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Yoni Ben-Yehuda - Material Good's Watch Confidant On Horology, Friendship, & Passion
948 Plays6 months ago
Yoni Ben-Yehuda is my guest today and we’re chatting about what it’s like to be the Head of Watches for Material Good, one of the most curated jewelry stores around. With a star-studded clientele and friend list, Yoni may just be everyone's confidant in watches. His energy and knowledge for this stuff is immense, and he’s got a pulse on it all. I wanted to find out what it’s like to have a direct partnership with Audemars Piguet, how everyone at Material Good either joins the team as a collector or unintentionally becomes one, and more importantly, how in the world he finds time to collect for himself. Part two is in the works, but for now, please enjoy, this is Yoni Ben-Yehuda, Head of Watches at Material Good, for Collectors Gene Radio.
Material Good - https://materialgood.com/
Yoni's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lifeofyoni/?hl=en
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Transcript
The Many Lives of a Watch
00:00:00
Speaker
Watch has many lives and i think sometimes we forget that it has the life of when someone envisions it a designer brand and then another life when it's when a watchmaker makes it another life when a marketing executive markets and another life when it's sold and a sales person sells it and then a client buys it.
00:00:22
Speaker
And then a client wears it and then a client sells it if they choose to sell it or it's hand down to somebody else. And then it goes to auction and then it's sold and then a dealer. So like a watch is like a like has an ocean of lives. And I think we sometimes forget that these things are forever objects in a disposable world. What's going on everybody and welcome to collector's gene radio.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is all about diving into the nuances of collecting and ultimately finding out whether or not our guests have what we like to call the collector's gene. If you have the time, please subscribe and leave a review. It truly helps. Thanks a bunch for listening and please enjoy today's guest on collector's gene radio.
Meet Yoni Ben-Yehuda
00:01:06
Speaker
Yoni Ben-Yehuda is my guest today and we are chatting about what it's like to be the head of watches for material good, one of the most curated jewelry stores around. With a star studded clientele and friend list, Yoni may just be everyone's confidant in watches. His energy and knowledge for this stuff is immense and he's got a pulse on it all.
00:01:25
Speaker
I wanted to find out what it's like to have a direct partnership with Audemars Piguet and how everyone at MaterialGood either joins the team as a collector or unintentionally becomes one. And more importantly, how in the world he finds time to collect for himself. Part two is in the works, but for now, please enjoy. This is Yoni Ben-Yehuda, Head of Watches at MaterialGood, for Collector's Gene Radio. Yoni, welcome to Collector's Gene Radio.
00:01:53
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here. Excited to have you. So your head of watches at Material Good as well as the Audemars Piguet partnership with Material Good, but your background is really in marketing. So I'm kind of curious how you ended up here.
00:02:09
Speaker
Sure. So if you look at my career, I'm really the definition of failing upwards my whole life and very much more lucky than good. I was in marketing way before joining Material Good. I was also teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Wharton, where people have heard me say, and it is true that I was the dumbest person in the room.
00:02:35
Speaker
I had been a long time watch collector and several brands tried to bring me in on the marketing side but no brand that I really kind of aligned with or loved at the time or like had Patek AP Rolex or RM asked me to clean the toilets I would have
From Marketing to Watches
00:02:56
Speaker
said yes, right?
00:02:56
Speaker
So I had the opportunity of meeting Mike and Rob right after they opened MaterialGood. And I was looking for a discontinued timepiece and I went there first to visit and bought the timepiece as a client and then we became kind of friends.
00:03:13
Speaker
We were having dinner one night and I said to them like, hey guys, what are you doing for marketing? And they were like, it's so funny that you asked that. We were about to ask you the same question. So they said, put together a marketing proposal for us and if it's good, we'll hire you. So they got a free marketing proposal and I got a chance to enter into an industry that I had loved as a collector since I was 16.
00:03:36
Speaker
So I did it and they hired me. And I think very quickly they realized that it probably wasn't the right fit. We have much smarter people doing marketing and much better people doing marketing for material good today. And so they started saying like, hey, so-and-so client is coming in. Can you help them? And I'd be like, okay, so-and-so VIP is coming in. Can you help them? So-and-so celebrity. I didn't realize that they were grooming me.
00:04:01
Speaker
They called me into their office right as MaterialGood. We were one boutique at the time. We're, I think, eight or nine now.
A Collector's Journey
00:04:08
Speaker
And just as MaterialGood was taking off and really doing well, they called me into their office and they were like, hey, you know, when a company isn't doing well, do you know who the first person to get fired is? And I was like, no, who? And they were like the head of marketing.
00:04:21
Speaker
I was like, am I being fired? Then they were like, do you know who the last person to get fired is? I said, no, who? They said, the head of sales. They were like, we want you to oversee sales for the watches. Then my ego kicked in, but I'm a CMO. They were like, shut the fuck up. You're meant to do this. I put my ego aside.
00:04:43
Speaker
And I said, OK, I think I do love this job. And that's how it started. And it was one boutique. And then we opened up an AP boutique. And I trained the team and oversaw the boutique and another and another. And here we are, almost a decade later.
00:04:59
Speaker
Amazing. So you started collecting at age 16. Did you have an idea in your head that you wanted to have a career in watches as a collector? No, not at all. You know, I was always of the mindset that you should separate your hobbies from your profession because when you learn how the sausage is made, sometimes it completely ruins it for you.
00:05:25
Speaker
And that was a fear of mine in this business as well. But I love watches and frankly the watch industry so much that it has worked in the opposite for me and it has made me even love the industry much, much more. But I always wanted to create a healthy barrier. It's the reason I never went to play in the NBA. No, that was a joke. That was a complete joke.
00:05:49
Speaker
But it was always kind of like a church and state for me. And then I said, you know, forget about this. Like, why are you doing this? You clearly love this so much and you have this opportunity. And I took it. And aside from my two children, it is the best decision I've ever made in my whole life.
00:06:10
Speaker
You get to see quite a bit and material good tends to have some pretty interesting pieces that aren't your typical run of the mill stuff. So where does your personal taste categorize in terms of what you're sourcing for the store versus what you like to collect?
00:06:25
Speaker
So I think that my personal taste is indicative of many of the timepieces that you see at Material Good on the pre-owned and vintage side. It's not just my taste. There are a lot of other people at Material Good that have great eyes and great taste, and their tastes are included in that as well. Rob and Mike, our co-founders, Teresa Panico, are now head of marketing and head of jewelry, has an amazing eye for watches.
00:06:54
Speaker
Courtney, who works in our e-commerce department, also has a great eye. So you have all of these people who have these amazing eyes, Jacob and Greg. And I'm just like, as I think of it, there's so many people who have great vision. So obviously their eyes are also represented in what we curate. I hate the word curate, but I don't know a better one. But a lot of my personal taste is in the watches at Material Good.
00:07:23
Speaker
I've always liked things that were a little offbeat, a little funky, a little left of center. And as a result, material good has been early to a bunch of trends over the last seven or eight years because we have an eye for the future and kind of an eye for our own perspective. You know, there are a lot of amazing
00:07:44
Speaker
secondary market, gray market, pre-owned vintage outlets in the world, both auctions, some of our friends and some of these other big brands, you know, watches of Switzerland with analog shift and, and Watchbox and, and there's so many other ones and Bucharest. And so like, we can't compete in the volume space. So we decided at one point to go narrow and very deep.
00:08:14
Speaker
So we are not trying to compete with other people who do an amazing job. We are trying to focus on the brands that we love and go very deep with them.
Shaping Collections
00:08:24
Speaker
I'm assuming there's a consistent gravitational pull for you wanting to keep things for your personal collection. Oh my God. If I didn't have children, then they would be paying me in watches. I am what happens when the crack head runs the crack factory. I'm telling you, children are my saving grace for many reasons, but probably utmost at the top of that list is that I don't just get paid in watches.
00:08:53
Speaker
I would live in a studio apartment with a roommate and just take watches. And the roommates would be all watches. That's right, exactly. So we have, as collectors, we have leniency as to what we will accept in terms of condition and rarity and maybe something is a bit polished but not terribly right. We have these checklists that we go through mentally in order to make a decision to buy or not.
00:09:17
Speaker
What are your leniency for your personal collection and how does that compare to the watches you buy for MG? Sure, so they are one and the same. For the most part, I would say we're probably more rigorous at MG than my own collection.
00:09:36
Speaker
But the checklist, first of all, is very much watch dependent. So I think that it really is a case by case basis, no pun intended. But I really do think that you can't paint everything with the same brush. People will say, I only want watches with boxes and papers. And then so what, if I brought you a beautiful chronograph from AP from the 1940s that had the provenance and AP confirmed it was real, you wouldn't be interested in it?
00:10:05
Speaker
or like a pocket watch from the 1920s that was signed by your great grandfather's estate, you wouldn't be interested in it if it didn't fall into wristwatches with metal bracelets. So I do believe that having a framework is better than having a checklist.
00:10:21
Speaker
because it allows you to say, you know, for this, I'm willing to forego X, Y, and Z, or I'm not willing to forego X, Y, and Z. So I think operating in terms of frameworks is very useful. For material good, we are more rigorous than my own personal collection. I obviously want watches to be complete, but that hasn't stopped me. I just bought a really interesting Cartier Tank Anglaise from 1998.
00:10:51
Speaker
that I confirmed was right with Cartier, but it was watch only. And so like it was so special and so rare limited edition of 50 pieces made for Israel's 50th anniversary with the Israeli emblem on the dial. I'm not going to say no to a watch like that because it didn't have box.
00:11:10
Speaker
Obviously, you look for the condition of the hands, the loom, the dial, the polishing, really thinking of Rolex when you're looking at these things. Not just Rolex, also 5402A series and a few other things. But you want to kind of have a framework and then decide
00:11:33
Speaker
do the other factors influence me more than the framework? Meaning, in this case, the particular watch that I was talking about, the provenance and having vetted it with Cartier and having it be a limited edition of 50 and having it be this interesting story that connects to Israel and all these things was enough to me to say I don't need X, Y, and Z. I also knew
00:11:53
Speaker
the dealer and actually knew the previous owner as well so all of those things affect the watch and when you get it and then you can say i don't care about these things i want it because i love the look of it and it's a great deal and i know that if i ever sell it i won't get top market because of
00:12:09
Speaker
the hands weren't original, or the watch, the case was slightly over polished, or you're saying, I'm buying for A1 top tier examples, and that's the thing that interests me. The only problem with that is, the more you wear it, the less it becomes A1.
00:12:28
Speaker
Right. And then you have to kind of say, do you want to be the person who messes up the watch? Or do you want to keep the watch and look at it? Or are you collecting it as an asset? All of these are legitimate questions, but you should kind of know what it is that you want from the good, in this case, a watch
Partnership with Audemars Piguet
00:12:44
Speaker
before you make those choices.
00:12:46
Speaker
couldn't agree more. I mean, obviously having box and papers for certain things adds value when you purchase it and maybe go to sell it down the road. But if you do something to the watch that potentially hurts the value, I mean, you're creating this equilibrium of trying to keep things all intact to retain value or go up in value. It's just sometimes not possible. You know, a watch has many lives and I think sometimes we forget that it has the life of when someone envisions it,
00:13:15
Speaker
a designer or a brand, and then another life when a watchmaker makes it, and then another life when a marketing executive markets it, and then another life when it's sold, and a salesperson sells it, and then a client buys it, and then a client wears it, and then a client sells it if they choose to sell it, or it's hand down to somebody else, and then it goes to auction, and then it's sold, and then a dealer... So a watch has an ocean of lives, and I think we sometimes forget that these things are
00:13:44
Speaker
forever objects in a disposable world and we can't look at them through our lens of consumption. I couldn't agree more. Do you find it hard
00:13:55
Speaker
to make time for personal collecting since you always have to be on the lookout for interesting pieces for material goods. Unfortunately, I don't. I wish I found it more difficult. But no, I think about clients first. You can't have everything, so you have to let a lot of things go. So I think about clients first.
00:14:18
Speaker
And then every once a year or twice a year, I'll get the bug and I'll say, man, I really want something. And then I'll kind of look to think about what I had, what I sold. There are some watches that I bought for myself that I actually sourced for clients and then begged them to sell them back to me.
00:14:39
Speaker
which eventually they did sometimes at 100% profit, but I didn't care. I wanted it so much in so many years. I knew that, you know, so I think it's a mix of looking for myself and looking for clients, but I would say if I'm buying two, one or two watches a year from material good, from that kind of own, my own kind of sourcing, I would say that the,
00:15:06
Speaker
the ratio is like $99.99999 to $00001. So, Audemars Piguet is a big part of Material Good and a brand that you love quite a bit. What's it like being able to work with them so closely? Oh my God. It is probably the biggest honor of my career. AP is my favorite watch brand and I love the people at AP.
00:15:34
Speaker
really from Labrasue to the collectors, to the people in the boutiques, to the teams. It is such an amazing brand and such an amazing group of people that I draw such inspiration, humility, and honor working with them. This is something that Material Good has given me the opportunity to do and it is one of the great honors
00:15:57
Speaker
of my life and certainly a top honor in my professional career. Getting to train so many of the AP executives locally and globally and getting to give them a different perspective has been something that I cherish. There are no words to say how much I'm honored to get to work with AP so closely.
00:16:22
Speaker
Why do you feel that AP is such a good representation as a partner for material good? So a few thoughts. The first is material good and AP's relationship dates back pre material good.
00:16:36
Speaker
with Mike and Rob, with Rob Ronan, one of Material Goods' co-founders, having worked at AP for over a decade and having been trained by Francois and been sort of mentored by Francois over the years. So when they brought AP in and Richard Mille at the time, there were deep, deep ties with AP and MG. And through the years, it's continued
00:17:04
Speaker
as AP has changed the business model from authorized retailers to joint venture boutiques and their own boutiques, we've been one of the lucky few who have had the opportunity to work with them. And I think they see a lot of crossover in how we run our business and how AP runs its business and also how we represent the brand both on the vintage side, the pre-owned side and the boutique side. I think we represent it with the kind of honor and integrity
00:17:34
Speaker
and grow meaningful relationships in a way that is so tied into AP that they've also brought us to the table to share that with them. And that speaks volumes to AP that they would let partners like ourselves be a part of this, but also let partners by ourselves come to the table and give our perspective to help teach and share, et cetera. And I think that AP's collectors,
00:18:00
Speaker
And the brand and us we all have this like mentality that we're a little bit forward thinking.
00:18:09
Speaker
where a little edgy, I say it in French, I butcher it in French, so I'm going to say it, but please feel free to ridicule me in the comments, like, Les Infants Terables, like this idea of like the bad kids. And I think that AP embodies that, this like counterculture, this very edgy approach to watchmaking, this, you know,
00:18:31
Speaker
everything from the Royal Oak to the offshore, to the code, to Marvel, to the other partnerships. They're all a little edgy and sometimes they resonate and sometimes they don't. But I think that that's what AP is. It is not for everybody. It's 50,000 watches a year, less this year. It's not made for everybody. And I think AP relishes in that.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I think people who collect AP see themselves in that. And I think material good is very much that as well. We offer our lens of retail and luxury and some people love it and I'm sure that some people don't. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it makes sense to me for sure. Are there any standout stories you have from sourcing a watch for your personal collection or for material good?
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, many that I can't share. But there is one that I can share publicly, which is I sourced for my own collection, I sourced the watch for a client and then spent the next four years, the one I touched upon earlier, begging that client to sell the watch back to me, which eventually he did and made 100% profit on me.
00:19:47
Speaker
and I think kind of enjoyed the fact that he made the full rip on me. And I enjoyed it because I loved this watch and I had fallen in love with this watch and I always wanted it.
00:19:58
Speaker
We also ended up sourcing a few, I can't give exact, I can't say exactly the watch, but we also sourced a few Royal Oaks that would end up being Peace Uniques, vintage Royal Oaks that would end up being Peace Uniques that would end up being purchased by like very important prolific figures within the AP community. Love that.
00:20:22
Speaker
And that was a really cool experience to find. I'll tell you this though, if I could go back 2016, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, I probably wouldn't have sold a damn thing. I would have loved it to have all of these things now. And we joke, like we're not building a museum, but sometimes it's hard. You create an emotional attachment to these things. Well, at least you know where they are. That's right. That's right.
Customer Experience at Material Good
00:20:50
Speaker
So for those who aren't familiar with material good and haven't had a chance to stop in, I definitely recommend popping into one of the boutiques. It's unlike any other luxury boutique I've ever been in between the artwork and the furniture and the design. I mean, you really feel like you're in someone's New York apartment. I would have to assume this was intentional from a customer experience standpoint.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah, and that's true for every one of our boutiques. We recently had opened up our Miami location, and the Miami location feels very Miami, but has the material good soul. As we expand to other parts of the country, it will kind of echo that idea.
00:21:31
Speaker
But what Mike and Rob had seen was that retail, the way it was, was kind of broken. It was very much a commoditized experience, someone standing behind a glass. Do you have it? I have it. How much? What do you want? Negotiation. And it kind of took away, you know, everything was luxury except the retail experience.
00:21:54
Speaker
And what they wanted to build was they wanted to build the clubhouse. So sales for us were always secondary or tertiary. We want people to come in and hang out and have a drink and look at watches and look at jewelry. Jewelry is a huge part of our business. We have our own branded jewelry and other brands that we work with as well.
00:22:15
Speaker
look at a crazy hard to get bag and kind of experience and touch these things. So many times you'll hear people say, I've had clients that said, I've never seen a Paul Newman and I'm like, you want to try it on? And they're like, holy shit. I never thought I would get to try it on. And two or three years later, they come back and they're like, hey, you showed me my first Paul Newman. I'm the man now. I want to buy that.
00:22:38
Speaker
And it's never sales tactic. It's never for gain. It's always because we love what we do and we try to ingratiate that onto other people. And like, if you're making these beautiful objects of desire, the experience around them should echo that. And I think that that doesn't, I still think that doesn't exist in all places.
00:23:05
Speaker
from some small brands and some big brands and so we try to view things through that lens. Absolutely. I know that you mentioned curating isn't really a favorable word of yours, but it is such a microcosm of collecting and I find it to be such an important step of the process in terms of collecting that it kind of gets skipped over a lot.
00:23:28
Speaker
How do you and the teams across all the departments curate for material good to make it feel like such a cohesive collection? Because between the jewelry and the watches and the back, I mean, all the stuff, it feels as if it came. It feels like if it was like an estate collection, right? So I think it's a few things. One is it's credit to Mike and Rob that they hired people that they trust and they also have an amazing eye. But
00:23:55
Speaker
We all partake in having a point of view. And so one, we see one another's taste. And if you hire people with good taste and you empower them to express that, you're going to get things that are great.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I think that that's what we did to a certain degree. We brought in a lot of people that had great taste and we allowed them to flourish and they allowed me to flourish and to bring my point of view into things. I think the other part of it is have a distinct perspective. Like it's really easy to follow the hype train. And I think you see that in a lot of
00:24:35
Speaker
dealers in different secondary and gray markets online for watches, for jewelry, for everything else. It's very easy to be like, Tiffany Blue Nautilus, we got it. $2 million, send us the wire. That's really easy to do. It's much harder to say,
00:24:54
Speaker
Hey, have you men ever thought about wearing a 36 millimeter vintage manual wound perpetual calendar? Because this is dope and you should look at this and look at the engine turning on the dial and look at the finishing and the stepped lugs and all of these things. It's much harder to do that. There's much less people to buy that and it's much harder to get people excited about that.
00:25:20
Speaker
I think that's always been a perspective not that we don't sell royal oaks or sports model is or not a list or or daytona is or we just you know everything we looked at we tried for it to be unique and interesting within itself we still you know sell royal oak.
00:25:40
Speaker
15-202s, the discontinued jumbos with a white dial or a blue dial. They're awesome watches. They're amazing. They're historically important. They have a very cool movement. They're great. But we also look for things that have a little funk to them and that are a little different than what you can get elsewhere.
00:25:57
Speaker
So then people come to us for both the things that are interesting and different and also the things that are more kind of mainstream. And that also reflects the brands that we've taken on. So we're honored, obviously, to be the U.S. distributor for the Biver brand. And they introduced their watch last year and they have some amazing things coming out this year and next year and onward. And we've recently signed on to be a retailer of H. Moser in our
00:26:25
Speaker
Miami location, a brand that I'm wearing today and that I'm gaga about and I've been super into for years. And there are also a little left of center. Do you find that the heads of all the departments for material good in the store have to have this collector mentality in order to be really passionate about what they
Cultivating a Collector Mentality
00:26:45
Speaker
do? I mean, do you guys try and hire collectors first of these categories and then try and place them within the company or what's the process like?
00:26:53
Speaker
I think it's very hard to be at material good and not either be or become a collector. It's very easy. We talk about this a lot. It's very easy to be at material good and the umbrella companies and lose true north because you see the craziest things.
00:27:12
Speaker
So it's very hard to maintain perspective. But the heads of the departments, the non-heads of the departments, the team members, every person top to bottom has a love for these things. Every person and every department at every level collects and buys and consumes. And we don't all play to the same things, obviously. But we all love and collect and talk about it. And we send each other pictures. Hey, I saw this.
00:27:41
Speaker
Do you think this would be cool for me? Should I get this? We all text each other and DM each other about things that come out. So I think you either have that, and that's, again, a testament to Mike and Rob and the people at Material Good, or if you don't have that, man, you're going to fucking develop it. It's on its way. Exactly.
00:28:03
Speaker
You recently got to be a part of the launch of John Mayer's new watch with Audemars Piguet. Really, I would have to assume special experience. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about what that was like? Yeah, yeah. Again, that week sits as one of the greatest weeks of my professional life, which I don't know if I'll ever get to top, but it really was an extraordinary
00:28:28
Speaker
opportunity given to me by AP and John, who is a dear, dear friend. So the way it all came to be was that John was obviously going to announce his partnership
00:28:43
Speaker
at AP week with AP and AP and John had approached me about the opportunity to do the panel discussions with him. Now anyone who knows he and I knows that we if you get us in a room together or you know voice notes that we send each other or whatever we talk about watches all the time.
00:29:06
Speaker
all, all, all the time. It's one of our favorite things to talk about. And we go down crazy rabbit holes. And I think the people who don't know him don't understand how brilliant, not only of a mind he is, but how brilliant of a collector he is. And he has such a shrewd eye, not just for consumption, but for collecting and for understanding watches. And I actually said this before I knew him. Now that I know him, I can say even with more like,
00:29:34
Speaker
Verver, but he represents the best of us in collecting. So to have the opportunity to be able to go to Milan and to be there for the launch with our clients, with amazing journalists, and to show the world this watch, which I had nothing to do, obviously, with designing, but I did get to kind of interview him on stage
00:30:01
Speaker
and talk about it and discuss it with the world and an opportunity that Alaria, AP's new unbelievable CEO and Olivia from the head of marketing and John gave me is something that I will never forget. I get a little teary talking about it because it was so special for me and it was such a big honor to be a tiny microcosm of such a huge moment.
00:30:27
Speaker
Is there anyone of his caliber with such a zest for watches and collecting? Yeah, there are a few people, I don't know about of his caliber because he is very, very, very special in the way that really he approaches it and the level of intellect and discourse that he brings to the conversation. I wish I could share with the world some of the information that he shared because he really is brilliant.
00:30:57
Speaker
But there are a few collectors that are very high profile that really love to go down the rabbit hole. I don't know if there's anyone quite like him, but there are a few unbelievable collectors that are very high profile that go way down the rabbit hole. Before we wrap it up with the collector's dream rundown, I want to keep going.
Evolving Tastes
00:31:17
Speaker
Well, we're going to have to go part two for sure. I wanted to know how has your collecting changed from when you started being interested in watches to now?
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, so when I started, I think I went through a very similar life cycle that most collectors that get serious about anything go through, but certainly about watches. So I made the same kind of mistakes, the same pitfalls, bought the same watches as most people would do in the order that most people would do them.
00:31:50
Speaker
I went through a phase where I was very conservative in my watch collecting and then I went through like a fuck it, blinged out, super loud phase. And I think I've settled on kind of really interesting, esoteric, very rare
00:32:10
Speaker
Some smaller timepieces with a point of view that make existing collectors go, wait, what is that? And make people who don't understand watches say, what are you wearing on your wrist? So I believe that watches are like tattoos. Not everyone shares this viewpoint with me, but this is certainly my viewpoint at this point in my collecting. It's one of those things where, for the most part, you get them to share them.
00:32:39
Speaker
Certainly some people have tattoos in places that are covered up that they don't want to share and that makes perfect sense. But oftentimes I think that watches are to be shared. Even if you're wearing some crazy vintage watch and you keep it under your sleeve and it's for you. I think if someone sees like a crazy doxa that they've never seen and they're like, wait, are you wearing the X, Y and Z? I think people love that.
00:33:04
Speaker
And again, I might be wrong, but that's my perspective. So now my point in collecting, I love the storytelling. I love the storytelling of the timepiece, the historical importance of it, the provenance of it, the storytelling of the acquisition of the timepiece.
00:33:19
Speaker
The hunt, the hunt is the best part. And also to be able to kind of share historical perspectives from important brands that are lesser known. So, you know, I have my Royal Oaks and my Nautilus and my Dotonas, but I really love the John Shafers and the raw tourbillons and the, you know, the Moser, Tantalum Perpetuals and, you know, the F.P. Jorn Centographs. And like, I love these things that are a little less common.
00:33:49
Speaker
Those are the things that always really attract me. What were you buying during your fuck it blinged out stage? Oh, man. So I certainly got into Richard Mille and stayed into Richard Mille. I think Richard Mille is one of the greatest watch brands of all time. Certainly probably the greatest modern Richard Mille and F.B. Jorn and I guess Moser.
00:34:11
Speaker
and the Batoon shit. And so these are amazing modern watch brands. I really got into, and I still have like, I have a Pavé, Jorn Elagand. Awesome. I love it. I love it. I think it's so cool. I was, there were a few baguette, bezel, Royal Oaks, like vintage ones, some sapphire, bezel, Royal Oaks. And I still really like those watches.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's one on the site, isn't there? Yeah, yeah, there probably is. There probably is. That wasn't mine. But yeah, that definitely is still my aesthetic. Yeah, no, I mean, those are very special. And I mean, the vintage blinged out stuff is so subdued in such a elegant way that it's nothing like the blinged out stuff that's made now.
00:35:00
Speaker
I agree. I like them both, though, I will say. They have a time and place. And so collectors, you often think of collectors as demure. And certainly we see a lot of discourse online from collectors who prefer things that are demure. I think a lot of the collectors who collect really loud things, really blinged out, really loud watches, aren't really discoursing online.
00:35:27
Speaker
So you have this skewed view of this echo chamber, hey, this is our perspective and it must be true because look, there are 200 comments and they all say the date wheel shouldn't be there. And they all say diamonds are for X, Y, and Z population. And I think that the people who are buying those watches aren't really jumping in the conversation. So it becomes very lopsided. So I think that there is a lot of love for watches
00:35:57
Speaker
that people think are hated on online.
Online vs. Market Realities
00:36:00
Speaker
There's a difference between watches and the business of watches and the success of watches, because a lot of the people who are consuming these goods, especially on the higher end, aren't really jumping on forums to discuss and discourse and say, hey, I have this. So it's a very interesting perspective and moment in history.
00:36:18
Speaker
Absolutely. Yoni, let's wrap it up here with the collectors gene rundown. You can answer these based on watches that you collect, watches that you've sourced. You could base it off of things in different categories from material good or other things that you're interested in. Totally up to you. Okay. What's the one that got away?
00:36:39
Speaker
RM035 baby Nadal. I loved that watch. I had it and it was one that I traded and it is the biggest regret of my watch collecting journey. I loved that watch and I covet it and I hope to own it again one day. It'll come back your way. I hope. The on deck circles. So what's next for you in collecting maybe something you're hunting or looking for?
00:37:05
Speaker
Wouldn't you like to know? I'm really getting into vintage Piaget. I worry to say this, but I'm really getting into vintage Piaget timepieces. I think that they're amazing. And I will always have an eye for all of the kind of esoteric, you know, 1960s to early 2000s APs that exist. Those are my favorite watches.
00:37:33
Speaker
Piaget is making a great stride right now. Man, those guys are cooking. Cooking and still so obtainable across all categories. It's just so much value. That's right. I love their watches. I think they're an amazing brand. The unobtainable. So this is just one that's too expensive or it's in a private collection or museum. It's just complete unobtainium.
00:37:57
Speaker
The crazy unobtainium? Crazy. We're going nuts? Nuts. The universal. The most complicated pocket watch ever created by AP in 1899.
00:38:10
Speaker
that is the watch that the Kota 1159 Universal, the RD4, was designed after. The most beautiful and complicated pocket watch, probably aside from the Henry Graves and the Vacheron ever made, you know, that is a priceless object that is to be coveted from a glass window. It's at the AP Museum? It is, it is. It is Mona Lisa.
00:38:35
Speaker
How about the page one rewrite? So if you could collect anything besides watches, money is no object. What would it be? Watches. I mean, if I could do it all over, there's an M&M line. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't. I would have done more shit when people said that I couldn't. But I wouldn't change the damn thing. Do I have to choose something else?
00:38:57
Speaker
Nope, you don't. Not at all. Page one rewrite, I would do it all the same and make different decisions along the journey. But it would be watches. It was always watches. Nothing else ever.
00:39:09
Speaker
Love it. You're also a hip-hop fanatic. I mean, you're a collector of hip-hop knowledge. I'm a collector of hip-hop something. After you heard that little rap I did, I don't know if you call it knowledge, but yes, I love hip-hop. Hip-hop is, you know, hip-hop raised me, and I have the ability to just remember lyrics and recall them probably more than I should. Love it. How about The Goat? So who do you look up to in the collecting world as just a great collector?
00:39:37
Speaker
John, for sure, John. And again, before I knew him, I would have said the same thing. To me, John is the pinnacle.
00:39:47
Speaker
Love it. The hunt or the ownership? Which one do you like more? The hunt. The come up is the best part. The hunt. I love, love, love owning the watches, but so many of us are hunters. It's not that you're over the watch once you get it. It's the lead up. It's the build up. There's nothing like the build up in my opinion. What about you? Which do you prefer?
00:40:11
Speaker
mainly the hunt, but it's very situational because if you're looking for something that's modern, a lot of times it's about putting a text out to somebody who you know can find it, right? And it's a matter of 24 hours that you could possibly even have it in your hands. So the hunt on, on the modern side, if you're just looking for pretty basic stuff, isn't that exciting. The ownership is what I look forward to there.
00:40:34
Speaker
But that's not is that is that a hunt or is that like are you a domesticated lion? Like if you can get it within 24 hours, it's just it's being fed to you. Right. And and that that just means that you have just the funds to go and play around and do that stuff. So to me, the the ownership is better on that side if that's what you're looking for. But mainly the hunt is the best part, especially when you're hunting for something specific and you come across something that you had no idea you were interested in and then your your thoughts completely change.
00:41:05
Speaker
Love that. Yeah, the hunt is 99.9% of the time for me. I agree. Most importantly, do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene? I feel that I was born with the consumer's gene. A spin-off podcast.
00:41:25
Speaker
I do. I do, yes. I really do. I believe that I was born with this gene. Is it a mutation? It's a disease maybe? A third limb? Yeah, that's right. It's certainly a mutation. I believe that I was born with this because I've always loved collecting. I'm just starting to figure out how to enjoy the things that I've collected and coveted.
00:41:49
Speaker
So I was a sneakerhead in the early 2000s and had these crazy, you know, like the Louis Vuitton Don's. And even though I don't support anything that Kanye does now, but had these crazy sneakers and never wore them. And they would either fall apart 20 years later or I wouldn't wear them anymore. So I learned from that that
00:42:13
Speaker
The collector's gene has two lives to it. One is the consumption of collecting, and the other is the enjoyment of the thing. So I think that I'm now developing the second life of actually enjoying the things that I've collected.
00:42:31
Speaker
Love it. Yoni, thank you so much for joining me on Collector's Dream Radio today. It's been such a blast having you on and chatting with you about this stuff. There's for sure going to be another part to our conversation because we could do this all day. I'd be honored. I hope that you enjoyed it and I hope that your listeners liked it as well. I'm obviously a huge fan and anytime you want me on, if you can't get better guests, then hit me up and I'll be happy to be here.
00:42:56
Speaker
We will definitely have you back on soon. I appreciate it. Thank you. Cheers. Bye. All right, that does it for this episode. Thank you all for listening to Collector's Gene Radio.