in a parking lot for a long time and then they put it in, like I said, maybe the coolest basement I've ever been in. Y
Tony Traina es. Yeah.. It's great I'm glad Thomas got a shout out to he was the one that that got the idea for me to to bring James on the podcast. So shout out to Thomas. The thing that I was gonna show real quick, it's not mine, it's it's more down the James Lambdon camp, but it's this like little uh I'll try to hold it up to the camera. It's this little like yeah, these little envelope things. It's like a little baby clock that slides out. Uh oh that's red. And it's in the motif of an envelope. I I assume it's even got the two and the from on it of you know who was gifting it to who in oh cool. I guess 1941. It has the date of of June 1941 on it. So maybe that's even when it was made. It it's not mine. I have to ship it off to I have to ship it off to a collector in Italy who who I'm the middle I'm the mere middleman, but it's fun I got to play with it for a couple of days. And something to cool something cool to show on. Yeah. Something cool to show on Hodin Gee Radio. So yeah, if you if you need to show you, just
James Lambdon a lot of those little neat hermetic um travel clocks. Mavato made them um in pretty substantial quantities. So those are there you go. There's another one. Is this all for the It
Tony Traina alian or is one of these yours? No, this Mavato one is mine. Nice. Let's see. This Mavato one is mine in the middle. Until the right buyer comes along. Yeah, that's right. Everything's got a price. But it's cool that the envelope is, you know, a order of magnitude sort of smaller than this. So small. I love that it I saw it very
James Stacy briefly on the cover. Does it have like uh what looks like postage marks? It's got the posta
Tony Traina ge mark and everything. That's so clever. Washington, D. That's fine. And then the name, I suppose, of the recipient. But anyway, cool little thing. Perfect for showing off on Hodinky Radio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool little thing. You know, uh James, you mentioned it earlier, James Stacy, the Venn diagram of of the guests on the show. And one of the ones that I think fits in the James and James Venn diagram, if you will, there are many things, but one that's watch related is certainly Doxa and Vintage Doxa. So I wanted James Lambdon to sort of talk first of all about his journey through the world of Doxa, how you discovered it, and then, you know, why it sort of remains a great love of yours today. I mean, we even see a vintage Doxa poster in the background there or or something of that to that effect. Actually it's a tribu
James Lambdon te to uh to a doxa poster that should have existed that uh the diver right here is our is our other friend Mr. Jason Heaton uh modeling it it. It's uh's a little racy, I think, for today's offices, but I don't really care. It's uh docs uh so yeah, that uh I I I'm just moving my uh art around this office. I've got so many cool vintage ads and movie posters and race car stuff and all It is one of the best offices. It's cool. I mean basically it's just an extension of my apartment that ran out of wall space um for all my chotch keys. But uh yeah, Doxa is is very near and dear to me. Um as I mentioned, after my grandfather passed and I went down the rabbit hole exploring his stuff, um I began thinking about you, know, where my point of entry might be into this hobby for my own purchasing. And Doxa is a word, it's a name that I remembered from my childhood. Um I picked up my father's copy of Raise the Titanic. I think it was when I was in fourth grade. And I remember very distinctly reading that book. Um I was a huge uh shipwreck, sunken treasure, you know, kid. That's what I loved. I loved all those old national geographic documentaries narrated by Martin Sheen and uh everything to do with the Titanic. I even wrote um a fan letter to to Bob Ballard, the um the oceanographer who discovered the Titanic um in like first or second grade and he wrote back and sent me all this cool, you know, memorabilia and and and whatnot. So when I saw a book um about the Titanic on my dad's shelf, I I nabbed it and I read it and I was probably a little young to understand some of it, but I got most of it and I I do remember those famous words that, you know, Dirk Pitt glanced at his orange face stocks a diving watch. And this is in the early nineties before the internet, uh before I knew what watches really even were beyond what my father had or what have you and it stuck with me. And so years and years later, uh it came up again. I'm like, I have to f I to find one of those. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it looked like. And in those days, the early 2000s, the the watch internet was still in very much in its infancy. Um, but lo and behold, there was a little bit of information out there and I just said I've got to have that. Uh it took me a few years, I think I didn't get my first doxa until two thousand six, uh, or maybe early two thousand seven. But it sort of started a path for me and sort of stylistically and romantically and what they represented this era of adventure and um purpose built design and uh you know overdoing it in terms of its technical features for the era to be a professional grade. Uh and all that resonated with me. And so I would say it had a very uh impactful, you know, part of of analog shifts' aesthetic, um, the types of watches that we were um finding and storytelling and and talking about and selling. Um and then, you know, for years, I any any soapbox I could muster, I would hop up there and start telling people about docs. So and and in the early days there was a lot of confused glances, and then um over time others, including Mr. Stacy and Mr. Heaton, and that we had all drank the same exact Kool-Aid and uh and And you know, then Doxas started, you know, really doing some some very clever reissues. Uh, and then when you know, fast forwarding quite a ways, uh, when analog shift was acquired by Watches of Switzerland and I was um sort of made uh an executive team member and and was involved in larger goings on beyond my department. Um I I sort of you know waved the flag for Doxa and and we became the first retailer in North America to carry Doxa since the nineteen seventies, which coincided with the launch of their forged carbon and um also led to the the recreation and re issue of their army models, which is something I got to work very closely on with them, which was, you know, it was a real pinch me kind of moment, uh, full circle kind of thing. And I and my love of Do
Tony Traina xa remains to this day. Can you talk a little bit what it's been like carrying the flag, as you said, here in the States and more broadly with carrying Doxa now. I mean, they really seem to be firing on all cylinders. James has been yelling about the sub-200 they released this year practically every chance he gets for good reason. I think I get it next week. That's right. Just just waiting on delivery. It's gonna be great. Well we'll surely we'll be doing a review here on Hodinky Radio. It's gotta be one of them. I'm sure I can talk about it. It's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gotta be one of the most mentioned watches of the past, you know, six months or whatever at this point, uh on the show. But that's how good it is. But the question for you, James, sort of what it's been like, uh bringing them back into the retail fold in the states over the past few years. Well
James Lambdon , it's been incredibly rewarding you know and I think part of it was that they you know they they got a product um that was truly uh of a quality of a price point and of a sort of whole package from a brand standpoint where it finally needed to be for um retail distribution and then they built a retail distribution model and and they really came at it with a sort of renewed sense of okay we're going to move past being a cult favorite, which they were, to be clear, and they had done a very good job of of reviving the brand and speaking to the um the niche collector and enthusiast. And we're gonna you know build the point of sale. We're gonna create the marketing and training materials and we're gonna and we're gonna partner with retailers around the world to make this a thing again, which it hadn't been in fifty years. Um I can't speak to the numbers that we've done everywhere, but I can speak to the fact that it has been a a wildly successful uh launch for watches of Switzerland, um, which includes the Mayors Group and and the Betteridge Group here in the United States. It's done well overseas. I know they've expanded all through Europe and into Asia. Um I'm really happy for them. I think that they deserve this success. I think they are, you know, that they don't take it quite as seriously when you're making an orange dial or a turquoise dial and you're and you're also paying tribute to historical models and then doing some more innovative avant-garde things using interesting materials. Um I've worked on a number of special edition and custom watches over the years um in wearing various hats, but working with them on that army project uh was really one of the the highlights. Uh they were nimble, they were open to feedback. There were things that we had to change at the 11th hour because something didn't quite come out uh the way we expected it to in production. And it was not a question of of additional costs or you know, delays. It was like we have to fix this right now. We have to make sure this is the way it's supposed to be. Um and you don't always get that, you know, when you're working with other brands. So the fact that they are um privately held, um, but they're really committed to doing it right um and willing to you know move quickly to do that. I I I have a lot of affection for that team
Tony Traina . On the vintage side of things, I was, you know, doing research for this podcast. And by that I mean listening to old podcasts you've you've been on while I was walking my dog. And I think late late last year. I know now you're here. It's crazy. Late last year you were on a podcast. I think this was the Spirit of Time podcast, but you were telling the story of a uh Jamaican not a Jamaican issued watch, but a uh a watch with Jamaican origins that was a Doxa. I'm wondering if you could tell the story of either that watch you acquired or if you've acquired a an even better or more interesting Doxa in the past few months. Uh just something cool with an exciting story that just illustrates the sort of charm and excitement of vintage Doxa.
James Lambdon You know, i the whole military issue question around DOXA has been a little bit of a uh tough nut to crack over the last few years. Uh one of the exciting things about when we launched the Army was being able to work very closely with uh former the Swiss uh military diver who led a battalion and um was able to provide uh connection to the Swiss government to get the actual documentation to show that yes, uh there were docses that were issued to the Swiss military and they even had this really great training video which showed the Swiss divers practicing in a swimming pool, uh which in in itself is like a little tongue in cheek and and kind of uh goofy. Um but the you know the unit themselves they were responsible for you know rigging the airports and bridges with uh detonators in case that the you know Switzerland was invaded. These guys weren't messing around. They had watches that weren't messing around. But there's been rumors of other militaries and armed forces and and whatnot that used doxas and period in the 1960s and 1970s. And uh one of the perks of being, you know, one of the few quote unquote DOXA guys uh on the internet is that uh I've had a couple of really interesting watches come to me because of um my tendency to get up on those soapboxes wherever possible. So it started years ago when I was able to acquire uh uh first owner um black long, which is a prototype dial uh sub 300 that was produced in early sixty seven with with um a full color or or fully inked uh logo for the US divers association that was deemed illegible um when the hands crossed over it so they didn't make very many. But I uh had a guy reach out to me years ago and and offered to sell me that watch. And turns out his father had bought it in 1968 at a dive shop in Florida. Um after, you know, a few years after working on on Thunderball uh filming the underwater fight scene. So, you know, he's on IMDb, you know, as an underwater cinematographer, and I got that watch, which is super, super cool. Another um example was this this Jamaican Defense Forces watch, which also came to me. I had a guy reach out to me, a very, very nice guy who was an Irishman, uh, living in Kingston, Jamaica. Um and he he got a hold of me and said, listen, this is who I am. I'm an enthusiast. Uh I've made friends with the with the proprietor of a multi-generational uh watch repair and and sales shop here in Jamaica that's basically closing them their door for us. And I've been helping him go through his shop, his vault, and I'm helping him sell off some of the stuff uh that's here. And we have this Doxa, and I looked you up and seems like maybe you'd be the guy to to talk to about it and sure enough um i do have it right here this is a sub 300 uh shark hunter and it's a U.S. diver uh company issued dials So it would suggest that it was originally retailed through Cousteau's network in the United States. But what's cool about it is it has an issue number uh on the case back and a notation of uh JDFS, Jamaican Defense Forces. And the cool part uh is this in that it came with uh service paperwork. I think it was dated in the Yeah, 1978 service paperwork. And it's got uh the name for the repair, and it was just because the bracelet was broken, which is common on these old dogs. Um two uh care of a certain sergeant in the Jamaican Defense Forces. Uh so we know that it was repaired sort of for the Jamaican Defense Forces, which I think is pretty much their Coast Guard. Um and uh that that in all likelihood this unit was given a um procurement budget and decided to basically buy these watches for their um for their defense forces and and then they were in engraved and issued and uh either this watch was abandoned or it was given to uh you know to the soldier in question at some point and uh it's been sitting you know in this little shop in Jamaica for I think quite some time. And by the way, this bracelet that I have on it is a replacement because the other one is still in pieces. But it's pretty cool to have a you know, a doxa with uh actual military provenance, you know, engraved and and confirmed right you know right here. And that was the first time after many dozens of vintage docs has come in through my hands that I was able to That's I guess cool. There was one more. I'll I'll just sneak it in there, and that is um I haven't talked to anyone about this, but um I did have a uh an absolutely perfect and I I use that very carefully uh with vintage launches, but an absolutely perfect untouched fully uh black uh original army show-up um out of a yard sale in France um place in the last uh twelve or eighteen months. And that took some doing uh to get a hold of it. But similarly I was reached out to um connected with this this sort of um you know truple pig in in in France who uh would buy out uh storage units and and hit up uh estate sales and things and he was sort of watched knowledgeable and he'd snagged this thing uh somewhere near Normandy. And I've had a few of of the original armies come through, probably more than just about anyone in the in the business over the last 10 years. I've never seen one this perfect. And so it's uh sadly it's kind of unwearable. It's really a museum piece, but it is mega cool to have the uh the fully, you know, heat oil blackened uh Doxa arm in the collection. It's a special one. So that's in the Lambden Museum somewhere, it sounds like? Yeah, I'm I'm sort of constantly curating that thing. Again, now it's just a new justification that I must save and and preserve everything that I see. If I if I don't buy watches every day, I get really itchy. It's bad
Tony Traina . We were talking about this on last week's pod with uh Eric Wind, another sort of vintage watch dealer, and he was talking about the need for more vintage watch exhibits basically. And I think we're all sort of eagerly awaiting the James Landon vintage Doxa exhibit now to see some of the watches you just talked about, and I'm sure tons more. Uh, but those are really cool stories. Really cool stories. Thanks for sharing. The other thing I wanted to talk about was uh years ago, I was I started using the term neo-vintage, as did a lot of people, and someone reached out to me via DM or whatever it was, and they said, you know, James Landon made up that term. Uh so either they credit you or blame you for this because of the, you know, supposed inaccuracies of this term. First of all, before we get to the the actual meat of the matter, do you want to take the credit or blame for for coining this term
James Lambdon ? Oh, um I don't know if it's true or not. I I was uh it's very it's possible. You know, I I will take credit for the um the word patination, which was my way of of explaining what dials or hands or loom would do over time. And in the early days, word processors and the internet did not like that word. It always always pop up as this is not a real word. We suggest replacing it with this. Um, but over time, now it's acceptable. So I'll take credit for patination as like a as a made up word. As for neo vintage, I think it's entirely possible, uh Tony. But I uh I think if you go back into our social media or early um early listings, I think I remember a moment, right? I remember and it's kind of funny to think about this today, but back in I think it was summer of twenty fifteen, I had this crazy idea. And this is um if we use Rolex to sort of um set as a bellwether for the for the time period and for the market. This was at a time that four digit Rolexes were hot as hell. All right. So your 1016s and your 1675s and your and your fifty five twelves and sixteen eighties and so on. Um and there was very little attention being paid to the five digit counterparts that came, you know, immediately thereafter. Um and so I had this crazy idea that I would buy great representative samples of all of the great sports and and classic uh five digit references that were still tritium, but were the next generation, and I was gonna curate this event in which we were going to start really highlighting these watches. And I bought them all. And I don't think we did very well. I didn't make money. We might have lost a few bucks. I think uh, you know, it was too soon. But I do remember really talking about it being a neo vintage kind of thing. And I recognized, by the way, that neo vintage as a term could mean you know two things. It could mean new vintage or it could mean what is the new vintage. So some people like to use it for, you know, Fotina uh reissue type things. And some people uh like myself sort of prefer to look at it as what's the in-between between vintage, proper vintage and contemporary pre-owned. And for me it just means pieces that might have a vintage aesthetic or vintage materials, vintage sizing, and by that I mean traditional sizing, 39 millimeter oyster cases instead of the maxi cases or what have you. Um tritium luminous material or even acrylic crystals, but might have solid dendlinks or a um sapphire crystal, things like that, high beat movement, quick set. Um and be a blend of these things that bridge the gap between things that are 40, 50 years old and things that are recently uh produced. And at that time, you know, that I started using it, there was just very little attention being thrown on what is going to be the next thing. It was mat dial, vintage Rolexes, and divers and you know, early APs and nineteen thirties reversos and you know a handful of other things, but there was very little discussion about what was coming next. And I'm always sort of looking at that. And I think that stems from being asked early in my career, what happens when you run out of vintage watches? And the good news is with each day that goes by, we're there's more vintage watches. Time is going by. It's it's on our side here, but we have to sort of think about what are the what are the future classics. And that's where that all came from
Tony Traina . It's interesting. You mentioned it there starting with five digit Rolex sports watches. A lot of the recent interest in the past few years in Neo Vintage has been around the dressier watches though, the Blanc ponds, brigades, et cetera, of the world. I'm curious if your if your taste has evolved in that direction as well, gold watches and all those types of things. A thousand percent yes, Tony.
James Lambdon Um you know, I think like like uh Mr. Stacy here, um who who and I uh we share a similar villainous or origin story in the watch world. Um we we've evolved, right? And I think that's the best and most exciting part about being in this industry is is actually putting in the time and also having an open mind and over years and years of handling watches. And that's one of the coolest things about having um you know been a writer and worked in the red bar uh community and in developing that and then doing analog instead of sort of worn a bunch of different hats and had a whole bunch of different points of access into this community and this industry and this hobby. And my tastes have evolved exponentially in totally different ways that I never would have predicted. So yes, dressier watches, more avant-garde watches, more artistic expressions of timekeeping that have no purpose-built tech or water resistance, um, weird watches uh that some might even consider downright ugly or um as a sort of horological side note of um, you know, at best passing interest, have started to grab me in in interesting ways and gold uh started as a joke for me uh around the time I turned thirty. I decided I wanted to see what owning a solid gold Rolex was. I bought a a vintage um early 70s, 1675, a GMT master with a a nipple root beer dial. And then I had to get a bracelet for it to see what that was all about. But it was almost a joke. You know, like I'm I'm a steel doxa, you know, kind of diving watch chronograph guy, and little did I expect to completely fall head over heels in love with that watch, which has now led to a collection of dressier or um anachronistic uh watches in my collection and uh also reflected you know in our inventory
Tony Traina . Question for both of you guys, you've been doing this long enough. If there's a watch you may have dismissed out of hand 10, 12 years ago as not for you or too flashy if it's down this gold route or whatever it is, that now you're like, yeah, that thing's kinda sick and I totally want to wear that. Sta
James Stacy cy, you go first. Yeah, I I I would say I mean like I'd it's not that interesting of an answer because it's it's largely follows what James just said. Like it's the gold watches. I when if we're talking ten years ago, I had zero appreciation for any of it. I thought it was all really silly. I still haven't warmed up to two tone. Um, but uh th thanks to James, uh largely, but uh thanks to a couple knuckleheads in my life who have uh collections or inventory or whatever word we're choosing to use for tax reasons today. Um you know, I I I got to show, you know, you had that um that gold GMT master, we were in Miami together, you know, pre-pandemic they used to do a a watch show, a what like a uh sort of luxury watches and wonders sort of thing in uh in Miami and we were down there and I don't I don't remember how we got to this, but we were, you know, having a a bite to eat or something and we traded watches or maybe it was just before we did a panel. Uh I I was in a uh like a predominantly red Aloha shirt and you you've just said it kind of had to happen and I don't remember what I had at my wrist, but you left with something worth, you know, twenty-five dollars or whatever in in in Miami and I rolled out with a watch that I s to this day I'm not actually sure what it w what it would have run for at the time, but there there there's something totally 100. It's just it's exclusively a personality hire of a watch. A solid gold sports watch from Rolex. Uh there's nothing wrong with it, of course. It does everything the steel ones can do but they're such um just fun things to have around if if you can it's it's that you know Ferris Bueller line if you have the means you know ye
Tony Traina ah I mean James Stacy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a gold Rolex running around who's the oldest personality higher
James Lambdon . Who's doing the Magnum PI cosplay around here? I mean I'm getting the grief, but it's really it's Stacey. Come on. Um yeah, I think for me, you know, I I might have I I I ca I came at um both tutone and gold with like a little bit of a cock eyed smile, you know, a little bit of a this is I'm I'm playing a little role here and I'm gonna lean into it and then I ended up loving all of it. Um, but I think I think categorically for me it would be Cartier as a brand. You know, it was something that as I decide as as analog shifts booled up and I realized this wasn't going to be a side gig. This was going to be something that I took very seriously, and I needed to improve my scholarship beyond the the categories that I was comfortable with. I recognized, you know, Cartier was out here with the tank Louis and and um the Santos Dumont and all of these historically important watches that I was like, you know what? I need to learn about those. I'm gonna need to know that. But it's not for me. And you know, n I I recently bought a tank American on a bracelet with diamonds. Um so yeah, it can it can get it can get real dark, um and and crazy, you know, if you uh if you sort of let go of inhibitions. And I I probably could have been enjoying that for a lot longer and uh probably at a lower price of entry ten years ago. So there you have well like five di uh five digit Rolex. Sure, exactly. But but by the way, those watches that uh nobody wanted were, you know, probably still well, definitely still all single digit thousands. Um ye
James Stacy ah. Yeah I bought a Rolex at roughly that time. It was a great era. It was a great era to be like, yeah, I guess I guess I can afford it right now. Uh uh because you know the pandemic kind of you know, put that all in a bag and shook it up, but
James Lambdon Yeah, and then and the marketplace and value are are always changing, of course, but I think that once uh the the one thing I've never really subscribed to um is anything that's uh you know going forward retail and it's still being produced. You know, if it if they can make more of it, it's just not a safe bet. Um no, I don't necessarily recommend investing in watches. However, if you're looking at sort of a currency conversion into something that you can wear and enjoy and you do with some intelligence, I think it's a fairly safe place to park some money. Um, as long as it's something that's been out of production for some period of time and has some interest behind it. Some pe you know people want it, or you're willing to roll the dice on something very bizarre in hopes that someday uh the rest of the world catches up with you
Tony Traina . Speaking of perhaps very bizarre. Uh I wanted to circle back a little bit to the neo-vintage era and that type of thing. I'm curious if there are specific brands, watchmakers, whatever in that era that you find particularly compelling. And then maybe some that, or maybe there's one that you just don't get or haven't gotten around to yet. Yeah. I me
James Lambdon an I think that there's just a tremendous amount of value and interest in sort of core 1990s, you know, maybe some late 80s, but definitely solid 90s core Swiss uh luxury watches and sports watches. So whether that's your uh early tritium aquanauts or your reversos nineties Cartier again, super cool. I mean they were starting to do s all of the um the CPCP stuff and the first sort of big reissue of the crash was ninety one. I mean they started doing fun artistic stuff that w the rest of the industry is just catching up to today and realizing how cool it is. They were doing that 30 years ago. And so there's actually a lot of neat stuff from the 90s that is uh using interesting materials that still hasn't gone to the crazy oversized. I mean I, love some of those early aqua timers from the 90s from IWC. The 3706 chronograph, I think, is one of the old-time great pilots chronographs. Um, and early ones are tritium and they're steel and they're not terribly expensive and it's a great look. And you know, that's a really good example. Um the Portuguese chronograph while we're on IWC, you know, that the watch that's still in the catalog. You know, the forty millimeter traditional Portuguese chronograph was introduced in nineteen ninety-eight. Let's think about that for a second. That watch has been in the catalog for almost it's twenty five years, right? Um if that's not iconic in its own way, I don't know what is. And that's great value. Um and then probably the one that I've been talking about a little bit more and more uh and we're starting to see a little traction on um here at analog is is Frank Muller. Uh and I think that that brand is really speaking to this more design forward and sort of uh slightly more irreverent appreciation for watches as artistic objects. That brand sort of dominated um New York City Wall Street fashion in the 90s. Um and I did not get it for a long time. Um yeah, you've got to look past some of the you know brands historical challenges with leadership and some controversy there and um I'm not certainly not saying that every watch they've ever made is worthy of praise, but categorically like the Casablanca Kurvex uh with a colored dream style, especially their crazy hour complication. That's like a really, really fun watch. And I don't care who you are. Like you gotta, you gotta like smile at that watch a little bit because it's absurd. And as we move past the self-important, um you know, must have some sort of significance uh with a capital S uh to be historically interesting and horologically um worthwhile. Like once you move past that in your brand and you're just like, I'm I'm having a lot of fun here. Front wheeler is like right there, bells on, and very accessibly priced on the secondary uh market. So that that those are those are examples, I think. But uh goes much beyond that, of course. Brigade from the nineties. Talk about value
Tony Traina . Great watches. I could pick up on all three of these brands because I I I enjoy all of them for various reasons, but I'm gonna go ahead and tank the Frank Mueller bait because how could you not? Uh it's funny. I talked to uh man, it was probably a year ago at this point when Wayco and Revolution did their uh they did their collaboration with Frank Mueller on those really early kind of paddock inspired round chronographs, which is not something you associate with Frank Mueller. Obviously everyone associates them with the the Kervex case and these kind of pre-Resured Mill to know shaped cases that you mentioned. And the entire story of the brand is fascinating. You know, Frank Mueller as the infant terrib terrible of the sort of Swiss watch industry at the time, this master genius watchmaker that, you know, was pushed out of the brand or kind of had a big falling out with the brand uh right as it was at the peak of its powers and then just kind of the downfall of the brand since then it's it's a really fascinating story. I I kind of havef never written the article. I I talked to a few people about it. Uh, I remember I talked to William Messina about it, who was running time zone in the the late 90s, early 2000s when Frank Mueller was really at the peak. And the thing he said to me that that always sticks out to me is that Frank Mueller was the second most popular brand on Time Zone at the time. You would look at the forums and uh the posting and that the engagement that the Frank Mueller subforum got was second only to Rolex at the time. And I'm curious though, uh I hear all these things from from people like you, William Cena, people I just named, uh, but they've been talking about it for a little bit now and you haven't seen a ton of mainstream traction, I would say, with the Frank Mueller thing. Maybe it started a little bit, but I'm curious what's from your perspective might be might be missing, or maybe this is as as far as it'll ever go for Frank Mueller and appreciation of their 90s watches
James Lambdon . I mean listen, it it's gonna be interesting and these things take time. Um, you know, I was quote unquote too far ahead with these five digit Rolexes, right? Um I've been talking about category uh of integrated bracelet, you know, nineteen seventies dress watches like this piagé here, um, for a long, long time. And I thought they were gonna hit years to go. And they they just hit in the last you know year or two in terms of popularity and now I I was once in a room with some rural ex executives and uh they said is there anything that you know people are uh asking for that we should consider you know bringing back and I just called out Midas, bring the Midas back, and they just laughed at me. And now, I mean, let's look at some of the recent releases and indies and homages coming from big brands. I'm like, they should have a 1970s King might as like reissue like right now and it would crush it. Right. Point is sometimes these things are a slow burn, sometimes they they come out uh fast and hard and then they die off fast and hard. And I I don't I'm not market making here. I'm not manipulating. I'm I'm it's a combination of responding to market demands and also sharing what I'm interested in. And that's this sort of zealitgeisty thing, right? That's uh blood of my own personal taste and what's out in a world for for input. And um although there was this great coop years ago uh who wrote this tinfoil hat theory that um Aurel, uh Ben, uh Eric and I were sitting around a table um you know market manipulating you know demand for universal Genève, which is like one of my all-time favorite crazy um internet rants. But um it's we're not doing that. You know, we're we we're responding and sharing and getting into it. And so uh whether or not Frank Muller takes off because we're talking about them or and people are buying them or somebody on the internet has written a story about why they were significant in the era is almost beside the point. Like if you like it and it's fun for you, great. Um I do think they're undervalued right now, but you know, w what do I know? I've o I I've been collecting and dealing and um let's not forget why I started this. I I I I wanted to justify buying all the watches I wanted. So uh here we are folks. You know, and we do okay though
Tony Traina . We've been talking mainly about collector and enthusiast James, honestly, for most of the show, but I wanted to get a few minutes of business James in here at the end. Obviously, I mentioned you were uh There is no distinction. It's the same thing. It's all one discombobulated mess. But as I mentioned, analog shift acquired by Watches of Switzerland, a you know, real mega retailer about four years ago. I'm wondering if you could kind of just talk about what that decision was was like for you and what went into to the acquisition. And then since then, what you've learned or what you maybe even underestimated uh about being part of a large uh company like watches of Switzerland
James Lambdon . I think I should just preface this by saying I didn't build analog ships with any intent um on selling it. It was not part of the plan. Um was, you know, as you've probably gathered from all of this rantiness, it's uh it's not much of a plan at all. But it was um it was something that I began to be approached about actually fairly early on and I had several other parties of of some size um approach analog approach for me uh and ask about acquisition and integration into their own brands. Um some of the more new watch manufacturers who are maybe looking to buy authenticity, right? And some were um sort of watch industry adjacent that were looking to do uh you know permanent in the in the wristwatch space. Um but we get begun doing some uh curated collections in established brick and mortar retailers around the country uh and in twenty eighteen when when one washes of Switzerland uh opened their flagship here in New York, we uh we were asked to come in and provide product uh under our brand. And fast forward to COVID uh we got a call saying, you know, how's it going? You want to come on over well there is nice and warm and um things are really going well with you know this partnership would you like to do it in house? And at that time I think, you know, I made a decision that uh was based on a a certain amount of not knowing what the industry was gonna be. Um I don't regret that decision at all because the leadership at Watches of Switzerland has empowered myself and my team to really do analog shift the way we have always done analog shift just bigger and better and with more resources to expand it beyond. It's come with challenges um in terms of working with uh retail teams in 25, 35 stores that may not understand vintage. It's also provided opportunities to try and ex to figure out how we can present our brand not only to you know the end user but to our to our sales teams in in a way that can help them understand and get excited by the products that we're curating. Similarly, we've expanded into pre owned, not just vintage, and that's been um a fascinating experience for me. Uh, who I don't say I turned my nose up at, you know, three year old brightlings in the past, but was definitely not something that I had really considered uh as part of my business. We'd always dabbled in contemporary, but this presented an opportunity to do some substantial volume. So learning uh what market demands are in different regions of our of our network and then being able to curate uh collections for each of those sort of regions has been fun. It's been educational and then really rewarding when we were able to start putting some really special vintage watches in areas um and in stores that you wouldn't think would have clients for it. Um so I have a I have a pretty unique perspective on this industry I'd say. Um and I'm proud of that and I'm it's probably the thing that I'm most proud of to, be honest with you, that I've done my core business, buying and selling great vintage watches, working with more traditional retail business and expanding that with watches in Switzerland, writing about watches, working in the community. Um, I have a I think I have a pretty unique perspective, and that's something I'm very proud of. And it's something that um I don't think a lot of others in the industry have had the fortune to experience all of these different perspectives. So having watches of Switzerland support analog um and integrate us into that fold has been a tremendous suc
Tony Traina cess. Well, guys, James Lambdon, James Stacy, thank you so much for joining the show. Of course, stay tuned to analog shift. I know I get those Tuesday email drops, uh, great watch descriptions, but thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you all for listening. Thanks as always to Vic Autominelli for editing the the audio and video and we'll see you all again next week for another episode of Odinky Radio