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Rob Staky - Defining A Collection With Mint Condition & Personal Narratives
1.3k Plays1 year ago
Today’s guest is my friend Rob Staky, a watch collector most of you know by the moniker Bazamu. We took this one from my kitchen table as Rob was in town for business and decided to come by so we could record in person. A long time collector, Rob’s passion for watches is evident in the condition driven, heavy hitters he brought along with him. In the company of a true connoisseur, Rob’s collection is the definition of history intertwined with craftsmanship and elegance converging with innovation. A seeker of great condition, he’s got some of the best examples in his collection and truly some stuff that I may never get to see twice in person. With such a fondness for horology, you can only imagine that this isn’t merely about possession or even obsession, but more of an extension of who he is as a friend and a collector. A relentless pursuit to what we call, “buy right”, he’s traveled all over to build his collection. So without further adieu, this is Rob Staky, for Collectors Gene Radio.
Rob's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bazamu/?hl=en
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Transcript
A Honeymoon Discovery
00:00:00
Speaker
I was on my honeymoon and we were in Copenhagen. I was watched crazy, but I only owned a couple at this point. And I kind of looked to my left walking and it was the last night of the trip. That's the other thing. Look to the left saw just a store that said vintage on a little shingle hanging outside. So I was like, all right, let's walk by. It was mostly clothes, luggage, stuff like that. But on the floor in the store window, display window,
00:00:30
Speaker
There were five watches, and one of them was an Ed White Speedmaster. And I didn't have a Speedmaster at the time, but as many people just getting into vintage, that's one of the places you start, right? Because it's just iconic. And so I see it, and that's the one with the story that truly is the foundational moment for me, where the stories that come with these things, now that's my story. It had a whole life before it came to me.
00:01:00
Speaker
a really cool moment for my wife and I, and ever since then, that's been a cornerstone of my collection.
Introduction and Guest Feature: Rob Stakey
00:01:07
Speaker
What's going on, everybody? And welcome to Collector's Gene Radio. 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.
00:01:32
Speaker
Today's guest is my friend Rob Stakey, a watch collector most of you know by the moniker Bazamoo. We took this one from my kitchen table as Rob was in town for business and decided to come by so we could record in person. A long time collector, Rob's passion for watches is evident in the condition driven heavy hitters he brought along with him. In the company of a true connoisseur, Rob's collection is the definition of history intertwined with craftsmanship and elegance converging with innovation.
00:02:00
Speaker
A seeker of great condition, he's got some of the best examples in his collection and truly some stuff that I may never get
Rob's Watch Passion and Instagram Journey
00:02:06
Speaker
to see twice in person. With such a fondness for horology, you can only imagine that this isn't merely about possession or even obsession, but more of an extension of who he is as a friend and a collector. With a relentless pursuit to what we call by right, he's traveled all over the world to build his collection. So without further ado, this is Rob Stakey for Collector's Dream Radio.
00:02:30
Speaker
Rob, long time in the making here, but welcome back to Arizona and welcome to Collector's Room Radio. Thank you for having me in your house. Glad we could do this in person. Yeah, don't give out my address. Not too early for a beer, but maybe we'll wait till after or something. Yeah, we'll celebrate with fun. For sure. So most know you under the name Bazamoo, but why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about you and where that name came from, because that's definitely not your name.
00:02:58
Speaker
It's not. Yeah, I kind of hide behind it. I think I
Early Influences and First Purchases
00:03:04
Speaker
was starting an Instagram at the very beginning of the watch Instagram, you know, craze and had a really hard time coming up with a name. I actually had a name before that one. What was that? It was so bad. Okay, forget it. No, no, no, I'll do it.
00:03:23
Speaker
pronounced whiskey. It was W-I-S-C-H-I. I was in Chicago, and W-I-S is like, watch Idiot Savant, right? That big thing. But that was even more confusing to everybody. That's clever. And I don't even really drink whiskey. So it was, we had to scrap it.
00:03:41
Speaker
No, I had this job at the time that for the first time really in my career had more normal hours. So I found myself with all this time and I wanted to start a little website and write about the watches. I would find stuff like that.
00:03:57
Speaker
And it's one of those things where making up a word sticks in people's brains a lot more than just picking words off a shelf. So yeah, it's a totally made up word. It's based on a Turkish word for vintage, but it's just like in...
00:04:17
Speaker
an English version of it, basically. So yeah, no, I hide behind it. And it's been good. People can call me by whatever they want. I know you're fairly private when it comes to your personal life. So I appreciate you coming on today. And you have an amazing collection. We'll dive into all that. Where did your love affair for watches come?
00:04:38
Speaker
I think I always liked mechanical things growing up. I had a grandfather who was a big tinkerer. He was always in the garage making stuff. I can picture it now. Yeah. My dad always liked gadgets.
00:04:54
Speaker
Like laser disc players, mini disc players, you know, all kinds of whatever the latest thing was. And so I think when I was growing up, uh, that's when, you know, the indi-glo watches, the Timex Ironmans, right? So that was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Um, I had one of those.
00:05:13
Speaker
those really weird shaped Nike watches, if you remember those, they kind of looked like a swoosh on your wrist. I don't know if you've seen these. I'm sure my brothers know. They haven't aged very well, but those, yeah, I had one of those too. And I think built up a few of these things in like middle school, stuff like that. And I, yeah, it's one of those things. What's the weirdest thing you've ever had?
00:05:38
Speaker
I had, I mean, I was, for a long time, I was like super into like Nixon 5130s, which is like, I've mentioned before, it's like.
00:05:47
Speaker
grandfather clock on your wrist. Yeah, I had one of those. Yeah, they're massive. That was my formal watch in high school. Yeah, could definitely fit under a cuff at 50 millimeters. Right. That, of course, like, as a kid with $40 in his pocket from umpiring a baseball game in middle school in Victor's. Oh, yeah. Sadly. That's a building block. It got started. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, and I think too, as I was getting into high school, that's when Fossil became a big thing, Fossil watches. They come in that little tin. I don't know if you remember that. Back at the time for a mall watch, they looked pretty good. It's not a collection, but I had owned multiple watches along the way. Yeah, that lit the spark. I dropped it pretty much through college.
00:06:39
Speaker
I guess I had my eye on other things, but yeah, once I started working and I had a little money in my pocket, that's when it came back and hasn't really stopped since then.
Evolving Criteria and Professional Perceptions
00:06:49
Speaker
First and last watch you bought.
00:06:52
Speaker
First watch of my life. Yeah. So the first one that I bought. That started your collection. Okay. So the first one I bought post college, which I think is really where the Spark came back, right? So I'd started there was a, a Luminox. Cool. Right. So it was, uh, I'll send you a picture of it. It's pretty cool. It's, you know, $200 course watch, but they never failed though.
00:07:18
Speaker
It will the lume was awesome and the twelve o'clock when was orange and the rest of it was green so I love that have blue dial which is still something that I'm like just a magnet to even today and it had this strap that was sort of like a Velcro NATO looking thing sec, right? So just somebody who knows nothing. It's like oh that looks pretty sweet
00:07:41
Speaker
So I had to kind of hunt it down at a fishing store or something like that in Dallas where I was at the time. And that watch I think has been on like four continents with me, one on my honeymoon, all that kind of stuff. And I was into watches at the time, like really into it at the time I got married.
00:08:01
Speaker
Still haven't. So that's like really the first one. And then the last watch that I have bought is actually see people at home. You can't see this, but we have a million watches on the table right now. It's a first execution. Hoyer Carrera 2447. Perfect. With a metallic outer track on it. It's yeah, I mean in the original sticker on the back.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah. You can't see the sticker, but it's incredible. Yeah. It's lived a life for sure. Yeah. It looks like it's hardly been lived with at all, actually. It just came from the store. Maybe it's life was sitting in a drawer, but it lived a life. Now it's here.
00:08:47
Speaker
So as we look at a lot of your collection that's here, there's kind of like a clear lineage and path as to what you really like. With a couple strays, Q, log of one, tourbillon. But is there a criteria for you as to what makes the cut when you buy something? Is it really condition or are you just buying what catches your eye?
00:09:09
Speaker
I think it's an arc. I think a lot of people have this. I'd be curious to get your take too because I'm curious if this is just me or you as well. But I think when I started, I really started buying vintage watches mainly back in like 2014.
00:09:24
Speaker
My philosophy at the time was buy as much as possible, not in an overly materialistic type of way, but it's more, hey, I don't know much about that. It's only 2,500 bucks. Try it. I'm going to go buy it, and if I don't like it, I can sell it for 2,500 bucks, 2,200 bucks, whatever it is, but I learned.
00:09:45
Speaker
I started buying everything, everything vintage basically and started really kind of honing my taste, the brands, the case shapes, that kind of stuff that I liked. I think in the last three or four years, condition is the single driving thing that I look for. So it could be a super unique watch. It could be something that's been on my list forever.
00:10:08
Speaker
If it has not aged well, I'm just not gonna buy it because it's not gonna sing to me like I, you know, like a lot of the other watches I have do. What about you? Condition, meaning case condition, dial condition, all of that. I mean, obviously all of it is important, but if you had to choose one. Dial drives most of it for me. Yeah, me too. So like dial in hands, if it's vintage that have aged really well and together,
00:10:35
Speaker
That's important, and if it's a case that has a bunch of facets, so if it's like a CBK speedy for an old, I don't really buy old subs or anything like that, but if it was a 5512 with big bevels that had been ground down, that's a non-starter, right? But if it's lived a life and a dial, like the Speedmaster that's sitting here, and the dial and hands still look great, I can live with it, right? That sings to me. Yeah, I would live with that too.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm fairly the same way. I care a lot less about case condition. My eyes are always drawn to dials first and case shapes first. If something for me has been polished once or twice, I'm not going to be picky, especially when it comes to budget and what you have to spend on something. Obviously, to check all the boxes.
00:11:27
Speaker
isn't always the easiest thing to do financially. So if I have to give up one thing, it would be a case being polished. But I go right to a dial. The dial has to speak to me first and foremost. Obviously, I have some interesting case shapes here. You got a few, yeah. Not the most. You don't like to be defined by one thing. No, I really don't.
00:11:50
Speaker
I think it comes down to not necessarily these K shapes attracting me the most, but more so the dials first and then the K shapes. Yeah. That's kind of what I look for. Yeah. I agree. All right. Longa1 Turbion or Longa1 Mother of Pearl? We're going straight to it. Oh, this is the question.
00:12:08
Speaker
man. I think I would have to go as much as I love the one that I have. They do bail mother of pearl blue lock one. That thing has captivated me from the moment I saw it. I didn't know it existed until three months ago. And collect demand had one. Yeah, Silas and co posted that and it blew my mind. In America was eight hours behind. Yeah, everybody else sold immediately. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I think I messaged you right away. And I was like, Oh,
00:12:39
Speaker
There were a few that were like, did you know this existed? Mortgage the house. Yeah, those are crazy and I think there's 25 of them, so yeah, not many. I think I'd have to go with that, but I do love the tourbillon. I mean, it's undeniable, but both are undeniable for sure.
00:12:58
Speaker
A lot of people in the workforce shy away from having nice things because they worry about their peers caring or someone saying something to them or a superior noticing.
Selling Watches and Significant Sales
00:13:10
Speaker
I couldn't believe less in that theory, but I'm curious to know
00:13:16
Speaker
Obviously, and that gets toned down with vintage stuff. Yeah. But being in the professional world, watches is obviously just a hobby for you. What is your take on watches in the workplace? Because I personally just don't give a shit what other people think. Yeah. And I think it's more of like good on you sort of thing, but what's your take?
00:13:34
Speaker
That's an interesting question. I say interesting because I have actually thought about it quite a bit. And it's not something that I've ever really talked about with other people, other collectors. Because it's not one size fits all. Everybody's comfortable with different stuff. I think I always made a point to wear everything. And part of it is that it's vintage, right? So if I'm wearing an old Speedmaster, it's not going to look
00:14:01
Speaker
like a, you know, blingy Rolex, right? Like a gem set Yacht-Master or something like that. But I made a point to always wear like the full collection. And the funniest thing in thinking back on it now is that almost nobody noticed that it was like a different watch every single day. Or if they did notice, they never said anything. Right.
00:14:23
Speaker
Nobody's ever held it against me. And yeah, other than maybe a couple people who were also into watches and they'd see one and say, oh yeah, I have one of those.
00:14:35
Speaker
it's just never really come up. I think to your point, it's more evidence that just be yourself. Well, within bounds. If you're wearing something crazy, like I said, if you're wearing a rainbow Daytona to an accounting meeting or something like that, that's probably not the attention you want. When you're the CFO. Right.
00:14:57
Speaker
Right. If you just sold the company, like why you didn't with something that's half a million dollars on the risk, probably not a great look. But no, I, you know, I don't find myself in those situations. Yeah. I just think it's one of those things, you know, I've heard people say like, Oh, I don't want to buy a house from somebody from a real estate agent that shows up in a nice car. And I'm like, yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
I'm like, well, wouldn't you want to buy a house from that person because you know that they're good at their job and they do right by both ends to be able to afford a car like that? Do you want someone who showed up on a unicycle and is going to try and sell your home? It's really funny you say that because one of the first investment firms that I worked at in Chicago
00:15:41
Speaker
The founder was a huge rolex guy huge so everyday have a different rolex on pretty most people listening are probably drawing the caricature of what this guy looks like. But he would go to meet with investors and sometimes i go with him and he would put a timex iron man on interesting and i asked him finally continue i was in the watches and vice versa.
00:16:04
Speaker
I was like, why are you hiding this? All it's going to show is that you're successful. At the worst, they see it all the time with other people. He's like, no, I think it just shows that I'm fiscally responsible, I'm prudent, I'm down to earth, I'm humble. He had thought through all of these angles, but at the end of the day, I always looked at it as like, but you're faking it. You're literally wearing that just to
00:16:33
Speaker
try to appease them or what they want you to be. And then you're putting your Rolex on and the cab back to the office, right? So I've always thought it was a bit too faced to be thinking through it on that level and really just worrying what people think about you to that extent too. There's a watch meme hidden in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And I really hope he doesn't listen to this. It's okay. Hey, I enjoyed everything else about working. Yeah, but let's burn that Iron Man.
00:17:01
Speaker
Have you had the hard decision of selling stuff out of the collection? Yeah, all the time. Well, I shouldn't say all the time. It's usually because I've set my site on something else. I am not as good as many of my friends and peers who do the one in, one out or try to stay close to that. I typically will sell when I have my eyes set on something like the tourbillon, right? Or the 1815 chronograph and
00:17:31
Speaker
It's not lying around money for me. I would have to make asset allocation decisions. I don't want to do that because watches, it's one of those things where if you keep it over here and you're selling watches to buy another watch, it feels very symbiotic.
00:17:47
Speaker
starting to sell stocks or mortgage your house or do crazy stuff like that. It's like, whoa, we got out of control with this. That's less easy to explain to a significant other. There's that aspect as well. Yeah, it's a little easier when you're, you say that you're fully replacing the cost. Yeah. It's coming out. So it's typically because something else is coming in. Yeah. Well, you could see my wife is warming up to the whole watch thing. She made you a whole breakfast here. It's just amazing to come here and talk about watches. Amazing. Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
When it comes to selling something, obviously that's the hardest thing to do for any collector is let go of something that you're passionate about. Have you found though that when you get the thing that you're trading for, you lose the sense of like, oh, I really miss that. I don't know what this says about me, but the second
The Importance of Stories in Collecting
00:18:35
Speaker
that I make up my mind to sell something, no matter how many memories I have of it, great example, this is the watch that I got married in.
00:18:43
Speaker
I, it was really early. I only had two watches back then, but I bought, I guess I bought my third, a Speedmaster while we were on our honeymoon. And I got back and it was the most I'd ever spent. It was $5,000.
00:18:58
Speaker
All of a sudden I had three watches and I was like, this is out of control. I need to rebalance it. The one I thought fit the least out of the three was that, was the one I got married in. And I sold it. And it was one of those things where like even today, do I miss it?
00:19:15
Speaker
maybe a little bit, but that's the only one that even comes close. Everything else is, as soon as I've made up my mind, it's basically already gone in my head. I'm the same way. Really? That makes me feel better. I thought maybe it meant I was heartless or something. Maybe it means we both are, but once I have the idea that I'm letting go of something,
00:19:36
Speaker
my focus is now how do i sell this thing right and i think that's probably why we end up feeling that way is because in our our mindset goes to i gotta get cash for this thing and you start like enjoying the thing you're like trying to get rid of it right so i'm with you there i think sure there's things do i wish i still had everything of course i think any collector does that has to sell stuff but when you get rid of the thing
00:20:00
Speaker
kind of is what it is. You should actually be superseded with joy from the new thing you're getting from the thing you're letting go of. I think most people, if they're really honest, they don't sit around and ruminate on, I can't believe I sold this, right? And maybe some people do, and that's totally up to them. My guess is that the majority, if they really think about it, they don't really miss whatever they sold. Unless you're a dealer and you sold,
00:20:28
Speaker
Something that's 10 times something that I'm looking at here a long time ago. Yeah, exactly. Any of the watches in your, obviously stories are a big thing with collecting, right? So any of the watches in your collection come with a story, whether it was from you buying it in a crazy scenario or you know, it's previous history.
00:20:48
Speaker
Honestly, a lot of them. Well, a lot of them back when I started my website, right? So I started writing about them and a big part of why. I mean, it's just a creative outlet. Let me be clear. My website is not doing millions of page views per month. I haven't written anything and written anything probably nine months, right? Switch it over to OnlyFans.
00:21:07
Speaker
I don't know that that would be any better. So the impetus for doing that though was I was hunting like crazy. I would come home and I would be on Craigslist, I'd be on eBay, I'd be searching auctions in like foreign countries and stuff. And I ended up with a bunch that had pretty good stories. And so I started the site just as a creative outlet for myself to flex something other than kind of like finance numbers, that kind of stuff.
00:21:33
Speaker
So there's a lot that I've kind of tried to document that have decent stories. I think the one that probably means the most to me though is like,
00:21:43
Speaker
The one I just talked about, the Speedmaster, that I bought, that was the third one. I was on my honeymoon with my wife, which is a good thing to say and clarify. Let's just make that known. Yeah, yeah. Note that. And we were in Copenhagen at the tail end of it, so we've been traveling for like six weeks. It was awesome. I didn't have a job at the time, so we just went on an open-ended honeymoon.
00:22:08
Speaker
the best six weeks of my life. And we were in Copenhagen. I was watched crazy, but I only owned a couple at this point. And I kind of looked to my left walking. It was the last night of the trip. That's the other thing. Looked to the left, saw just a store that said vintage on a little shingle hanging outside. So I was like, all right, let's walk by. It was mostly clothes, luggage, stuff like that.
00:22:34
Speaker
But on the floor in the store window, display window, there were five watches and one of them was an Ed White Speedmaster.
Collecting with a Spouse and Watch Hunting Thrills
00:22:43
Speaker
And like I didn't have a Speedmaster at the time, but as many people just getting into vintage, that's one of the places you start, right? Because it's just iconic. Yeah. And so I see it and.
00:22:54
Speaker
I'm like, we have to go in. So we go in, we start talking to the guy who owns the shop. He says, oh, these are actually my watches. I just opened it a month ago. And I'm selling the watches to help finance the next phase of the store and all that kind of stuff.
00:23:09
Speaker
So he pulls it out, we start talking about it. He's like, do you know what this is? Only at like a surface level. Of course. But I feigned like I did. I was like, oh, of course, yes, yes. Quacks a little poetic. Yeah, I was like, oh, the bracelet, I love that, right? So we sit there and talk, and he's kind of like looking at me. The shop's about to close. And he's like, do you want it? Because we're closing pretty soon here. And I was like, let me get your card. I'm going back to America tomorrow.
00:23:37
Speaker
I will reach out to you as soon as I'm back because I can't even get money out at this point, right? But I'm like, please hold it for me. So then my wife and I go around the corner to this bar and we sit down, we grab Wi-Fi from the bar, obviously grab a drink, and my hands are like shaking because I'm so excited. Yeah.
00:23:54
Speaker
and I'm just like crash coursing Speedmasters and that reference and trying to make sure it all looks right and all that kind of stuff. The entire trip home the next day, I'm just thinking about it. I get back, I reach out to James Lambden. He doesn't probably even remember this because this was 2014, but it's like I'm emailing him saying, does this look correct to you?
00:24:17
Speaker
And the funny thing is James actually told me not to buy it because he said it. The underside of the lugs was polished. So James, I'm not going to let you forget that.
00:24:27
Speaker
It ended up being a really great example. I bought it and that's where this really spiraled and started. Yes, I bought the Luminox watch and all that stuff, but that's the one with the story that truly is the foundational moment for me where the stories that come with these things, now that's my story. It had a whole life before it came to me.
00:24:51
Speaker
That was a really cool moment for my wife and I, and ever since then, that's been a cornerstone of my collection. That's kind of like the exhilarating thing about collecting. You don't have to necessarily know what that guy did with that watch beforehand. I don't even know. But it's the idea that you found it, you knew that he owned it, you knew that he was selling it to expand his store. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
And yeah, that's just the best. Well, and I think the coolest thing, and I'm sure that you and Madeline feel this way too, right? It becomes this shared joy because your spouse sees how excited you are from it, and then it makes them excited, right? And the next time it happens,
00:25:37
Speaker
all of a sudden they're excited from the beginning because they know how momentous this could be. I think it's a really cool thing to share with somebody also, not just watch nerds, but somebody, family, spouse, kids, whatever. If they're around and they see that joy that it gives you and that rush, then I think that explains the whole thing in one experience. Yeah. To touch on that, I got a bonus question from a friend of ours.
00:26:03
Speaker
Okay. Previous collector's dream radio guest, Nick from Ad patina. Okay. He's a big story guy. Yeah. He wants to know. He said, he says in the old days, a lot of your watches came from original owners and families. Uh, for example, you got stuff fresh to market, not necessarily through a dealer. Yeah.
00:26:22
Speaker
Do you believe there are still plenty of amazing watches out there sitting in drawers? If so, he wants to know what you think your next watch slash lucky find will be. It's a complicated question because I don't want to put anybody off from
00:26:40
Speaker
exploring with the fervor that I did and again going through pages and pages of Craigslist every night and I think that the reality is it has slowed. I don't really know why. The information has been out there for a while. I think really it's the past three years where it's really slowed down where you see them
00:27:02
Speaker
coming to eBay, coming to Craigslist, some no name auction.
Learning and Community in Collecting
00:27:06
Speaker
It's just not happening as much and I can't really put my finger on why. I will say they're still out there. So like the most recent two watches that I've purchased are both original, family, both Carreras, ones of Volvo dialed Carrera with really cool inscription on the back and like that one,
00:27:28
Speaker
coming from the family and also seeing the inscription. A lot of people wondered, what's the story behind these Volvo dials? Well, I know, right? Because I was able to talk to them. And that was like a random thing that happened to come together. This other one, the Carrera, that's sitting here, that came from a friend of mine, Vint and Drabi on Instagram, right? But he had hunted it down from the original family.
00:27:52
Speaker
But i don't think it happens quite as much to answer the question back then it felt like it was like once every two weeks and i'm not even a dealer right i'm just a guy getting home from work sitting on my couch right surfing internet ads and finding stuff and it was literally every once or two one or two weeks something would come up.
00:28:12
Speaker
It's just the hit rates way lower now. Yeah, I have a feeling I mean you have like antique roadshow showing people who never knew what a Daytona was. Yeah, and this guy from the military had one sitting in a safe right full set and right faints on camera, you know, so these people I think get ideas of like maybe I should reach out to somebody about this and not just put it on the internet and
00:28:33
Speaker
I think dealers are doing a better job of advertising. Your recurring guest, Eric Wind, does a phenomenal job promoting himself and doing pro bono stuff like the Horological Society talks that are out there. He's easy to find. For a lot of people, if they're going to Google what they have, they're going to see that. I think that's definitely part of it as well.
00:28:58
Speaker
The other part of it, too, is I have small kids. My life has moved on in some areas. I still love this stuff, but I don't have the time or energy to just put hours into it every week. So I could be way wrong. And there could be people just getting into this who have way more energy than I do at this point to be going through the classified ads. And I hope that they're still out there for all of us.
00:29:20
Speaker
for sure, and Nick, if that didn't satisfy you, then you're just gonna have to call Rob and figure it out. Yeah, Nick's a romantic, so we probably won't love that answer, but yeah, I think it's somewhere in the middle. For sure. Yep. And touching on what you had just said about not necessarily having the same amount of time that you had, right? You're busy with work, you have a family. How do you find time to collect still? And subsequently, why do you think it's important for people to
00:29:49
Speaker
have some excess mental real estate to give towards a hobby like collecting? Oh, I think it's so important and so necessary to have an area that's still... So for me, it's, yes, it's getting this stuff, it's finding it, it's hunting it, but there's just the learning portion of it still just is the most fun part for me, where you find something and you don't know anything about it.
00:30:14
Speaker
There are a bunch of brands recently, older Independents that are now coming into the limelight that I didn't even really know existed. For me, I don't have them yet. I don't own them. I wouldn't say they're even on my list necessarily.
00:30:32
Speaker
but to spend time learning about it, right? That's an outlet and that is fun. That's not work. I'm able to shut down the work for an hour and just kind of dive into stuff like that. So I think that part of it is really important. And I think the other thing for me when I don't have as much energy as I used to for this,
00:30:51
Speaker
I'm grateful that I've made really good friends in this hobby because they are the people who influenced me the most, quite honestly. It doesn't have to be me finding these new things. Most of the time it's them and they're excited about what they found and their excitement spills over or I see it and I'm like, I don't get it.
00:31:11
Speaker
I disagree. This is ugly. This is not important. You're just trying to pump something that isn't pumpable, right? And then all that spurs that same learning curve, right? And so I think you can't do it alone. Some people can, right? And they have that drive, but I think
00:31:30
Speaker
as life has kind of gone into that next phase for me, it's the friends who have continued to make it what it is.
Family Influence and Independent Watchmakers
00:31:38
Speaker
Love it. Yeah. How about your family? Anyone in your family collect or appreciate watches the way you do? They didn't. I wouldn't say they didn't like watches. I think my mom's been interested in them more as a jewelry accessory type thing, but her,
00:31:57
Speaker
interest has deepened since I got into this. My dad has really only worn two watches the entire time I've known him, most of the life that I can remember.
00:32:09
Speaker
and one of them is a 16.6 sub that he still has and wears all the time. The other, man, this is a bad story, but let's just tell it because we're on here. Let's run it. We're getting into the regrets portion of the podcast. All right. Now we need the beer. Yeah.
00:32:27
Speaker
We'll be right back. So he gave me his Tag Heuer Professional two-tone. It had that bracelet that just rips out your arm hair. I don't know if some people can picture this. They were like Y-shaped links. Very adept at ripping out my hair. They were onto something before Manscaped came around. You didn't need it back then, right? You just wore that. It also didn't help that I didn't know you could even resize bracelets, right? So it's kind of like just jangling on my wrist.
00:32:57
Speaker
He gave me that for graduating college and i wore that dutifully for the first really three years my career. And then once i started getting into vintage i decided i like this other stuff a lot more right so i put it away i wasn't wearing it and about a year later i sold it because i wasn't wearing it.
00:33:18
Speaker
and I just didn't like the design. And even though I had grown up with my dad wearing it for whatever reason, just a brain fart, I didn't think I'd ever want it. I didn't think I'd ever wear it, right? And so I sold it on eBay. And that was one of the two watches that I can remember. But with that said, he got the sub in the late 90s. You know, I was
00:33:40
Speaker
in middle school at the time. That's the one that I associate most of the memories with. Love it. Anyway, he's not a collector, but he does like watches. And he knows. And Dad, I'm so sorry that I sold the watch that you gave me. I'll never live that down. The arm hair has grown back, but the watch is not. It will never.
00:34:00
Speaker
Anything you could share with us in terms of what you're looking at your collection next or what you've kind of really been focusing on with whatever time you do have. So can I ask you a question? Yes. If I say independence, are you gonna think that I'm just a cliche? Not at all. I'm looking at some right here. Technically. Well, not really though. I mean, so I think, I think as with a lot of people who were into vintage very deeply for a long time,
00:34:28
Speaker
Once you've experienced all of the brands and all the major references, all that kind of stuff, I can always get excited about a Mint Speedmaster. I can always get excited about an amazing Carrera. That's why I can't stop buying them, right? Vintage tutors, I will always love those.
00:34:46
Speaker
But you're getting excited about the condition of one watch. It's not as exciting as a completely new category to you. And so I have come to the independent craze late, which is not good for me. As you're probably aware, that market is not what it used to be. It's not. But there are a couple of independents in particular that I really admire. I really like.
00:35:12
Speaker
scrapping away to try to find some way to be on their consideration some year from now, right? So I think there will be stuff that comes before those, but I think supporting a small independent brand is kind of that next step. And as I started out with all this, I do feel like that's kind of cliche with a lot of people like me.
00:35:33
Speaker
right now at this point. I don't think so because, you know, you've tasted a lot over the years and you've owned a lot of things over the years and this is the most common next step for a lot of people in this position and looking at your collection and what you could possibly have next, right? You've had so many other things in your collection, it wouldn't make sense for you to have another Pepsi or another Rolex. It just wouldn't make sense. Yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker
I mean, I'm glad that you see it that way. I do think that there is the old guard, the guys and gals who were doing it in the 1980s and same thing, they just went through that curve a lot faster. I'm trying not to beat myself up over it, but yeah, I would say like three years ago, I was not even really open-minded about independence. I didn't understand it. I had a 3940 paddock, I was open to more paddocks.
00:36:30
Speaker
That was pretty much it. I had a Royal Oak and I saw that as kind of what I needed. Well, I'll explore Patek, I'll get a Royal Oak, I'm good. I don't need any of this new age, one off from a guy in a workshop. I don't understand that. What if it's not even a great watch? They're really expensive. And then the more you sit with it and you think about it, you realize that if you're trying to support artisans, like people with a vision,
00:36:59
Speaker
Arguably, there's nothing cooler than doing that at the very beginning and being one of the people who helped them, right? And I'll call out just what many people are probably thinking about too. There's always the flip to four.
00:37:12
Speaker
Thought here, right? Where if you pick the right horse, there's an element of speculation to all of this. It's just like any investment, right? You're investing in the promise and potential of that person. And there's a lot of ways that can go wrong, right? And so it is a totally different ballgame than buying a vintage GMT or something like that.
Rapid-Fire Questions and Insights
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. No, I'm excited to see what ends up there. I mean, we'll see. Your guess is as good as mine.
00:37:41
Speaker
If you have to get rid of some of this stuff, I have a good idea. Did you see it clear out happening? Yeah, and that might be why, but I would not hold your breath, so. All right, let's hit the collector's zoom rundown. What do you say? Yeah, sure. All right, one that got away.
00:37:55
Speaker
So this was early 2020, right before COVID actually. And there was an FP Jorn Okta Chronograph. I've never owned an FP Jorn earmuffs, FP Jorn lovers, but I've just never loved the brand as much as a lot of other people. I respect it, but it's not really my taste. But the Okta Chronograph was,
00:38:21
Speaker
like nothing I'd ever seen. Wild. It was just crazy. Yeah. Whimsical. It was distinguished. It was all these things that I was like, all right, if I'm going to get an FPGorn, this is the one. There was one that came up and I was able to handle it and everything.
00:38:38
Speaker
70 grand and I remember at the time thinking that is a shitload of money and I don't think I'm ready to take that step and I think Literally six months later those same watches were a quarter of a million dollars. So yeah madness
00:38:54
Speaker
It's not all money too because I think I would still have that watch if I had bought it back then. I mean, look at some of the other stuff that's sitting on the table and where things have gone probably since you bought them forever ago. On smaller scales, yes. But probably a similar margin if you're just looking at a percentage. Right, to reduce it to that. Yes.
00:39:15
Speaker
You're reducing me to tears. Yeah, I cry about it once in a while. Good for whoever did buy that. That's all I'll say. Yeah, but screw you. Yeah, exactly. On Deck Circle. He goes to the independence. I hesitate to even say which ones because...
00:39:34
Speaker
Honestly, it'll change. There are a couple and I have no idea if I'll end up getting them, right? But I think that's definitely the next phase of all this for me. Yeah, that'll be good. I can't wait. Unobtainable. So, you know, museum, too expensive, just no end in sight of this thing ever coming into play for anybody unless you're, you know,
00:40:00
Speaker
Sydney Monica on a yacht. Yeah, well, this dovetails with the last because I think anybody, any of my close friends know that for the past couple of years, I've been obsessed with, uh, Rex up, Rex up these, you know, debut and then the second version of it as well.
00:40:16
Speaker
I always liked the Curvius stuff, but it wasn't quite an avenue I was ready to jump into, and as soon as that came out, I was immediately in love with it. That stuff's a little bit more avant-garde, technical. Yes, very much so. The cases are very different. They wear differently. If you look at my collection, I think that one fits a lot more, the Chronometer Contemplarane.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I know. That ship is sailed because I think the last one just hammered for a million dollars and the waitlist is probably 4,000 people deep. I'm on it, but I'm probably way far down on it. But you're not 4,000. Well, actually, my good friend Adam Golden and Sasha Davidoff were visiting Rexup this past Watches and Wonders. They were nice enough to send me a video of Rexup addressed to me.
00:41:11
Speaker
telling me that i probably would not get one of his watches and he had no idea when i would be able to get one and it was very nice he was very cordial i was i i saw it because they're obviously in switzerland right so i'm waking up and i have this video that adam sends me and he's like hey rex up wants to say something to you and i see the the thumbnail yeah i'm like
00:41:33
Speaker
What the hell am I looking at? I click it and it starts with, hey, Rob, and I was like, what is going on right now? At first, I probably like, oh shit, I'm getting the call send. I hate Adam so much because those same two a year prior had played an April Fool's prank on me that they were both getting the RCCs.
00:41:55
Speaker
that they had both gotten a call and they were both getting them. And Adam said, I don't even want this thing. I'm just going to flip it. And you're like, it drove me insane. I probably said things to him that I shouldn't have accused him of things that I shouldn't have. And I did not even think that it was like an April Fool's joke and it was. So yeah, they took that pretty far. But anyway, that I would say that's unobtainable. Page one rewrite. So
00:42:22
Speaker
Money, no object. You could collect anything besides watches. What would it be? At the risk of sitting on cliche corner again, I have always loved cars. Always. I had stacks of Automobile Magazine, Car and Driver Magazine.
00:42:41
Speaker
made my dad buy me subscriptions to those every year. I moved a lot and I worked for it and stuff, but yeah, I still had stacks of them. I would build my dream cars in high school, because that was right when like the online car builder tool came out. I don't know if you remember that. You could spec it out and go into the interior. I mean, now you've been able to do that for a long time. Back in 2003 or whatever it was, that was revolutionary. So I've always loved them. And then, you know,
00:43:09
Speaker
started working, I was living in Chicago for a decade, didn't even have a car. Now I've, you know, moved into an old house that doesn't have garage space to accommodate one. So if I could rewrite it, it'd be amazing to start with that and experience some of those cars. I did buy my high school dream car a couple of years ago.
00:43:30
Speaker
Congrats. Well, I only had it for a year. It was an E46 M3 and it was fun to scratch that itch and stuff. I learned that it's not as easy to collect cars as it is watches.
00:43:45
Speaker
They don't make little cases like this too. They don't. Maybe just store some old parts. Yeah. There's all kinds of hoops to jump through. Some more power to anybody out there who has the willpower and the stamina and the space to do it. Different ballgame. Yeah, there really is. But that would be ideal. I'm with you there. Well, and you're from the car world too, right? Yep. You probably know a ton of people who have
00:44:10
Speaker
A lot of people that we know that collect cars are in that same circle there. You just look at some of these folks and they have people that are managing just their car collection for them and working on them every week. Most people think that that's just like a Jay Leno thing, but no, it's not. There's guys out there that we know that have people managing their car collection.
00:44:36
Speaker
And you have to, because it's a lot more tedious than this. Yeah, no, it's right. If these stop working, you can just decide, I'll send it to the watchmaker next month or six months from now or whatever. It can sit. It's OK. It can sit. And if your car is sitting broken for a long time, forget it. Most people are not able to live with that, right? Because they're just thinking of a deteriorating car. So I don't know. It's a different ballgame. But yeah, if I could start over with unlimited resources and space, I would definitely start there.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I think the other thing is like a lot of people try and think logically about collecting anything. And so when you think about cars, less the vintage market, because obviously vintage goes up, minor goes down. But value wise, it's so much harder
00:45:22
Speaker
to choose a car if you're basing things off value. Yes. Of something that will go up in value that you're not going to take a bath on. Right. Versus a watch. It's an enthusiast market. 100%. Yeah. As is this. I was going to say watches too, but not quite to the level, just because the maintenance is not the same. Right. I don't live this way, but if anyone I knew wanted to get into collecting and they wanted to do it for a financial aspect, it'd be pretty easy to point them in a couple of directions of like, hey,
00:45:49
Speaker
Buy here. Your money will go up. It's pretty cut and dry there. Cars, you can know everything about cars and forget it. Ask me if I made money on the E46. I'll ask you when we're dumb recording. I didn't want you to have to go through that in front of everybody. How about the GOAT?
00:46:10
Speaker
You know, I listened to this podcast, so I knew this question was coming. I had to think about it. I do think, I'd say there's two goats, one who I don't know at all, one who I know pretty well.
00:46:23
Speaker
The one I don't know at all is Jason Singer. I have revisited that Talking Watch's episode more than maybe any other video out there. And that's probably not even representative of what he has now. It's changed even since then. But I just look at the scholarship, the depth of references, the stamina to do that for so long.
00:46:49
Speaker
I think his collection from what I have seen, which he's not a republic either, so really that video is all I'm going on. But knowing that that's like scratching the surface probably, I think he's the one who piques my curiosity the most. Like I would love to just sit down and go through his vault one day. And he's also around here too. He's down the street, so maybe we should just knock on the door. Jason, hey, door dash, we're door dash.
00:47:16
Speaker
Exactly. I put him up there for sure just as somebody to look up to from afar.
The Excitement of the Hunt and Collector's Gene
00:47:26
Speaker
I think the other person who I respect a lot is somebody I got to know while in Chicago, Jason Fried, another member of this podcast and another member of the club here. I've always admired his
00:47:41
Speaker
just taste across a number of things and also his approach to collecting, because it's not as emotional as mine. But I think he's very exacting about what he likes and why he likes it. And I've seen his tastes evolve and also come right back to where they were and evolve again. And I think, I don't know, I've always admired the way that he can kind of flow through that much easier than I can.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, I wish um I wish I obviously he doesn't wish this but I wish he was more public on Social media so I could talk to him more often because he's he's really good on email Like I could send him an email and I'll email back but it's fun to just be like I just want to send him something Yeah, or like something I see that like reminds me of something he may collect or like yeah um, but yeah, I mean you just know from talking to him or listening to that episode that
00:48:33
Speaker
his taste is just impeccable and he goes deep. And he researches, I mean he's not making rash decisions. He knows everything about the thing that he wants to buy. And he's a big fan of Longa. I don't know if he still is, but he was.
00:48:50
Speaker
It's funny because he loaned me a closed case back early Longa won very early in my not very early in my collecting days, but before Longa before people even cared what a closed case back meant right or like when it was from
00:49:05
Speaker
And I spent time with it, and I liked it. But again, I wasn't quite ready yet. I wasn't quite there. And so it was one of those things where I said, maybe in a couple of years. Like, this was great. Thank you for letting me have this. And he had explained the significance of it and how hard the early ones are to find and all that kind of stuff. But again, in my curve, I wasn't quite ready for it yet. And a couple of years later, I was like, what an idiot. I should have.
00:49:33
Speaker
I knew I liked it back then. I should have just gone full into it then, right, before prices and the market changed. But you can only do what you can do. That's pretty cool that he would lend you something to play around with for a bit. I mean, he probably won't like me saying that publicly. I would say we got to know each other very well while we were there. Of course. And he's a super generous guy with his time and stuff like that. But he's also very busy. So that's pretty neat. Yeah. All right. Hunt or the ownership? Probably the hunt.
00:50:03
Speaker
goes back to the educational intellectual side I was talking about earlier. It's really fun to find something new and then be captivated by it. And I think when you have it, I really appreciate the, you know, references and the watches that I have.
00:50:22
Speaker
But in most cases, it's not as exciting on a day-to-day basis as finding something totally new and trying to, you know, make it yours. Yeah, for sure. I think also you've had some amazing stories transpire within your collecting that the hunt has to be what it's about for you. I mean, stumbling upon the Speedy in Copenhagen. I mean, yeah, owning the thing is great because it came to fruition, but finding that and...
00:50:49
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's pretty neat. Yeah. If you're able to be lucky enough to pair a story with a watch like that, then it's a shared experience because every time you look at it, you can tap into that rush and that memory. You can tap into the hunt. But yeah, for a lot of the other ones that don't have a crazy story behind them or a crazy hunt even, it's great to have them, but those are often the ones that end up going the fastest because that connection is just not there.
00:51:18
Speaker
Love it. All right, most importantly, do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene? Oh no, I prepared for this answer and I'm blanking. Yeah, what could it be? I'm looking at a lot of things here. What was I going to say? Yeah. Yes, I think I am. I was thinking back to the earliest thing I collected.
00:51:38
Speaker
This is going to be the weirdest answer you've ever heard. I need it. Let's run it. Uniball pens. Yes. Do you remember those? Of course. I'm deniable. Elementary School Rob was making my parents take me to Office Depot, running to the pen aisle to grab a variety pack with one different color that I didn't have yet. I mean, I was obsessed.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, if I think back to one thing that points to that gene, I'd say Uniball pens, probably. I love that. It's ultra rare. Yeah. Well, they haven't really appreciated like I thought they would in second grade, but you know what? There will always be a good memory. Love it. Rob, thanks so much for visiting and coming on the podcast. I know you've got a bunch of other stuff to get to today. Other than this, that's probably going to actually make you money to buy more of these.
00:52:29
Speaker
I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on and we'll have to do this again. Yeah. Thanks for opening your home. It's been awesome. Anytime. Take care. Thanks. All right. That does it for this episode. Thank you all for listening to collector's gene radio.