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#004 - Paul Maudsley - Former Auctioneer and Watch Expert
123 Plays2 years ago
In this episode I speak with Paul Maudsley, a former watch auctioneer working for the likes of Phillips and Bonhams. During his tenure Paul has sold over 25,000 watches, some of which fetching eye-watering sums of money.
We explore what is involved in an auction, how items are sourced, some of Pauls favourite stories during his time as an auctioneer, and much more. This is hugely insightful into the world of auctions, not one to be missed!
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Transcript
Introducing Paul Maudsley and Auction Insights
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of perspectives. In today's episode we have Paul Maudsley. Paul is a watch expert and former auctioneer having worked for some of the biggest auction houses in the world, Phillips and Bolloms, and has sold thousands upon thousands of watches in that time.
00:00:19
Speaker
In today's episode, we discuss why being an auctioneer gives you the best training in the world, how an auction works and the evolution of auctions over this time, how items get sourced from auction, some standard stories from Paul's tenure as an auctioneer, and much, much more.
00:00:34
Speaker
Paul has an incredible amount of knowledge in this field and even for those of you who are not particularly interested in watches, it is a great insight into the fascinating world of auctions. A massive thank you to Paul for doing this episode with me and I really really hope that you enjoy it. So without further ado, Paul Maudsley.
00:01:18
Speaker
Hi Paul, a very warm welcome to the show. Thank you very much for joining me.
Paul's Journey into Watches and Auctions
00:01:37
Speaker
Well I mean it's quite a long story really, but my love for watches came in very early on. I was very much a mechanically minded child and it stemmed from the first wristwatch I ever received. It was a gift from my grandmother.
00:01:47
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having me.
00:01:54
Speaker
when I was about 12 or 13 and that sort of set me off in a sort of horological mind. I got a little bit late into auctions and that was 1999 was the first auction I had when I joined Bottoms as a junior cataloger.
00:02:14
Speaker
And yeah, from that moment onwards, worked my way up through the ranks and did in total 20 years working for two auction houses, Bonhams and Phillips. So yeah, best training in the world. Yeah. Yeah. No, it really is. I mean, you know, I was at the weekend with another gentleman who's working for another auction house.
00:02:36
Speaker
bit smaller provincial auction house and we're just discussing it and my son joined me as well on the trip to Geneva and it was very much about sort of my son was wow it's listening to you guys talk it's all about numbers and watches and he felt so out of depth and I says you know you can't it is literally excuse the pun it is time which builds that up and because I've been doing it so long and know so many watches you know I think I actually impressed my son which is always quite hard to do as a father yeah
00:03:06
Speaker
So, yeah, it is one of those things. And, you know, you do build up a knowledge basis and auctioneers are, you know, working for an auction house, I always say is the best way of learning. There's no other way of getting that kind of spread across many different fields of horology, really, through the various watchmakers
00:03:33
Speaker
you're selling all of those from a few hundred pounds up to many thousands and thousands of pounds so yep perfect way to learn it's
00:03:44
Speaker
Well, I would say a lot of people nowadays feel as though they can just learn off Instagram.
Social Media's Impact on Watch Enthusiasts
00:03:50
Speaker
I think that's sometimes quite a bit of a downfall for them. It's a great tool. It works for me. It works for many other people. But the information can often be incorrect. That's always frustrating for someone like myself who's a bit of an eye for detail and correctness when it comes to history, watches, et cetera.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I had a guest on recently and he told me about the Dunnais Kruger effect it's called. Effectively, you learn a little and you think you know a lot and then you learn a bit more and realise you actually know nothing at all. I think when you talked about the Instagram side of things there, that's probably that sort of part of the curve where they may have seen a little bit about it. I know Rolex and things like that and watches have really come into
00:04:39
Speaker
you know popularity exploded in popularity over the last few years and i think the rise about on social media is probably contributing to that where they go okay i've seen this guy post about it i watch a few videos on youtube i therefore know everything i need need to know about watches and to be honest i think i've fallen into that traffic bit myself and in terms of it wasn't until like i went to the red bar meet the first one i went to and i was like i know a fair bit about watches and then you go there and you realize you know absolutely nothing
00:05:10
Speaker
I think if you've got a passion for learning, those going to meetings and all those things combined can really sort of create a good learning database for you. Some people are just quite lazy, but any industry that's lazy people who just expect to get the information quick and often call themselves experts.
00:05:36
Speaker
You know, I think you, you know, every day is a school day, as they say, isn't it? And I, you know, I've been doing this 20 plus years, actually probably a bit longer. I've sold probably nearly 25,000 watches in my time.
Auction Atmosphere and Realities
00:05:50
Speaker
You know, I'm constantly learning and that's what
00:05:53
Speaker
you know, keeps me into this sort of business hobby passion. It keeps it exciting for me and other people, you know, is that ability. I love history and I love learning. So, you know, even like just two days in Geneva, three days, you know, there's, you see in watches and then you're seeing little differences of nuances and these kinds of things. And you come away and you, you know, you feel fantastic just getting that information. I feel, it's me personally.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's great seeing these you know, what you sell for high prices, but there's also a great just you know You can handle these things and and soak up the information. So that's fantastic. Yeah, I Found out auctions are actually quite a fascinating spectacle to watch from the ones I've seen and I think there's a bit of a bit of a far cry from from bargain hunt and homes under the hammer that probably most people are listening in the UK used to from see
00:06:47
Speaker
Well, the problem with those programs, I mean, they make good television and they're fun and I think they're sort of, as a demographic, they're targeting, but they always get it the wrong way around. So they buy from a dealer, then try to sell at auction. So they'll go to a shop and buy some little pieces of ceramic for £50.
00:07:08
Speaker
and then i'll put it into the auction it sells for 15 and it's all a bit sad but because the dealer bought it for 15 and he's making his margin at 50 so yeah you know they're always uphill battle with those programs yeah but their auctions are amazing and uh you know even though i've been out of them for the last four or five years now
00:07:27
Speaker
I still attend all the auctions in Geneva and in the UK and yeah, it's part of my life and always will be, but there's the theatre, there's the buzz, even though I don't work for Philips now, the Geneva auctions are simply the best. You're in this huge marquee, there's upwards of 350 to 400 people there.
00:07:52
Speaker
pretty much got the world's best auctioneer for watches, RL backs there, sort of going between four different languages, telephone bidding, you know, it's a wonderful spectacle, whether you like watches or not, you just, you see it, you see the things on the screen, you look at the currency converters, you know, you're seeing watches sell for more than probably the houses you live in, and it's quite a crazy world. But very exciting, very exciting.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, I became familiar with oral backs in, I think it was about 2017, obviously the famous Newman Daytona that sold, perhaps you can talk about that a little bit in a bit, but there was a program or a video that was done by Mr. Pauser and it was following that sale and I think that kind of really, I was quite interested in watches at the time, but I think that was one of the videos that really
00:08:47
Speaker
really into them as well just sort of seeing how passionate he was about them and things like that so yeah I think it helps us here an auctioneer the art of auctioneering is quite something now if your auctioneer can speak multiple languages it does help but
00:09:03
Speaker
When you've got an auctioneer who is obviously a watch specialist as well, or a specialist in their specialist subject, so to speak. So if you've got a picture specialist, an old master picture specialist, selling old masters, there's obviously a knowledge base there, there's a passion, there's an interest. So that comes across in the actual engineering. So Aral, you know, obviously knows watches, is an expert on watches. So this comes across, whereas you can often see the major auction houses will just have
00:09:33
Speaker
you know very good auctioneer but you lose something in the translation when they don't know I mean for instance just the other day in Geneva there was auctioneer pronouncing the watch name is wrong it's a little bit annoying to me as a bit of an affectionist but yeah I didn't stop people bidding but it's you know you can when you see a few different auctioneers you can really see how good some of the best ones are
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
How Auctions Work
00:09:57
Speaker
So for those of us who are not familiar, can you explain to us how an auction works and perhaps the styles of auction that you might encounter?
00:10:05
Speaker
Well, I mean auction is, I mean, you know, it's been around for hundreds of years. I think when Bonhams was founded in 1796, could be rolling, subject that one, should remember after working there for 17 years. And most auction houses back in the day started off selling books. It was very much there. That was the first sort of
00:10:27
Speaker
the way they did them, then they went into houses in terms of house sales and furniture, and then they started separating into different sort of fields, mainly into the sort of 20th century. So yeah, very simple process really. An item, whether it's a watch or a piece of furniture, is put into a sale, it's catalogued, and the auctioneer will basically
00:10:53
Speaker
put that through the sale and it can go online now. There's so many different options of way of buying these things and promoted via social media channels. When I first started we didn't have Instagram, we had the website and it was very much the printed catalogue was the main selling tool. So the information all in that was done by a specialist and you could read the descriptions
00:11:19
Speaker
So it's still to this day, printed catalogs haven't gone away and I don't think they will. I still like getting a printed catalog. I can page turn on my laptop, on my phone, but there's something a bit more tangible about turning the pages of a catalog and you tend to read the descriptions more, tend to read the details more.
00:11:40
Speaker
I think the way we consume information now, especially with our mobile devices and technology these days, is designed to be consumed quickly. Whereas I think if you have something in your hand, you can really go at your own pace. You can online, but I think it's, I don't know, I end up skim reading when I'm reading online. Well, that's it. You know, on a book, for example.
00:12:03
Speaker
if I'm very guilty of that myself. I think it's a habit where we're all doing now and we're giving so much to the management board and actually taking in lots of that information. I don't know how we get around that. We'll see, we'll see. And in terms of the role of an auctioneer, what can one expect from an actual auctioneer?
00:12:26
Speaker
Well, as an auctioneer, the role is really to... He's looking after the seller of the item. It's the ability to get the best possible price for the seller. Obviously, you're looking after your buyers in a sense, but it's a commission basis. So the more the watch sells for, the more commission the auction house gets. So their best interest is to get the best possible price.
00:12:56
Speaker
Often sometimes you can be in an auction room and an auctioneer can be taking quite a while on selling a lot. Sometimes you hear grumbles from people, go, I should hurry up. But I would say, if that was your watch they were selling, you would want them to take the best possible time to squeeze the maximum amount of bids out of that watch. You do not want the auctioneer to step out at 1,000 and quickly drop the hammer at 1,100.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, 100%. So yeah.
Evolving Auction Dynamics and Technology
00:13:28
Speaker
And going back to when you first started, so you're, you know, obviously back when you told us about when you started then to your most sort of recent auction sentences, there's just this weekend in Geneva. Have you seen much of a shift or a change in the environment or dynamic of auction houses?
00:13:46
Speaker
Certainly there is. I mean, when I first started at Bonhams, the clock and watch sales were together. And so you'd have long case clocks, you'd have the pocket watches, you'd have wristwatches. But back in then, so round about the year 2000, predominantly I loved watches. I love all neurology, but wristwatches were my thing really. So I decided to split the sales, which was a bit
00:14:13
Speaker
a bit of a shock to a lot of clients because says, oh, well, I, you know, I want to all clock and watch sale together, but the crossover was very different. I was just seeing that the clock buyers were very different to the watch buyers, the wristwatch buyers, and the market was getting stronger as a whole. So it worked out very well in the end and they've never looked back really.
00:14:33
Speaker
So that's a big sea change really. And all the auction houses started separating sales and major auction houses were selling huge amounts of wristwatches rather than just clocks. And yeah, so now it's very much wristwatches and pocketwatches occasionally feature. Sotheby's had a sale yesterday actually. In Geneva it was a very important collection of enamel pocketwatches.
00:15:01
Speaker
But that room was full of buyers who do not buy wristwatches. They're all into the bucket watches. So there's been a change in that. The amount of people attending the sales, huge numbers now. You know, back in the day when I first started, we used to have sales in lots road in Chelsea and the little watch sales, you'd probably get 20 to 30 people in the room. And you weren't getting the online presence.
00:15:31
Speaker
There was just no sort of, you know, you could telephone bid or you can leave a commission bid. So commission bid is where you write in or email the auction house with a maximum amount you wish to go to or wish them to go to.
00:15:47
Speaker
And they have it on the auctioneer's book and the auctioneer will see the name, see the lot and say, right, that's a thousand pounds. I will go to that amount and try and secure it for this client. Now there's obviously there's internet bidding live, there's telephone bidding. Again, that's been around from the start, but there's many more options now of bidding. You can even sit in the room in Geneva this weekend with clients and they're sat on the apps and bidding through the apps, even though they're in the actual auction room.
00:16:16
Speaker
being discreet about it yeah yeah yeah there's a bit of confidentially confidentially people liked and also there's the flip side of people like being seen to be bidding hmm
00:16:28
Speaker
been there in the big theater and the hands going up in the air and people looking and acknowledging, oh, so, so, so it's just spent $700,000. Interesting. So, you know, there is, there is that aspect to it as well, which always makes it very interesting. I find I think if you, if you've never been to an auction before, you should go.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, I've never attended one in person, but I did rewatch the sale of the Paul Newman Daytona from 2017. And to some people watching an auction, or at least rewatching an auction, especially when the outcome might seem a bit dry and dull, but I must admit, I was absolutely fascinated by it. It was tense, it was exciting, and it was especially as the bidding was creeping up to those astronomical numbers.
00:17:23
Speaker
it became just really exciting and I had a I had a big grin on my face by the end of it and you know you could obviously watching a piece of history in the making yes I mean it was a world record at the time wasn't it was it 17 17.7 million dollars was it 17.3 I think it was yeah
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, it was an unusual watch because there was obviously huge anticipation for the watch. You'll have to remember too, for your listeners, that actual watch itself is a Rolex reference 6239, so it's got the exotic dial, the official name, and it's a Paul Newman, so it's a
00:18:00
Speaker
typical sort of new wind dial and that watch normally would be about 120, 150,000 pounds at the time. So, you know, there was lots of pre-sale interest in that lot. And when I was at Bottoms, we actually did the valuation on that.
00:18:18
Speaker
It's probably about 10 to 15 years prior to that and I think I estimated at 600,000, 800,000. How wrong you were. Well, this is what I mean. There was no actual estimates on it when it was sold at Philips. I think there was talk of it making perhaps three or four million.
00:18:40
Speaker
everybody had an opinion and whenever there's a big lot coming up everybody all the keyboard warriors will throw in some things not having no knowledge or substantial it but it started at 10 million which all was slightly disappointment for me because it only started at 10 million because one of my old colleagues shouted out 10 million.
00:19:06
Speaker
So I just feel that it would have been nicer, even though it did take still a long time to sell the actual item. I think it would have been nicer if it started at 1.5, 1.8, then caught up from there. Now, the person who did shout out that was, they had a client who's very keen and who came in and probably asked her to shout out 10 million and wanted to get in there and dispel
00:19:34
Speaker
all the other people who... Cut the wheat from the chaff as they say. Yeah, but it's also a part of me and I make them talk about this now because I won't for the option house anymore, but it was a... I felt as though, you know, there were some very big, important people in the room who had never bought before with the option house, who were there as part of that theatre.
00:19:57
Speaker
who wanted to be part of it and also wanted to be seen to be part of it who had these special paddles to bid you know you needed to be checked over because they well obviously it was anticipation that it was going to do very well it's a golden paddle i think they called them and yeah so straight away it just stopped those people being apart you know and so yeah that was my
00:20:19
Speaker
my view on it anyway. They still did incredibly well and yeah it's a great thing to watch. I don't think it'd take 20 minutes or something to sell.
Sourcing and Valuing Watches
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, it was required as well. Yeah, 20 minutes or so. So I'd like to talk about how you actually acquire items and how they're sourced for an auction in particular. Do you have a standard criteria that needs to be met when searching for items or what might you look for when you're looking for a piece to sell?
00:20:51
Speaker
Whenever you're looking for watches for sale, you're always looking for, ideally, you're looking for watches from the original owners or the original owner's family. Then you bypass this authenticity, provenance, this kind of thing. If you're sat down in the front room of a
00:21:12
Speaker
Terrace House with a family in Guildford, for instance, or wherever it is in the UK, if you're sourcing watches and you've got their father's Rolex at Submariner from 1969, already you know this is a really nice fresh to the market watch and the market always likes watches like that.
00:21:29
Speaker
you know if they come out with a box and papers even better so but to get those things you know all auction houses go off their social media their past sales they do advertising in newspapers we used to do I used to do evaluations all over the world you know regional offices in Rome
00:21:50
Speaker
in Dusseldorf, in Madrid, and there would be adverts in a newspaper story. And yeah, watch specialist coming over in two days. And I saw some of the rarest and finest watches from some of the regional offices in the UK and Europe. So yeah, there's a whole way of getting these things in.
00:22:12
Speaker
Also, people come to the reception counters of the auction houses, you know, just I've got a pocket watch, you know, some of the best watches I've got were when people are brought in a pocket watch and I've noticed them wearing a quite rare wristwatch. So, you know, you suddenly just dismiss that, you know, £100 Waltham pocket watch and you're suddenly looking at their rare Rolex Daytona that they've been wearing for 40 years and not really thinking much about the value.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, I was saying to Sam, I had Sam hails it on from Watch Concierge, there was a few episodes to go, and there was a story that I told her that stuck out to me, and it was a chap I worked with, and he has a Daytona, I think it's a 116520, really nice piece. I think he acquired it for sort of £7,000 at the time, so going back a few years now.
00:23:06
Speaker
and he keeps getting sort of asked the question of why don't you sell it you've got you know a really expensive wristwatch that you could sell and make a lot of money on I think on a twenty thirty thousand pound or whatever yes and he just turned around and said I wouldn't have a watch then and I think that's great because it's a nice story because it's his watch and
00:23:31
Speaker
It doesn't matter, the monetary value is of no interest, and it is just his taste, his everyday wear, and I think it's quite refreshing to hear stories like that as well. Absolutely, yeah. I'm in a world with watches, with auctions, I buy and sell with my business. I'm into it now. You have to remember, to some people, it is just actually something that is on their wrist. They've only got one, and they're quite happy with that one.
00:23:59
Speaker
But when the value of an item becomes too much for that person, it becomes more of a liability than an asset, they then will obviously part with that thing. So I sold, not long ago, Relic's Sabana boots, the 369 dial.
00:24:17
Speaker
It's a rare watch and the client says, well, I love this watch. I love the look of this watch. I said, well, you know, it's something that I can buy. And then we find you a nice Submariner for sort of 12,000 as opposed to 150,000. So that sometimes could work for them. So they've still got a watch, which is, you know, they can still tell us how they're on, but also that looks very similar.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, these things are very personal to people and, you know, going back to what you said about how you find things, sometimes you get calls from the strangest of things. I had them all from a barber shop in Croydon. And this is all just a cut for hair for a gentleman and he sat here with me now. He was actually in the shop and the Italian barber noticed the Rolex Daytona on his wrist.
00:25:06
Speaker
And he says he was interested in a price. And I actually gave him a price, a rough estimate. Hadn't seen it, obviously, but going to the gentleman's description. Straight, you know, wow, the gentleman's having his hair cut in the apartment shop. In the end, he brought it in. It was a beautiful watch. He got it for his 21st birthday present in 1969. Paul Newman Daytona, reference 6239, like Paul Newman's watch.
00:25:31
Speaker
and box papers, you know, incredible. And I sold it at the time, I think it was a record at the time, for £95,000. Wow. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You just can never tell where these things come from. You try as a, you know, working for auction houses, you have marketing departments, you have meetings with them, you look at the best ways of doing things. And sometimes these, some of the best things come in, you know, the most unusual ways.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah.
Paul's Passion for Vintage and Smaller Brands
00:26:02
Speaker
Speaking of sort of memorable events, do you have any other memories of stories that stand out to your time in as an auctioneer? I know there was a, I heard one about your tales of a Mr. Zimmerman. That was quite an interesting story.
00:26:16
Speaker
Oh, right. Yes. Yeah. Of course, that's going back to all that was 2002. Actually, that was a fantastic collection, which we did a single owner catalog for. And as a gentleman called Mr. Zimmerman, and he was a he passed away a big collector.
00:26:32
Speaker
stroke hoarder of all things horological. Clocks, pocket watches, wristwatches, movements, parts, tools, incredible. And we were very lucky to get that to sell. And we had a house in Tumbidge Wells, which was ironically 14 years later, moved just around the corner to where the house was.
00:26:59
Speaker
I'd never been to somebody's roles at the time, but I went down with one of the valuation chaps from Bonhams and we had to go through everything, the whole house and all the bits and bobs and incredible watches. Some were hidden behind a built-in cupboard, which if I hadn't found would have been sold with the house. And he had basically
00:27:22
Speaker
watches behind a mahogany built-in cupboard which had been there since sort of 1900s or something like that so he had adapted the back of it and he had all these super rare pocket watches hidden in a concealed door and they're all on fishing wire hung around the back.
00:27:40
Speaker
So you found Narnia, essentially. Pretty much. We only found it because he had another apartment in Rome and we found it because we found some paperwork just by chance with a hand drawing of the cupboard.
00:27:58
Speaker
And it also showed us how to open a concealed drawer in the cupboard in Rome. And then we found a crucifix clock from about 1640. And another couple of rare pieces. So yeah, these are things that I look back now and think, gosh, if we hadn't found those, they could still be... Still be in there. Yeah, that's real treasure, I think that is.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, it was fantastic. There's always stories with auctions. I suppose if somebody asks me what I miss about auctions, is that the unknown? Whereas now I'm looking after private clients and I'm selling some amazing watches, but there's just not that unknown.
00:28:49
Speaker
Perhaps, it's a different market now, but those days were incredible for finding some rare pieces. I mean, I can recall when there was an auction, a catalogue from Bonham's, it was Bonham's and Butterfield's. So Bonham's took over Butterfield's auction house in San Francisco.
00:29:12
Speaker
And I flicked through the catalogue and it was a sort of jury generally sale. And there was a patted Philippe in the house. Oh my goodness. And I was the head of the watch department at that time. And I called them up and said, look, this is super rare watches. It's got to be withdrawn. You know, it's in at 10,000 pounds. It's pink gold, reference 50 and 18 with a pink dial. I mean, it's just incredible. Then we draw it and recathlon it correctly.
00:29:40
Speaker
So, you know, those those sort of stories don't happen as much now, but, you know, it's all for a huge amount of money. So it was good job it did. So, yeah, lots of little stories like that. I mean, I could really go on for hours and I'll show you. Listers might get a little bit bored of it. Maybe we'll have to have a coffee and just talk about and talk about those stories. What I know you're you're quite interested in vintage watches in particular. What is it you find appealing about vintage?
00:30:11
Speaker
That's a good question. Well, I think there's the history element. To me, the period I'm particularly interested in chronographs always have been, and I suppose the heyday for those is the 40s, 50s and 60s.
00:30:30
Speaker
There's the elements of the differences in the watches. It feels a lot more personal and you feel as though the watch is made more by hand back then, I suppose. Even back up until like, if you're looking at a Patek Philippe chronograph from the 1980s or a modern Patek Philippe chronograph, there's just a different feel to them. There's a different look to them. The manufacturing process was much, much more different.
00:31:00
Speaker
and there was more humans rather than machines. So that element is something that has always intrigued me because I think watchmaking is an art and you know, having a watch which you can say, yes, that's probably passed through different people's hands, you know, there's a dial maker that's made that, there's a chuckleman.
00:31:21
Speaker
lady who's made the hands, you know, you just get a different feel for it. That's my personal take of it. Some people will only buy modern watches. I mean, obviously a modern watch becomes vintage for a certain amount of time, but yeah, I mean, I sell, you know, I sold a Patek Philippe Nautilus just last week.
00:31:41
Speaker
From 2022, it's less than a year old. So when you're collecting, it's very different to when you're dealing. I wouldn't personally have that watch in my collection. Great watch, nothing wrong with it. But my interest is in the probably pre-80s as a whole. Yeah.
00:32:02
Speaker
You mentioned in another interview about posting on Instagram the things that you are or only things that you're genuinely interested in and I know that ranges from small micro brands that are fairly inexpensive up to some of the more exotic pieces that you get your hands on. Why is authenticity so important to you?
00:32:28
Speaker
Well, I think those smaller brands, I just believe we've said lots of information about amazing prices. And I think the market has changed, relating to a question you asked earlier about what's changed. I do see TikTok through my son and I see the videos of people buying watches and flipping watches and there's a different sort of sub-world going on there, which I don't tend to deal with.
00:32:57
Speaker
So everyone seems to be money-led, which I get it. Everyone needs to make a living. But to me, there's an element of history and all those things. And I'm just very interested in watches. And there's the aesthetics of a watch, which appeals to me straight away. And I think you can get a wonderful watch.
00:33:22
Speaker
from like one of the micro brands we mentioned, Baltic, Surland, Maori, which are sort of historical nods to them in terms of a desire element. But also, you know, very conscious that not everyone has lots of money. So I always feel as though there's a lot of people could be put off about getting into watches because they think they've got to spend thousands of pounds on these things because their Instagram feed is bombarded with, you know, 15,000 pound Rolexes here and then.
00:33:51
Speaker
and £15,000 is a huge amount of money and I just think there's got to be a sort of respect level there that you know not everyone can afford this but there's a there's a great little price point it's a sweet spot at five six hundred pounds where you can get where people can you know afford that and and then they can get a fantastic watch for that whether it's a microband ball tick or
00:34:13
Speaker
Or it's a nice chronograph swiss from 1950s, you know, in a, you know, relatively sin gold case. But yeah, great little piece and you're wearing a bit of piece of history on your wrist and it's a talking point. And I think that's really, that's really always his interest in me. So, you know, I was like, I think the ST did an article, I think they entitled it a man who likes no name brands or something like that. I suppose it was very true. And
00:34:43
Speaker
You know, all those, all those unusual no name brands have always intrigued me. Yeah. I mean, I like what you've touched on there about, you know, not everyone has that money to spend on a watch, which is very, very true. And people have priorities. You know, some people have the luxury of being able to afford these more expensive ones. But it is really nice to see that you are promoting brands that you feel are genuinely good quality and very good in what they do as well.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yes, yeah, and I think those like the Baltics and the Fellamaras, I think they've come around and when you put those watches in your hand and you look at it and it's in beautifully made case, the dials, printing, you know, it's fantastic and I think you
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, those, I think I probably sold, I'm not a brand ambassador for Baltic, but in any shape or form, in every Baltic, I've got, you know, probably six or seven of them, or maybe a little more. I've bought and paid full price. People often say, are you a Baltic brand ambassador?
00:35:45
Speaker
Now I just put them on there and strangely enough quite a few people have bought them from them since that but you know that's just because I have been around watches for a long time and you know I do know what I like personally and I put that onto my sort of social media and some people pick up on it and they're great.
00:36:31
Speaker
you