Skip to content

Eric Ku (Vintage Watch Expert)

Published on Mon, 6 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

This week, we sit down with one of the world's preeminent vintage watch dealers: Eric Ku. Despite his reputation, there's a lot more to Eric than rare, killer examples of mid-century Rolex watches. He's a dedicated patron of contemporary, independent watchmakers and it was actually Vianney Halter's Antiqua that first opened his eyes to the wonders of horology. The guy also knows a ton about food and enjoys a great glass of wine. He's someone who really understands the all important idea that watches are best enjoyed as part of a life well-lived, and it was a pleasure sitting down to talk to him for this show. Enjoy.

Synopsis

This episode of Hodinkee Radio features an in-depth conversation with Eric Ku, one of the most respected vintage Rolex dealers and collectors in the watch world. Host Stephen Pulvirent and Hodinkee's James Stacey sit down with Eric in San Francisco to discuss his journey from college student buying Explorer watches on eBay in the late 1990s to becoming a preeminent figure in vintage watch dealing. Eric shares stories about his early mistakes, including purchasing problematic vintage pieces, and explains how the vintage watch market has evolved over the past two decades—from a time when nomenclature like "gilt dial" didn't exist to today's highly classified and expensive market.

Beyond vintage Rolex, Eric reveals his passion for independent watchmakers and haute horlogerie, wearing a rare early Patek Philippe 3939 minute repeater tourbillon during the interview. He discusses the challenges facing new collectors as entry-level vintage Rolex prices have skyrocketed, recommending alternatives like smaller 34mm vintage Rolex models and vintage gold Day-Dates as undervalued opportunities. Eric also shares insights on market corrections, the influence of auction records, and his collecting philosophy emphasizing condition and personal passion over investment potential. The conversation concludes with Eric's other passion—food—as he discusses his culinary adventures in the Bay Area and his four-year quest to secure a reservation at Los Angeles restaurant N/Naka. The episode offers rare insight into both the business and personal philosophy of one of the watch world's most knowledgeable insiders.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown If you talk to vintage Rolex collectors long enough, you are definitely going to hear the name Eric Koo eventually. Eric's one of the most respected watch dealers and most respected watch collectors on the planet. He's equal parts insider and scholar. Most of what happens with a watch dealer happens behind the scenes, the customers never see it, but Eric's able to articulate it and explain exactly what he does in a way that makes the whole thing seem super exciting. What most people don't realize though is that Eric is more than just the Rolex Don. The guy loves all aspects of horology, especially modern independent watchmakers. He's also a serious foodie and he can talk for days about that one reservation that he's still trying to get. The moment I booked a flight last month to San Francisco, I knew that getting Eric on the show had to happen. I'm your host, Stephen Polverant, and this is Hodinky Radio. This week's episode is brought to you by Tutor. Stay tuned later in the show for a look at the Heritage Black Bay Chrono, a new take on one of Tutor's most iconic watches. You can also learn more at TutorWatch.com. Thanks so much for being here, Eric. It's really good to uh have you here and to be able to talk. Thanks for having me. I think a lot of people know you as kind of the go-to guy for vintage Rolex, uh and as kind of the the preeminent or one of the preeminent dealers in that space, but you have a pretty cool watch on your wrist that could you tell us nobody can see it uh obviously through the magic of radio, but uh can you tell us what it is and then maybe we can give people a little little taste of it? Sure. So
Unknown I'm wearing a uh very early um paddock Philippe 3939, uh, which is a minute repeater turbion. Um it has a enamel dial with brigade numbers on it. James has this giant grin on his face right now. It's amazing
Unknown . He's sitting next to Eric and has this giant
Unknown grin on his face. It's such a subtle looking watch and then you flip it over and it and it's uh it's not subtle. It's gorgeous. Technical tour to force for sure.
Unknown And you know, the interesting thing is is again, if you look at this based on the numbers, um I believe the case size is thirty-three point three millimeters, okay. Which sounds really tiny, but it has a very satisfying feel on the wrist. It looks great. Yeah, it looks great on your wrist, and the white dial really makes the most of the size as well. To nerd out a little bit, we're here by the early cases were made by uh uh Jean-Paul Hagman. Yeah. Who is uh a very famous case maker for Paddock Philippe who's made basically all the really great repeaters. Um the first I don't know, let's say twenty five pieces he made the case for and then the later ones were Paddock Philippe produced. Okay. The market doesn't really differentiate a value for this, but I think a lot of like nerds kind of do. It's said, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's said that his cases sound a lot better than um the later cases. Okay. Um which may or may not be the case. And um you know they're just they're great watches and uh this is one that um you know I have the pleasure of being able to wear and I think it's uh it's a really great piece, you know. Can we uh can we give
Unknown it a little listen? Can you hold it up to the microphone? I don't know how well this will translate, but I think we can at least give it uh give it a try. Alrig,ht we'll give it a try and uh see if you guys can tell what time it is
Unknown . That's pretty cool. That sounds fantastic.
Unknown I hope the listeners can hear that. probably I guess about six feet away from where Eric held that watch. Uh that's pretty incredible. Especially we're we're in a soundproof uh radio booth right now and that's uh quite the sound. Yeah I mean uh this always brings a smile to my
Unknown face. And is there uh is there a story behind uh the acquisition of the 3939? Or just you want to
Unknown use the right. Not particularly. I think it was at the right place at the right time. Okay. Um like anything, um I think because these watches are uh a bit on the smaller side. Um you know, the market on these um value wise has dropped quite a bit. Okay. And I happen to think that at that price point, you know, they're a very attractive thing to
Unknown purchase. So I think a lot of people don't know your backstory and kind of how you built a business around watches, how you fell in love with watches. Can you can you kind of take us back to the beginning and tell us about how you got into this?
Unknown I think I've always had a fascination with watches. Um, it started at a very young age. I remember thinking that it was really interesting how these little tiny things can keep such accurate time and uh you know be made with human hands. There's no battery, there's no electronics. Right. Um the mechanical aspect of it was definitely very interesting to me uh from the beginning. You know, aside from that, like little snippets of my childhood, I somehow remember one time being at a store in New York when I was a kid, and my father was gifted a Rolex, I think from my grandmother, and I just remember sitting at the counter playing with brochures. Okay. Um, fast forward a couple years later, I would always go into my parents' room and uh dig in my dad's drawer and find his watch and be like playing with it and whatnot. This is all I think subconsciously having to do with like great marketing by a lot of the luxury brands. Um but yeah I, mean Rolex really was a brand that kind of like stuck in my mind from a very uh young age. Then in like the nineteen nineties, the Daytona started getting very popular and then uh Explorer ones and um, you know, it was really interesting. In the beginning, uh it was very easy to uh as like a hobbyist, you know, there was some like arbitrage that could be done. Uh for example, explorer ones were very, very popular in Japan and um I kind of remember in the US when I uh bought my first one it was twenty five twenty five was the retail price two thousand five hundred twenty five dollars okay and at the time, um, you know, I posted one for sale on eBay and it went for I don't know thirty seven hundred dollars or something like that. This is right when eBay started. Okay. And then um, you know, I started doing a little like uh light gray marketing, if you will, for just for fun. And um it really expanded my knowledge about watches because I started learning about more. Um then I started learning about Cool. Um I didn't really know much at that time. And when would this have been? I'm sorry? When would that have been? This is I want to say ninety eight. Okay. Uh I was going to school at Berkeley at the time. And I remember I was like so proud of this red sub that I really knew nothing about. And then uh I bought it at a NAWCC watch show. And then as soon as I walked out, I looked at it in the sun and I was like, Oh, I didn't notice these spots on the dial. And then like I started learning more and more and getting more and more disappointed with the purchase that I had made. And uh the coup de gras on that was that I took it to a watchmaker and he told me that he couldn't open it up because the case back and the case had kind of uh corroded together and it was basically you couldn't open it. It was impossible to open with any sort of tool. That's like the nightmare first vintage purchase. Exactly. That was like twenty eight hundred dollars down the drain at that time. Second purchase wasn't much better. I bought it off the internet. It was a uh Explorer one 1016 with a gill dial, but I didn't dial was at the time. Nobody did. And um I wore it. I thought it was weird that the loom was kind of green colored, and then the first time I washed my hands it fogged up. Oh so um I wasn't able to return the red sub, but I was able to return that one. Okay. And uh, you know, trial by fire, you just learn from your own mistakes and you start learning more, and hopefully you don't repeat the same mistakes.
Unknown So you mentioned you know not knowing what a guilt dial was and that nobody at the time knew what a guilt dial was. I think it's easy for collectors now where it's like every serif matters, every little bit of negative space matters. To forget that like back in the nineties, like an explorer was an explorer, a sub was a sub. Like there was no, you know, guilt dial, there was no Kermit the Frog. There was none of this. Like a watch was a watch
Unknown . Yeah, uh that's absolutely correct. I think um you know when I first started getting involved in watches, there really wasn't this sort of like nomenclature. This didn't really happen until I don't know, maybe fifteen years ago in the early two thousands, I was a frequent browser of uh the early watch websites, the sales watch websites that I can think of that were on at the beginning of the internet, like Bob Wingate's website, Wingate Watches. Okay. Uh European Watchco was on there since the early days. And um there's a few that are kind of like gone right now that don't really come to mind. But you know, those were the knowledge that I could like find. Um there were a lot of collectors' websites in Japan in which I could see the pictures, but I couldn't really understand the language. Uh there was no Google Translate available at the time. And um, you know, there were a lot of publications um at that time from Japan, magazines and uh little books. Um and you know, they just didn't really have this sort of classification in terms of uh guilt dial, mark one, mark two, mark three. And really I kind of feel like the beginning of this was uh this collector who's fairly well known uh Ed Delgado. He has his website uh double red seedweller.com and um you know he started working on and collecting a lot of the information that was kind of being shared by these pioneer collectors, let's say on uh the early forums, that uh, you know, they started coming out with these classification systems. And uh, you know, he started putting that on a website where people could go and kind of starting research about that, you know? So that was really, I think, kind of like the advent of what I'd call modern collecting. Okay
Unknown . Early two thousands. Aaron Ross Powell Okay. And d d I mean do you think ultimately those classifications turned out to be a good thing, or do you think it's kind of artificial? I mean, it's like a really fun
Unknown ny thing because a lot of times, like uh, you know, there's so much information available on the internet. And um, you know, I buy a lot of things from uh shops that call me, pawn shops, collectors, whatnot. And uh I always like joke with my colleagues that uh you know when a pawn shop in you know in the middle of nowhere calls you and the first thing they say is like I have a spider dial whatever. We just like know that the guy's gonna want like eight hundred thousand dollars or something insane, you know. So you know, collecting things, we want to be able to classify the different uh variants and whatever. So to that end, I think this is obviously uh you know a natural thing and something that's good. But I feel like a lot of times people are making uh too many, like you know, they're trying to like push a little hard on some things that even as a person that is obsessed with details, I feel like is a little bit too obscure. You know? I mean things happen, like okay, Mark one, two, three of whatever. Um, you know, there's noticeable changes, but then some that are like very tiny nuances. I mean, even I don't really follow all of that, you know. And um, you know, people will try to push the envelope in terms of pricing uh on things like that. Like they recently discovered some very minute variation. But you know, to me really it's the market that determines that pricing and it's not really like a person that just pushes
Unknown , you know, one thing or whatever. Aaron Powell I mean, James, you've you've been following the market obviously, and we were talking the other day about vintage GMTs and how even this creep into more modern references, like anything that's now kind of like pre-maxi case. Yeah. Uh prices are just going up and up and up. And I I wonder if that's a reflection of actual demand or if that's a reflection of increased scholarship and kind of increased classification, kind of allowing instead of the market dictating prices, allowing prices to kind of dictate the market
Unknown . I mean in in like it looking at something like a 16, 7, 10, which is what what I was talking about, you know, the last generation of the of the GMT master to it. I was just blown away by how quickly they had gone up, despite the fact that it's not like they're suddenly more rare than they were a few years ago. And I think Eric, I'm sure you could speak to it, but there's got to be some of it a a reaction to the way that Rolex is dealing out their steel watches at the A D level. Is that a restricted sort of supply? So there might be some pressure from both sides, both the popularity of the stuff that's actually rare and special, and the pressure I me
Unknown an, I think there's actually like a confluence of a bunch of things going on here. One of the things that I was just thinking about the other day is, you know, let's say I started collecting in the uh late 90s. And at that time, you know, um a mat dial 5513, right? This is like a very basic sport watch that most people enjoy and is something that a lot of people start their collections with. You know, something like that at the time was whatever, twenty five hundred dollars or two thousand, maybe even. Um, maybe even eighteen hundred dollars. I don't remember. But you know, that is uh it's 20 years ago, you know. So that five five one three that people were chasing in the late nineties, like now it's just twenty years older. So then just by like natural progression of time, like uh one six seven one zero GMT is actually vintage, but we don't really see that because we're frozen in this moment in time where vintage means acrylic crystal, you know, fifteen seventy movement. But really, like uh, I mean, you know, we're getting older day by day, right? So a 16, 7, 10 that was probably released by Rolex um, I want to say, like, in the early 90s or whatever. I mean, this is vintage now, you know? So it's just like perception issue. It's just the delineation where it it used to be from plastic crystal to quickset to sapphire crystal. Now it's like maxi case ceramic bezel. And you know, uh the new sport watches that Rolex comes out with, um, you know, they're great. They're in very high demand. The supply is very limited now. Um, but at the same time, I think a lot of people appreciate the proportions of the older style watches, including the metal bezel ones, you know, like uh um a sub from the nineties, a GMT from the nineties, or you know, whatnot. So it's like a lot of these different things. And of course, you know, people like to talk a lot about uh the supply and demand issue with Rolex. You know, I'm friendly with a lot of people in the industry, and I think legitimately uh deliveries are very, very slow right now. I've heard a lot of explanations for this. I'm not sure, you know, what's true and what's not, but you know, there is some deliberate plan here, you know
Unknown . And you think that's definitely a part of driving up demand for maybe the the m you know new vintage, I guess I would say. Like the watches that are are becoming vintage. It is. I mean, uh it'
Unknown s kind of crazy how the prices have really exploded over the last uh five years. Um I remember in uh former life I was uh working at like startups right and at that time they always talked about everything like the hockey stick right like basically it's sl starts slow and then suddenly ramps up kind of like the shape of a hockey stick. And I see a little bit of that in the pricing right now, you know. There's more of an awareness for vintage watches. It's become more of a mainstream thing. Um, you see a lot of celebrities wearing vintage watches. Paul Newman auction. Also, uh new watches are very expensive right now, you know? And a lot of times people are, you know what? I can buy a brand new submariner and I have to like kind of fight to find one for ten to twelve thousand dollars. I could buy a vintage one that arguably is kind of more interesting to me for either the same money or even slightly less, you know. Right. And then that kind of attracts a lot of people to that. Um there's a big stigma previously, I think, of buying pre owned things. But again, that has become like a lot more mainstream, you know? Ye
Unknown ah, that's true. That's very true. I mean do you think y you talk about hockey sticking, do you think that this increase is sustainable or do you think we're gonna see kind of a general market correction or is it kind of anyone's anyone's guess? Paul Newman's will be
Unknown two million dollars next year. Actually I'm just kidding. No, but seriously. uh we are definitely in like a boom right now. Um but you know as somebody involved in the market in the buy and sell side um you know I look at these things and I know that if something increases fifty percent in value, like it can't go can't keep going on like that forever. And look, um, you know, prices I think will uh level off. They might go down a little bit, but I think the general trend is still like upward. Um I mean the thing that people need to remember is that vintage watches, there's no more being created, you know? Right. There's an ever diminishing supply. Yeah, there's a finite supply that uh through like attrition over time, you know, things get lost, stolen, uh, you know, whatever, burned in a fire. Right. And um, you know, things get lost over time and there's less and less of these things. You know, it was always interesting. Like vintage and use to people have very different connotations, but it's really the same thing. And I think you know, this used thing is getting kind of blurred out so that vintage is like cool and acceptable. And I think that there's a lot more collectors getting into this. There's a lot of reasons for that too. But also, you know, through the great PR of a lot of the auction houses, you know, a lot of people and you know, high net worth people with the wherewithal to buy these kind of uh six, seven figure watches are also getting involved. And I think um, you know, there's right now uh this is still kind of like a niche market in my opinion, but it it's very easily going to continue to grow. And that's why I feel like the long term growth and appreciation of these type of things is something that is sustainable. But I just don't expect, you know, like crazy world record XYZ like every six months.
Unknown Aaron Ross Powell James, we we report on this all the time. And we we struggle when we sit down in our editorial meetings to talk about how we're going to cover auctions. And one of the issues is the records are big news. They're worth covering because they're newsworthy, but it starts to get this kind of repetitive feel that okay, it's auction season, we're gonna see a new record sub, a new record Daytona, a new record this, a new record that at what point do those records a kind of hit hit a point where they've kind of saturated and and b at what point does that drop off either hurt hurt the market more generally or actually kind of stabilize the market
Unknown ? I mean to my perspective, a lot of the auction coverage, even when it's done really well, which I think we do, um is kind of navel gazing, but it's also establishing a record so that in a few years when there's new numbers, there's something to go back and look at. And and certainly when you want to go back and find out what was the most expensive sub ever sold at auction previous to the first one to break a million, you have to do a bit of research to get there. And if you want to know the one before that, I don't know how you get that necessarily. So I do think there's a value in having a record established as it goes because it reflects the enthusiasm that surrounds the product. At a at a higher level, I'm not sure that I'm not sure how how large the choir is versus how large the audience in that in the church of the auction is. I mean, I think it's definit
Unknown ely a double-edged sword, the coverage of these type of events. Because, you know, the truth is, is I mean, I don't know for sure, but I feel like every time there's like a new seven-figure watch sold, right? Probably in that market, I don't know how big that market is. You know, it could be five collectors chasing all these watches. It could be 20. It could be 100. It could be two. I mean who knows? Right. All you need is two. Exactly. But you know, it's not like uh you know like uh my friends and family and the readership of uh you know the website, you know, like this is not something that is, you know, is very relatable to many collectors. And I think uh, you know, that is kind of this point that becomes like a little like tricky of like how do you cover this type of thing uh and strike a balance between like kind of making it relatable to the average collector or whatever?
Unknown Yeah. And I mean you you deal with these collectors who are collecting at all all different levels. Do you think when when somebody who's buying maybe, you know, watches in the twenty to thirty, twenty to forty thousand dollar price range sees a Daytona sell for seven figures, let's say, do you think that makes them want to kind of maybe creep up into the Daytona market or do you think it it kind of turns them off and says like this is crazy, I'm just gonna stay out of that
Unknown ? I mean there's people in both camps here. It's it's kind of interesting. I like to think that I'm still one of the uh younger people in this business, but I'm not anymore, it seems like. You are but um you know, I can remember like uh quote unquote the great crash of two thousand seven or two thousand eight. Okay. Uh prices really dropped quite a lot at that time. Um you know, to make it like a personal thing, I can tell you I remember at that time um I could buy uh six two six three, which is like a manual wine daytona, with papers. Uh, you know, it crept up very quickly at that point from like thirty to fifty thousand dollars. And um knowing that the market was really strong, I would pay very high prices and try to be able to sell it for like a small margin just because I knew it was kind of a sure thing. And then I literally held the back when the market corrected and it hurt quite a lot. I remember having, you know, uh three or four Daytonas that maybe I paid like forty seven thousand dollars for, thinking I could sell them very quickly for fifty two thousand. And um they literally overnight just lost almost half of their value. Wow. I took several large losses at the time. And uh it kind of changed my uh perspective. I think in any type of business, this is like a good lesson to have, you know. There's good times and there's bad times. And uh in my mind I will always remember when there were corrections in the market and you know the picture was not so rosy for whatever reason. So um, you know, I I kind of like use that to kind of guide how I kind of grow my business or how I approach the business
Unknown . And what do you think is the nature of that correction when it comes to watches? I I like to follow cars to some extent, and when you see you you do often see cars correct when people realize that there's either they're not that rare, whatever the specific car may be, or let's say it's uh it's a hundred thousand dollar basic nine eleven, which is what the numbers were chasing for a little while. But then if people realize maybe that's not a hundred thousand dollars worth of driving experience to actually have like with watches, the the the the idea of experience is a little bit more uh subjective and difficult to capture than it might be with a a car, even a well-sorted car. Where uh where do you what do you see being the kind of catalyst for these corrections when they happen? Like like in two thousand
Unknown I mean the market is very different now than it was before. Like people y the glass is half empty people now will be like, oh, there's gonna be another correction coming just like before. Um I don't really necessarily agree with that. Um, the market was very different at the time and I you know, like to tie it into like big like macro trends, this is like easy money, robo signing on mortgages, whatever. Yeah. And quite honestly, I mean, I can say that at that time there was a lot of like just money out there. It wasn't your money, it was borrowed money. Okay. And I know a lot of people that were getting second mortgages, buying watches, thinking that they were like everybody was a dealer suddenly. Okay. And uh everybody was complicit in this. I mean at the end of the day, it was like me as a dealer, I would sell something to somebody, and then a week later I could call them back and be like, hey, do you w takanena like a five hundred dollar profit because I can sell it for a thousand more or something? And then everybody wanting like a piece of the action. Okay. Literally there were collectors that took out second mortgages and whatever and like, hey, I'm gonna buy watches with this and I don't know what happened, but some of those people I never hear from anymore. Okay. But you know, like that was kind of a very dangerous time. I mean, you know, the whole global economy kind of like collapsed at that
Unknown point, you know? You think it's just reflective of of a sort of musical chairs and and some people have left without a chair and those people would have been the guys the gals buying the watches? I mean the difference between then
Unknown and now is that now we see this growth of um like the v I mean everything has gone up, but especially these like world record things. I mean it was a really, really big deal to have a Rolex go over two hundred thousand dollars at an auction, whereas now every season there's a handful that are in seven to figures, you know? And I think that like that kind of ultra wealthy class has really grown a lot now. And um, you know, they're spending money.
Unknown And what do you think about the other end of the market? So I mean I've I've been actively involved in the market for, you know, six or seven years. And even in those six or seven years, the prices of entry into, let's say, vintage Rolex have gone up substantially. How do you pipeline new collectors when a base submariner is, you know, a nine or ten thousand dollar watch instead of a three or four thousand dollar
Unknown It's really tough, you know. I mean I think about like when I um first graduated college and was like working and whatever, right? What kind of like money and salaries people make and uh balancing that with hey, paying rent, having food to go out to eat, and maybe buying occasional stupid things like watches or whatever, you know? Right. So it's like really like this balance. And really at the end of the day, I feel like it is very hard to get into um to get into what used to be the entry level uh vintage watches, being things like a sixteen seventy five G M T, uh uh an old s a plastic crystal submariner five five one three or something like that. I mean these things have well eclipsed $1,000 starting prices right now. Um where I see like the slack getting picked up right now is there's a lot of like kind of uh vintage brands that people used to not pay attention to like you know picking up and a lot of uh picking up a lot of popularity okay and um you know a watch doesn't have to be a vintage watch in particular doesn't have to be a Rolex. It doesn't have to be ten thousand dollars. It doesn't have to be two thousand dollars, you know? Most of the three. A couple thousand, you know. And even some of those have kind of had their little runs, you know. Um we have this running joke like you know Universal Geneve now like some of the really good ones are super expensive, but right nobody cared about these, you know? Nobody cared at all about these. And there was this like joke, I don't remember how long ago, maybe five, ten years ago, I think the brand, you know, like it went kaput and then it was for sale. And then you know, like a bunch of dealers were like joking, hey, we should just buy this brand and do something with it or, you know, buy their archive or something. You know, it ended up being acquired by some legitimate business organization. But I mean even a brand like that has had a huge run-up, you know, the the popularity has soared. And I think this is all attributable to the fact that your entry level like Rolex sport watches, which used to be like kind of a luxury, like a treat, but still kind of within reach, you know? Like those are really like kind of unattainable for a lot of people. And uh the other uh part of the market that I feel like has picked up some of this is there's like really great brands. Uh as you know, like for example, Nomos always pops to my mind. They make a really great watch at a very affordable price, uh provide a lot of value and design for like what they charge. And I think, you know, like a lot of brands like that have seen probably like a tremendous uptick in sales, you know, from a general just awareness of watches
Unknown And now a word from our sponsor. Over the last couple of years, tutors really made a name for themselves through their heritage collection, which are watches that combine old school styling with modern watchmaking. One of these watches is the Black Bay Chr
Unknown ono. It's a very distinctive design because you're blending parts from dive watches like the Black Bay line along with a chronograph. It's really balanced and easy to wear
Unknown . Yeah, and you get those distinct snowflake hands, but then under the hood, you've got the manufacture caliber MT-5813, which is a chronometer certified movement with a silicon balance spring. Great technology, a really solid look, and super wearable. If you want to see one of these watches in the metal, go visit your local authorized retailer, and you can also go to TutorWatch.com to learn more. Let's get back to the show. So it's funny you mentioned brands other than Rolex and that not every latch has to be a Rolex. I think a lot of people associate you with vintage Rolex specifically, but probably don't realize that you collect personally, and you also deal in things far outside of that. Can you tell us a little bit about your other watch interests outside of Rolex? Yeah, so
Unknown um, you know, one of my first I would probably say my first uh watch that cost over ten thousand dollars, it was a uh Viani Halter Classic. Okay. Oh, cool. And um I remember I think in nineteen ninety seven That was totally from Jules Verne, and I looked at it and I thought this was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I had no idea what a perpetual calendar was at the time, but it was just something really like amazing. That watches a
Unknown looks like something cool. You don't even know anything about watches. And it looks it looks like something you should be interested in. Absolutely. And I mean
Unknown uh a plug for that when they come up for auction they come very reasonably priced and you get a lot of watch for the uh money um that is definitely something like a really great watch I think um but yeah like getting back to the main question, I bought a uh Vianne Halter Classic, which is kind of like a simplified uh time only watch, but with a similar aesthetic with the porthole look and the mystery rotor. I bought it from a dealer in uh Idaho called Jensen and Stern. They're in Sun Valley. And that stern is somehow related to the Paddock Philippe Stern. It's like a cousin or something. I don't remember how. But anyways, I bought this watch there and it was really like a revelation to me, you know, I think that was the beginning of this kind of independent watchmaker movement. And so from that time until now, I've followed that sphere a lot. I'm really into like independent watchmakers. I don't know, it's very hard to make m money being an independent watchmaker. So I really admire these people because I know they're doing kind of what they love. And um, you know, there's a lot of innovation that comes from that side of this business, you know. Um, I've met some like great people. Um they're very like approachable. Like a lot of times, you know, um I'll be at some like watch events or whatever. Uh Watch Time magazine used to do this kind of uh this thing after Basel where they go from city to city and kind of introduce different watches. I've met a lot of really nice uh people that I can call friends right now through that. And you know, that's how my uh interest in independent watches started. Um I have uh had many. You know, I've bought and sold uh some and you know, kept some and whatnot. But you know, like uh at the end of the day I have a lot of interest in independent watches and Who are some watchmakers who you think are are like really doing it the right way today? I mean, there's quite a few that are doing it the right way. Um for independence, I kind of feel like uh, you know, they're indifferent stratas based on price. Okay. Because you know, when you have somebody like uh uh you have s somebody like uh Philippe Dufour, which is obviously the golden standard, right? Um I couldn't afford a simplicity when they came out and he was still making them. I was lucky to be able to acquire one uh before, you know, they're priced the way they are right now. But I mean that is kind of in its class in a class of its own, kind of on the top of the pyramid, if you will. Completely. Then you have, you know, um watches that are what I'd consider like middle priced. Middle priced watches, I think, you know, twenty thousand dollars to fifty, sixty, seventy thousand. Um, you know, Grohnfeld, I really appreciate the watches are really, really beautiful. Yeah. Um I was introduced to a watchmaker in France uh named Pascal Coyon, and he has since finished his first series of watches, but uh he made these steel time only watches with really, really beautifully decorated movements. Um, I forget how many, maybe it was a series of uh 50 or 100 pieces, uh, but they were priced quite affordably, I think five or six thousand euros. Okay. And uh, you know, if you Google images of these Pascal Koyan watches, the movements are unbelievable. And um it was very funny because I had to wait quite a long time for that one. It took maybe two plus years to deliver. And uh, you know, just talking with him offhand, he's like, I will never do this again because uh you know, he followed the group, finished everything, delivered all the pieces, and they're really beautiful. But you know, we get back to that thing of like being a labor of love, and that really was like a labor of love, you know. Aside from independence, like another uh type or another brand, if you will, I guess, that I really like is Cartier. Um I think Cartier gets unfortunately uh maligned these days by being like a generic you know, being called out as kind of a very generic luxury aspirational watch brand. Um, but really their history is really the history of uh wristwatches. I mean, um, you know, boil down to it, uh, I have some Cartier tanks in my collection that are a hundred years old and they look exactly the same as uh some of the current ones, you know. And for a watch to be able to endure and the uh design to be that timeless, I mean this is like unprecedented, you know? People argue about uh, you know, complications and watches and whatever, and really at the end of the day, I would argue that like really, really timeless design is almost like a complication in itself. I mean, it's very difficult to come out with a watch that is timeless and people really love, you know
Unknown ? Yeah, entirely. I I think it's an interesting statement to uh yeah, the strength of the design of something like a tank or a submariner i is in that lasting potential. And what is it d are there specific aspects of Carstier' design language that speak to you specifically, or is it their the their ability to stand the test of time
Unknown ? I happen to find that the you know, a lot of the Cartier designs I think are just really beautiful. Um, I would say that I would extend my collecting of Cartier things to things also not watch related. Okay. Um for example, uh, you know, in the last few years they've re- relaunched their like um these nail-shaped bracelets, oh yeah, um, you know, um cufflinks, rings and whatnot. Um that design was made by this designer like Aldo Chippulo in the early 1970s, who did a lot of things with Cartier. Um, he is also the original designer of like the love bracelet. And these I think uh, you know, I wasn't around in the early 70s, but really like these are designs that have like endured for a very long time and they're beautiful things that you know people still covet now, you know. Um uh I was lucky enough that uh at the Miami Beach Antiques show uh over the years I've picked up some several really great pieces. Uh I have uh you know like a white gold and a yellow gold original nail bracelet from nineteen seventy one. Wow. Um I have uh it's funny, there was some debate whether it was authentic or not, but I have basically it's like a woman's choker that's like this large nail that is exactly like the bracelet, except it fits around your neck. And um people were kind of like, oh, I don't know if this is real or this is not. But then two years ago, Cartier relaunched the exact same thing. So obviously we know that it's real. Right. Um this year's uh friend of mine picked up for me a Cartier nailed ring from 1971. And you know, these are not necessarily very expensive things, but it has to do with like the design language, you know. Um, I just think Cartier is like a really beautiful brand that historically has come up with a lot of beautiful products. You know, the tank, my favorite design is the tank centre, which is like, you know, for those of the readers that don't know, it's kind of just the long tank. Right. Um that uh the first ones were made in the early 1900s. And again, that's one that they just relaunched, a limited edition now. Which are super beautiful. Yeah. And the proportions of the uh case are basically the same, you know, like ninety percent more like identical. And again, it just blows my mind that like a hundred a design that's well over a hundred years old is still relevant now. And um, you know, with vintage Cartier, in the nineteen eighties at the beginning of uh kind of the watch collecting hobby, if you will, uh there were very coveted watches. You can look through old antiquorum catalogs from the eighties with some of these watches having auction estimates, fifty to a hundred thousand dollars or whatever. Wow. And um you know, they've really kind of fell out of favor, but I feel like, you know, are kind of coming back right now. And the truth is is they're very, very rare. Um there's a lot of fakes out there, but real ones like they're very rare. You seldom see like really nice early Cartiers because they're still coveted by like a small group of collectors that you know when something good comes up, for sure they're always bidding against each other, you know
Unknown ? You you mentioned old antiquorum catalogs and that that era in the late eighties and early nineties when watch collecting started to really kind of come into its own. The kind of model I think for that early those early days is is the bubble back. You know, the bubble back was the hot watch back then, you know, prices tens of thousands of dollars. And now you can get a really great bubble back for like, you know, two grand. Uh they're they're out there. Do you think there's another watch category that we're seeing that's hot right now that could end up going the way of the bubble back and just falling out of favor
Unknown . I mean one thing that I always kind of didn't really care for as a general like trend um is like I feel like big big watches are kind of overrated. Um that was a trend for a very long time. And I think that um you know long term like some things and we already see some things happening, um, you know, not to name names, but Panorai, for example, um, super hot brand. Um and I think it kind of like wore out its welcome, unfortunately. And you can see that now because kind of the design language they keep kind of changing and reinventing themselves a little bit. And I don't know like if that's kind of like they might be kind of losing their way or trying to figure out how to get back into the mainstream. And they're offering smaller case sizes. Exactly
Unknown . Smaller by the year at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean we see this more generally, right, James? I mean you go to Basel World, you go to SIHH and all all the brands that were making huge watches are are down
Unknown sizing. Yep. I mean I I find that um you know, Rolex really had it right with the 36 millimeter case. I mean, it's classic. It will always be classic. And you know, it's funny because for example, Rolex, they came out with you know date eight twos and date just twos or whatever in that really big case size, which um, you know, in a very un Rolex way, they kind of discontinued them relatively quickly, you know. Yeah. I don't know if they even had a ten year run. I don't know, maybe five years, six, seven. Who you know, I don't know exact
Unknown ly, but you know You rarely see them too. I mean, it doesn't seem like even the people who bought them kept them around that long
Unknown . I think uh and again this kind of ties in with this like Cartier infatuation of mine is that uh really good design is always timeless and it's something like very coveted. And I think that um you know, just like the bubble backs now are viewed as way too small, I think long term, you know, like forty-five MM watches are gonna be viewed as like
Unknown huge, you know. Ludicrous. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I could see that. And it's funny, I was I was having uh a conversation. I I went to uh a car show in Italy in Corso della Ganza. And it's supported by Longa. And uh their CEO Will Helm Schmidt was there. And I was having a conversation with him about watches and cars at kind of a vintage level or at a fascination level. And he had this concept of um products that have outlived their functional usefulness but retained their emotional or romantic usefulness. And I thought that was a pretty clever way of of of seeing a product in more than one cycle. And to your to your point with Cartier, I mean a watch doesn't really ever outlive its functional usefulness. Like you know, m maybe we move to courts and then people move to cell phones, but we're still here chatting with watches, so there's still some function left for them. But so much of that appeal is in the design, is in the the way that it's rooted to the history of the company and and that sort of thing. Sure. Um I would definit
Unknown ely agree with that. Yeah. So having you here, Eric, you know, we've talked about the market more generally and we've talked about some trends, but you're really in the trenches buying and selling both as a collector and as a dealer um regularly and and you're really close to the kind of nitty-gritty of it. So I wanna kind of pick your brain for some tips for people. Sure. Um so I the f the first thing I'd love to get from you is are there watches right now that you think are still undervalued? That you think are st still have not just upside from an investment standpoint, but you know, if you're if you're interested in the watch, maybe now is the time to get into it before people catch on and the prices start to go up?
Unknown Um you know, getting back to this idea of like kind of small is more now about like design and watch sizes in general, um a very specific kind of thing that I would say. And I mean it would have to appeal to you aesthetically, like you'd have to like them, but um, you know, the 34 millimeter size like Rolexes that they kind of call boy size right now, but you know, more or less is kind of uh intended to be a full-size watch. You know, you have like manual wine ones, you have automatic ones, and in a bevy of different dial variations. There's gilt dials, silver dials, um, white dials, you know, all sorts of different things. I mean these are really beautiful things. And if you look at the run-up on prices for generally like vintage Rolex sport watches will say, I feel like these have kind of been left behind a little bit. I mean, you can still find like a really beautiful vintage Rolex Oyster Perpetual for two to three thousand dollars. You know, which to me is like a lot of watch for the money, you know? Completely. You know, we're all like watch aficionados, so it's not out of the norm that we have many watches. But to a lot of people, you know, they might have one or two. And um, you know, something like that I think is like a really great kind of like entry way into this, you know. Um the one good thing about Rolex, regardless of what you buy is, I feel that um they retain their value well. They're good stores of wealth. Um, I really cringe a lot of times when people start talking about watches and investments. But I understand like this is not something that you know once you buy, it's like you just threw the money away. You know, there's still some sort of like a value to it or whatever, right? And you know, with a brand like Rolex, you're not gonna get a surprise like with some other brands that hey, when you go to sell it it's worth fifty percent or thirty percent of what you paid for, you know? You always have some sort of a uh uh retention of uh of value there, you know. So, you know, there are still some um underappreciated and undervalued Rolexes. Like I said, many of the 34mm models, which I still wear from time to time. I find that size like pretty uh reasonable looks pretty good on the wrist. I like a 34mm watch. Exactly. And um, you know, other than that, I mean it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I think uh gold Rolexes, especially like vintage gold Rolexes, are kind of undervalued. Yeah. Um, if you look at it strictly from like the dollars and cents point of view, if you pick any old catalog, right? A uh old day date um was I don't know, could be ten times more than a Daytona at the time. Right. And yet here they are like a 1803 non quick set date day date on a gold bracelet in nice condition l languishes at ten thousand dollars or under, you know? I mean again, at that price point, I feel like that's like a lot of m watch for the money
Unknown . Exact all gold Rolex, you really see the difference. A vintage day date compared to a modern day date, both thirty-six millimeter solid 18 karat yellow gold. You know, you're talking three X difference from the modern watch compared to the vintage watch. I mean when you
Unknown look at like uh you know this is apples and oranges comparison, but you can still kind of infer something from it. I feel like sports watches, entry level submariner right now, like eleven twelve thousand dollars. A vintage one, maybe the same, slightly more. Most of them are the same, but then there's some, like a day date, a new one, I don't know starts at thirty, forty thousand dollars. And like you said, a triple or four time multiple over like a vintage one that's still like a perfectly great watch is kind of an uh it's kind of like a crazy thing, you know
Unknown . Yeah. That's a really good uh really good concept to to lean on, you know, some areas where people become more cautious, whether it's through sizing, you know, as the ebb and flow of taste shifted towards larger watches, we started to not develop the same level of passion for something at thirty-four that we might have had at thirty-six or thirty-eight or forty. And then the same with gold as you know steel became the h
Unknown igh Uh when the brand first launched, um you know, Richard Meal was this very revolutionary brand. They had all these crazy designs, the price point, not everybody could understand that at the time, but over time it's proven that you know it's a very popular brand and you know they can sell watches for millions of dollars and there's still a waiting list. Um as a personal matter of preference, the original sizes were much more uh to my liking. Now like for example, you know, I have like a smallish wrist, but um some of their new pieces are really, really big and difficult for me to wear. But then when I go back and I look at like a old RM5 or any of the early turbions that they made in the smaller size case. It just feels like so great, you
Unknown know? Are there any beyond specific watches? Are there any things that you think kind of new collectors should look out for that they they might not think about? Even if they've done their reading, they've done a little research, things that they should be thinking about when they're they're looking at this watch versus that watch. Yeah,
Unknown what what did you what do you what do you wish you knew when you started that you know now? I mean really the two
Unknown most important lessons I think are first really condition is the most important thing. Not strictly from a monetary point of view, but from like the point of view of when you go look at your wrist, you want something that you is beautiful and you don't want to look at something that you're like, oh, I wish I had a better one or I wish this spot wasn't there. So you know condition is really paramount. You know, whatever your price point is, I think you really need to buy like the most like the nicest condition thing that you can find whatever you can afford. The second thing um is buy what you like. Imagine that. I mean I get so many inquiries from people that kind of go like, oh, I see submariners are hot now. I think that's something that I should buy. You know? And usually my response is you have to like it, you know, because if these things uh you know bottom out and suddenly they drop half of their value or whatever, you still have to be able to look at your watch every day and say, like, you know what, I love this watch. I love the way it looks. You know, and it takes time. I mean, a lot of people, um, I'm an impulsive person. I want to go out. I think of something I want to go out and buy it immediately. I I can't relate to that at all. But I really think you have to like spend some time to research and even to touch and feel a little bit and find out like what you like. Because a lot of times it's very easy to get romance of the idea of something online looking at pictures and then getting it and immediately thinking man,, this
Unknown is a big regret. I hate it. Aaron Powell Speaking of things that you like, we all have interests outside of watches as well. Um I know James is a big car guy. Uh I'm really into art and architecture, and I know you're a big food and wine guy, right? Yes. I love to fill my belly with delicious food. That's that's a good thing. What can you tell us a little more about your interest in food and kind of like how you got into it and what your specific interest is? Yeah, I mean, you know,
Unknown I came to the Bay Area uh in 1997 to attend college. Um and it was really like it was an insane thing. I grew up in uh the suburbs of Washington DC. Um my family is Chinese American. I grew up eating Chinese food mostly on most nights. We'd go out sometimes and you know have dinner at uh other restaurants or sometimes you know we'd eat other food at home but sure predominantly like of that palate. I came out in nineteen ninety-seven and it really like opened my eyes to be in the Bay Area and to be able to experience so many different kinds of foods and cultures. um you know, Indian food. And you know, this whole culture of um like California cuisine is something that, you know, Chapanese was in uh is is in Berkeley. And uh I can remember the first time I went there, it was like mind-blowing, you know, because everything looks so simple. And, you know, really for the chef, you know, hearing Alice Waters talk about this, it's about the quality of the ingredients, the freshness of it, the relationship you have with the farmers or the ranchers or whatever. And, you know, really great stuff tastes good, like very simple, you know? And that really opened my eyes. You know, this was like a big awakening for me. And then I think from that point on, you know, I would always mark um kind of big milestones in my life with having a great meal. And uh, you know, that's continued to today, you know. What are some of those milestones in meals? Um I remember that uh the Chapanese meal was clearly something like really amazing to me. Um I ate at a restaurant that's still around now called uh Ferallon in San Francisco. They opened um maybe in the late 1990s, and that was a real eye-opener for me. Um they're uh San Francisco like very kind of California seafood restaurant. But um again freshness of ingredients, everything was really uh very local and whatnot. Um I can remember that um you know when I went on a uh date with my uh my college girlfriend, you know, we went to this restaurant called uh Cafe Jacqueline in San Francisco, which is a um it's a restaurant that just makes souffles. And in the back of the restaurant it's this old French lady named Jacqueline and she's the only person cooking in the back. Um it can be a four that is wild it can be a four-hour dinner. But literally she just makes souffles in the back with a big basket of eggs. And it was amazing. Simple and amazing. Um and you know, I I can really, you know, putting me on the spot, I feel a little weird now talking about this, but another another one I can think of is um I had my wedding in uh in Tokyo at the um at the Conrad Hotel. Okay. And uh food is a very important part of my life. So I put together this like menu for the for the dinner. It was like this tasting menu for all the guests that might have been like nine or ten courses. It started out because uh Gordon Ramsay was the uh chef for you know the restaurant there as this menu that they kind of picked, right? But then I was like, I want to change this, I want to change that, do this, do that, and the uh wedding planner had got to the point where like, hey, we can't really do all these changes because like I think Gordon Ramsey's gonna get very mad about this. So, you know, uh that was like it was pretty great. Did he come out and tell you to tonight? No, no, no. I mean he's not there. He's sitting in his uh his mansion somewhere else. But you know, I mean it was just I think food has always been something that I really enjoyed. Um, uh on like a very basic level. It's like you pay for food, you consume it, it goes into your body and it's just consumed, and what you get out of it is like the pleasure of uh the process of
Unknown eating, I guess. Yeah. Is there uh is there a bucket list restaurant for you that you haven't been to yet that you just like you're dying to get to? There absolutely is. Uh for the last I can see
Unknown by the smile on your face that you know exactly what you're gonna say. For the last four years I've been trying to get a reservation at Ed Naka in Los Angeles and I've been unable to for four years. For four years. Yes. Wow. Wow, indeed. So I'm a little uh you know, that's definitely one on like the bucket list. And what are they known for? Um you know, it's uh it's a um Japanese American chef. Um she um had culinary studies uh here and in Japan, you know, has worked at various places before opening her own place. And um, you know, I just again it gets back to like really quality ingredients, basic preparations and whatnot. And you know, on Netflix they have this show called uh the Chef's Table. Yeah. They did one on her episode I think a year and a half or two years ago. And since then it's been even like harder to get a reservation. I'm sure it's something that I really want to try and I'm sure I'll really enjoy it when I finally am able to sit down there
Unknown . And do you have uh do you have the same the same sort of grail concept for watches? Is there something you're always hunting for, or is there kind of a list of ones that you know make kind of good stock?
Unknown I mean there's things that I I love and even you, know, from the business perspective, I buy things that I think are beautiful and things that I love. Um but you know, at the end of the day, I feel like I'm kind of like a hunter at heart. And it's always like the next watch that you're chasing is like the most exciting. Like if you didn't have that mentality, it would be hard to be good at what you're doing. I mean there's things that I have kept that I love, but also it's always like that exciting like next thing. Yeah. And I mean to like tie in a few points that we talked about earlier. Um I've seen and held and bought and sold like many, many different watches. And I find that right now the things that kind of like excite me the most are when I find something that is in really, really beautiful condition. Um it can be something simple like a fifteen hundred dollar oyster perpetual. Okay. Or you know, even like a fifty thousand or a five hundred thousand dollar thing. Yeah. But really like what gets me going is not really
Unknown Well to wrap things up, uh as we close every episode, um we're gonna get some cultural recommendations for other stuff that uh the listeners can go check out after this. So uh Eric, do you wanna kick things off and give us a little a little something that people should go take a look at? Sure. So my
Unknown cultural reference has to do with food. And uh San Francisco is known for a ton of food trucks out here. You know, it's really like uh you know the fast food right now. And for me, the best food truck in San Francisco is called El Toyonese. It's a Mexican food truck that is adjacent to the parking lot of a Best Buy, I think on 16th or 17th Street. This sounds awesome. And um I found it when I went to a Best Buy to I think buy a video game when I was in college and uh it was amazing and every time I'm in that area I have to stop by and get some food. Awes
Unknown ome. James? Well once you've had some amazing Mexican food, I would recommend another uh San Francisco staple, which is uh the movie Vertigo. Oh yeah. Uh by Alfred Hishcock, 1958. It's uh it's amazing. I saw it for the first time probably in the last just about a year ago. And uh, you know, it's funny because it wasn't at all what I expected it to be. Okay. I'm a Hitchcock Hitchcock fan at large and it was a uh a hole in uh in my kind of viewing history for that and it was so much more psychological, so much more cerebral, kind of so much more upsetting than I think I would have attributed to a movie from nineteen fifty eight. And uh I I absolutely love it. I you everyone should see it. It's a fantastic and and it it's absolutely worthy of all the praise it gets. You know, you you take an intro to film class in university and they'll say, Well, you know, it's uh uh Citizen Kane or maybe Vertigo like it's uh thrown up as being one of the better movies ever made and I I th I definitely think it it uh it can can stand it stand
Unknown on that pedestal. Two thumbs up for me too. Yeah, I would agree. Perfect. Um for mine I'll I'll I'll stay in the San Francisco uh theme. Um there is an exhibition on at the Leica Gallery here in San Francisco right now of street photography called Bystander, which is kind of a celebration of the re-release of a book of the same name. And it's it's an incredible, incredible exhibition. Um Alex, who's the curator there, did a really unbelievable job with it. Um you've got all the greats, you've got Cartier Bresson, you've got you know uh Myrowitz, uh but you also have a lot of young artists, uh including some working just in San Francisco or mostly in San Francisco. And it's great to see this work, some of which is really historical, kind of woven together with work that's being created now. And some of it looks like what you think of as street photography, some of it doesn't. Um there's color, there's black and white, there's prints that are, you know, four-inch squares, there's prints that take up whole walls. Uh it's it's really a great survey of the subject. Uh it's on through the middle of August, so I recommend if you're in San Francisco, you check it out. It's a lot of fun. It takes probably, you know, half an hour to get through. Super. Definitely go check it out. Yeah. Cool. Well, Eric, thanks so much for being here. This is great. Uh it's always fun to get to chat with you and uh you know it's good to be able to give people a little bit of insight into to your approach. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you again to Eric and James for joining us. This week's episode was produced by Grayson Korhonen and was recorded at Disher Music and Sound in San Francisco. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show, it really does make a difference. Thank you for listening and, we'll see you next week.