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Hello, and welcome back to About Time. London's Burlington Arcade knows how to put on a show.
With its Regency architecture, vaulted glass roof and dedicated guards in frock coats and top hats, it's tailor-made for the "experience-driven" shopper. Halfway down, there is one boutique that consistently pulls in more curious onlookers than any other.
Number 24 is home to The Vintage Watch Company â or âthe Rolex shop,â as everyone calls it. Established 30 years ago, it is dedicated to buying and selling Rolex watches from the last century, circa 1910â2000.
Its high, arched windows are permanently and intentionally overfilled with Oysters, Submariners, and GMT-Masters â and, more recently, colourful Stella and stone dial Day-Dates of impeccable rarity and wow factor â meaning there is always a crowd playing âWhich oneâs your favourite?â and mentally remortgaging the house gathered outside.
These days, everyone goes on about the booming âpre-ownedâ or âpre-lovedâ watch market. Rolex itself, having ignored that audience for years, launched its own âcertified pre-ownedâ scheme in 2022. But No.24 has been on the case since 1995, preferring the more succinct label âvintage.â The business is family-run by the Silvers: founding dad John, and his children David and Sara, who have succeeded in their mission to create the largest vintage collection in the world. At any one time, over 2,000 watches are on site. As befits the job, David Silver is a details guy. He brought in a professional photographer, Bruce Mackie, from the start â initially to ensure the watches looked their best online. But he soon realised he was also building a visual archive of the extraordinary pieces that were passing through the shop.
On Tuesday, Vintage Rolex â a thumping 432-page collectorsâ book of more than 2,000 of those photos â is being published: a new edition of Silverâs bestselling original, which we wrote about in 2000.
As well as new sections dedicated to rare models co-signed by the jeweller Tiffany & Co, âtropicalâ dials, the aforementioned Stella and stone dials, and some 300 new pictures, the book marks the occasion of the shopâs 30th anniversary.
(Fun fact: it comes in four colourful covers â five if you count the first edition â with a matching Day-Date on the cover. Each one is set to a different day.) When I dropped by on David Silver this week, the book was already a hit.
âPreorders have exhausted the current print run, and a new batch is on its way to the printers,â he said. Silver talked to me about the book, his part in creating the booming vintage Rolex market, and the only one of the VWC's many famous customers he and his dad ever left the shop to see. |
The Vintage Watch Company, in its second Burlington Arcade location, 2006 |
What was the vintage market like in 1995?
When my father established [the shop], vintage wasnât a big thing. He had sold a jewellery business focusing on more modern pieces and started this as a kind of hobby. He began to see there was a bit of a thing starting in the world for vintage. Vintage Hermès was becoming a big thing on the catwalks. The supermodels were just becoming big then, and everything started to focus around vintage. Vintage jewellery was always a thing, but not watches. People were never into old watches at the scale they are now.
So, he thought: how fun would it be to put a counter together of 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s watches. Hamilton, Omega, Patek Philippe, Rolex, Longines, Waltham.
We did everything at the time based on style, so the brand wasnât as important as the shape for us. We put a very design-led selection together: rectangular watches, round watches, officerâs watches â all that sort of stuff.
And obviously, what began to happen was that Rolex would always outsell everything else because it was so mind-blowing. People were like, âOh my God, I canât believe Rolex ever made a watch in a rectangular shape that looked like a Cartier Tank."
So the eureka moment was: âWell, what if I focus on the one brand, Rolex, and then create the largest collection we can?â And range it as if we were doing a modern brand. Not "pre-owned" or "pre-loved", always "vintage"?
Vintage is still the keyword for us. Rolex have got into this market now, but I would say they are in the âpre-ownedâ market. They focus on a few years old. Not 25 years old.
The books have been possible because you've worked with the photographer Bruce Mackie from the off. He's been shooting your watches for three decades. How did you meet him? Vogue contacted us soon after we started and asked to borrow some watches for a photo shoot. And his imagery was just extraordinary â the detail was unbelievable. Today, every image that I own in my archive could be blown up to a very large poster size.
So, I contacted Vogue after the shoot and asked if we could have the photographerâs details. And thatâs kind of it. Thirty years of photography and a relationship together â thatâs amazing. The archive we both have. It began for the website, in the 1990s.
We had a grid platform for our watches that was very similar to the book â where we display six watches on a page. We were doing a lot of mail order and sending watches all over the world, so people wanted to see the detail and know exactly what they were getting. |
18ct white gold Oyster Day-Date with lilac lacquer dial, diamond markers and bark finish (1970) |
Is Bruce massively knowledgeable about vintage Rolexes now?
Heâs a bit of a watch person anyway, which is nice. He understands what heâs looking at. Thereâs also the uniformity of the photography. If you look at the âsmiley faceâ that we like to do with the watches â with the hands at ten to two â it creates a nice smile. But he also does the second hand at 25 past. And youâve got to remember the watches are ticking, and working. Bruce has to wait for the hands to move and take the shot at the exact angle. The discipline of that means that everyone knows: âOh, thatâs the Vintage Watch Company imageâ. Because itâs shot on black backgrounds and theyâre all absolutely the same.
Is Bruce easily impressed? Or has he seen it all by now?
The most important thing for him is colour. He spends an extraordinary amount of time on the Stella dials, for example [a Stella dial Rolex is a vintage Day-Date featuring a vividly coloured, high-gloss enamel dial originally made in the 1970s, now prized for its scarcity]. Iâve never, ever Photoshopped or manipulated an image. Everything in there is true-to-life colour. And thatâs his skill. The mints, the soft lavenders and peachy colours are very, very hard to photograph. And then the "tropical" dials â weâre not manipulating or making something appear more brown than it actually is in real life, which is a bit of an internet fad nowadays.
Have any watches come through the shop that you've missed photographing?
Yes. There are regrets. There have been some â when Bruce is on holiday, which is not really allowed â some watches just come in and out too quickly. There are times when we havenât been quick enough. But generally speaking, no. And he has to come into the shop to photograph them. For the insurance.
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The new book is an updated version of the 2020 edition. What was the reaction like to that?
It was incredible â overwhelming, really. A lot of things coincided at the same time that no one could predict. First of all, Covid. My book was one of the last my publisher printed [before lockdown]. It was singed off in May 2020. We were in lockdown, and I was sitting on my bedroom floor, going through proofs that had been sent to me. I donât even know how we managed to do it, really â but we did.
And then we had a captive audience. People were at home with nothing to do, and the Amazon market was huge. So, people ordered books. And I was very lucky. At the same time, Rolex launched their Oyster Perpetual and happened to come out with a yellow watch â which was very unusual for them [in 2020 Rolex launched, and soon discontinued, a selection of colourful dials for its Oyster Perpetual collection, in green, turquoise blue, coral red, candy pink and yellow. They were clearly inspired by the Stella dials if yore. The cover of the first Vintage Rolex book featured a yellow Stella dial].
Then I think the quality of photography, as you mentioned, and the volume of stock that we could photograph was extraordinary. Thatâs not common for watch books. A lot of watch books have quite poor photography because ultimately, the watches are not owned or donât exist in the authorâs hands â so theyâre just taking images from Getty or photo archives, or wherever. A lot of auction houses provide imagery, but itâs not particularly well done. And those books tend to be more text-heavy. My book is not a text-heavy book. We do provide a history, but itâs mostly visual â itâs fashion photography. Itâs like a lifestyle book, or a book on architecture or interior design. Thatâs where I pitch it. So, itâs not designed for the absolute watch connoisseur to get loads of information about every reference ever made and all the intricate details. Iâm not your man for that. |
The introduction featuring a Who's Who of very famous Rolex fans, including the new shot of Princess Anne and her "Paul Newman" Daytona Cosmograph |
You've updated the "famous people' section at the front.
I tried to go through from the beginning again and put in some notable figures. Eisenhower is quite an iconic image. Elvis. Martin Luther King. Fidel Castro. The Bond section. Honor Blackman is wearing a manâs GMT-Master. She was a pilot herself in the movie. So thatâs quite an early feminist statement. Lots of people write pieces about that!
And then thereâs Princess Anne. I came across a jaw-dropping image of her that Iâd never seen wearing a "Paul Newman" â the rarest of the sports Daytona models. [As worn by the actor, whose own watch sparked massive collector interest and record-breaking auction prices]. Itâs just so random.
We donât know whether it belonged to somebody, or she was given it. Maybe she used it to time herself doing show jumping. Her whole outfitâs amazing.
And then thereâs Sylvester Stallone. It's no secret to anybody that heâs one of the most notable watch collectors in the world now.
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18ct yellow gold Oyster Day-Date with diamond bezel and shoulders and ruby, sapphire and diamond losange dial (1989) |
Is he a customer?
Yeah, we are close. He collects Stella dials, and the colourful pieces. Heâs often seen wearing them. The image in the book is nice because it shows him wearing the first watch he ever purchased when he got his first pay cheque. He walked into Tiffany & Co in New York and picked up a gold Submariner. Tiffany signed. It was the 1970s and, at the time, Tiffany had a Rolex boutique. He still has that watch, Iâve seen it in person. Itâs, like, âwowâ. And then I end the section with a more modern picture. Roger Federer is an icon for everybody â but heâs probably the most iconic Rolex ambassador to date.
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Seel and gold Oyster GMT-Master with dark grey dial with ruby and diamond markers, nicknamed âSerti dialâ, Mercedes hands, brown rotating 24hr bezel and rounded crown guards (1991) |
Tell us about the two new sections in the book, on Tiffany dials and "tropical" dials.
So, theyâre entirely new. When you handle watches every day, you can get a little bit immune to their impact sometimes, and people donât necessarily understand what youâre talking about when you get into some of the specific subsections of collecting.
The word âtropicalâ is now, I think, more widely understood. But there was still sometimes a misunderstanding about whether they were made this way, or how they got this colour. A "tropical" dial is a rare phenomenon. It has been created naturally through environmental conditions. Rolex never made these watches like that. There's a spread in the book showing two watches put together for comparison: the black version, which is how it was made, versus what happened to it in extreme conditions. It doesnât have to be an actual tropical environment. It basically just means theyâve been a bit bashed about and weathered.
Everyone used to use the word âpatinaâ â but thatâs a very Americanised term. I think this âtropicalâ word is a bit more realistic in terms of what happened to them. |
A spread from the "Stella & Stone" section |
What makes something "tropical" as opposed to something that's just been trashed?
If you have a watch which is black on black âso black insert, black bezel, black dial â but itâs just a bit smashed around, and nothingâs really changed, itâs just not in great condition. Thatâs not a tropical dial. But if itâs changed to brown, then it is. So, you get these really, really unique vintage pieces. In vintage Rolex especially itâs very hard to use the word âuniqueâ, because obviously, there is no one unique watch. I mean, yes â there are one or two. But these are unique because no one watch has weathered in the same way.
And they command quite the premium, right?
People now collect them and ask for them âwhich they didnât before. It was one of these watch insider terms, which I was using all the time. And Iâm obsessed with them because I love how they change in colour. You can pair them with crocodile straps or other different straps, which bring out the colour even more. Obviously, theyâre not an âentry-levelâ watch. Theyâre quite expensive. They will command a premium of three or four times their original counterpart.
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Platinum Oyster Day-Date with blue dial and bespoke sapphire baguette markers with Octopus platinum bracelet set with sapphire baguettes and brilliant-cut diamonds.Made for Adnan Khashoggi and Initialed A.K (1977) |
What about the Tiffany & Co Rolexes?
Tiffany as a brand, in the periods that we cover, is the epitome of luxury. To bring it together with another superbrand like Rolex... I would say itâs one of the most epic co-branding exercises in history. Nowadays, itâs common to bring two brands together. But it wasnât that common back then. And again, with Bruceâs images, he shoots them live. So, when you see four watches on a page together, theyâve been photographed next to each other, in the exact same format. I had them in my hand at the same time, and thatâs what they look like. Itâs real. You might think itâs Photoshop. But when you start looking at the angles and the reflections, itâs impossible. So, Iâm really proud of those.
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18ct gold Oyster Day-Date with diamond baguette bezel and green lacquer dial and full diamond baguette markers (1993) |
Do you think Rolex paying attention to what youâre doing at the shop?
Yes. I think there are two things. There was a demand from all of the retailers to give them something to sell. Because post-Covid, itâs become the norm to walk into a boutique and see the signs: âFor Exhibition Onlyâ [Referring to display watches that arenât for sale â a policy thatâs drawn criticism for limiting access and highlighting the brandâs ongoing supply constraint]. I mean, who had ever heard of that term before?
And I think that steered them to the pre-owned, second-hand market, where they had to allow retailers to sell something, otherwise how would they carry on?
Now, with every new model released, thereâs a definite hark back to its original version. The new Land-Dweller, for instance, definitely references the Oysterquartz [Rolex produced quartz models, called Oysterquartz, from 1977 to around 2001. The 2025 Land-Dweller drew comparisons to these watches with its integrated bracelet and angular case design].
Theyâre definitely revelling in their past more than they ever used to, when I first started. Youâd never have seen them selling a new GMT and referencing the first one that came out in 1955. Or the Explorer with its history going up Everest. Now, every post they put out on Instagram has history attached to it. Thatâs amazing. And if a new watch, an updated version of an old watch, comes out, then obviously it puts the spotlight back on the vintage and pushes the price up. Absolutely automatic. And the Day-Date, 36mm, colourful pieces â 100 per cent theyâre coming back into their collection.
Theyâre also looking at more vibrant colours, lots of stonework, and off-catalogue pieces that go back to the vintage era in the 1980s, when you could contact your region and get something customised quite specifically to you. Those Sultan of Oman pieces with the rainbow bezels âthose very elaborate pieces â would have had to have been ordered. [The "Sultan of Oman" Rolexes are a series of custom models commissioned by Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the former ruler of Oman and a Rolex nut, sometimes featuring the Omani Khanjar crest or the Sultan's signature. They were often given as gifts or presented to individuals by the Sultan.]
They werenât looking at those five years ago, or ten years ago. |
Two very rare Oyster Cosmograph Daytonas from the "Sport" section |
Rolex has recently started selling old watches itself, via it's Certified Pre-Owned scheme. Is that competition for you?
This area is so complicated, and knowledge is so necessary, that Rolex â and most people â stick to watches that are 10 to 15 years old. So Iâm not sure we overlap very much at all. Every time I walk around a boutique, or anywhere I travel, I donât see collections of the volume that we carry. They donât have the variety, or the earlier models. Theyâre what I call '"forecourt" watches. You know, you go into Mercedes, and you only get to see the newest ones â two or three years old on the forecourt.
Thatâs a good comparison.
But the difference with watches is, theyâre now selling them at a premium â thatâs not how the car market works. I think people have slightly misunderstood why Rolex watches are expensive â in their own shops.
What could other brands learn from Rolex? Marketing. You mean in terms of its brand ambassadors?
In terms of everything. How do they continue to be the most coveted brand in the world? Itâs extraordinary. Also, they have a quiet arrogance, which is admirable. Take Formula One as an example â theyâre above it. Theyâre not going to bid [after years as the sponsor, this year Rolex seeded the rights to the sport to Tag Heuer]. Theyâre above it. âIf you donât want us and you want someone else, then goodbye.â When Bernie Ecclestone first negotiated that deal, that was an iconic tie-up. It made absolute sense, historically, for Rolex and Formula One to be together. Now Formula One was so desperate for an extra hundred million, or whatever it was, that it went down a tier in terms of branding. Rolex is not interested in that game, and I admire that.
Wimbledon â all the things they choose to associate with are top of the tree. I think itâs very, very clever. Itâs amazing for a brand to permeate the entire world â generations, sexes, nationalities, colours, creeds. I canât think of anything else at that level so powerful. |
Tonneau watch with luminous hands and numerals.
Mechanical movement (1924) |
How have you seen the Rolex customer change?
I think the customer is younger. The demographics are different, regionally. In the Middle East, where people are ânew obsessedâ in everything and they have to have the newest, theyâve come around to understanding that the rarest and more unique is the way forward. So, itâs no longer necessary to flex with a brand-new handbag or watch. The quiet flex is showing something on the wrist that no one else knows about, or has seen before. Thatâs more intriguing. And thatâs for men and women.
And for young people â where an 18-year-old might have once coveted a brand-new watch as their first watch for a birthday or graduation â it's now very common for that to be replaced by a vintage watch from their birth year. Something that will grow old with them and marks a point in time in life. I think thatâs really special. |
Steel Cosmograph Daytona (printed in red) with âexoticâ ivory dial, black subsidiary dials, black tachymeter-engraved bezel and pump pushers. Mechanical movement (1967) |
And how have prices changed?
Just âupâ. [Laughs]
Go on.
Theyâve only gone one way. Now more than ever. And I always say to everybody: the turning point in the vintage market was the sale of Paul Newmanâs own âPaul Newmanâ watch in 2017 [it sold for $17.8 million making it the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at the time].
It seems such a long time ago, but it put vintage Rolex on the front page of every newspaper worldwide in a way that had never been done before. And it did for watches what Elizabeth Taylor did for jewellery. Thatâs the only comparison I can ever make. They are on a par. Paul Newman is to the watch world â not just to Rolex, to the whole watch world â what Elizabeth Taylor was to jewellery. Because he's so iconic. Whatâs the biggest mistake people make when buying vintage Rolex?
Asking what the rarest watch is.
Because they should just buy what they like?
Yeah. Theyâre buying something they donât like, or theyâre never going to wear. A major mistake. Fundamentally wrong. In my opinion. When you look at the book, youâre looking at it visually, arenât you? Going through it going, âOh, I like that, I donât like that, oh, thatâs oddâŚâ So, if I said to you, the front cover is the rarest watch ever produced, you might say, âWell, I hate purple.â So, whatâs the point?
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How many watches from your own collection have made it into the book?
The ones that are on my wrist. So, on the back cover is the "Paul Newman", which Iâm known to be knocking around wearing on my Instagram. Also the GMT is my watch [another photo shows Silver tossing a vintage GMT-Master in the air, outside the shop]
and the green tropical Submariner â which was my biggest ever social media moment. [A 1988 18ct yellow gold model with a "tropical" green dial]. Itâs an absolutely unique, iconic colour. Iâve never seen anything like it in that tone. It was blue â the colour of bezel â and itâs gone this kind of seafoam green, or some other green. Funnily enough, the part of the book that took the longest was colour â when you had to describe something. Iâd sit here with my book designer endlessly and say, âDo you want to call that sky blue? Or light blue?â |
"The most important box of Stella dials in the world" |
Whoâs the most surprising person whoâs bought a watch from you?
I think people would be surprised by the breadth of desirability for these pieces. Actors, actresses, politicians, members of royal families worldwide â everyoneâs kind of in the same genre of being obsessed. Itâs like collecting art, or anything else. Itâs really become collectable.
The box of Stella dials in the Stella section is real [a box of 15 gold Day-Dates, above]. I created that for somebody. I helped them get all those tones and colours. But thatâs not a one-day job â thatâs probably, for this particular person, over 15 years.
So⌠surprising people? That can be down to age. I remember a 13-year-old coming in, absolutely obsessed with watches, and his parents buying him something he would treasure forever. They donât have to be expensive watches. At the time, it was an Oyster âit might have been ÂŁ2,000. So thatâs surprising. The watch industry as a whole is an interesting one. Itâs coveted by so many different people. That is the fun of watches, isnât it? For this newsletter, I've spoken to everyone from wrestlers to musicians to bosses of ÂŁ30m companies.
Yaah. Weâre discussing this for a predominantly male audience, for Esquire. But the female audience, for me, is very, very strong as well â more than most watch brands. Itâs close to 50/50.
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A Rolex for every day of the week |
Do you get tempted to keep watches for yourself?
Weâre so far down the line that weâve missed that train. Thatâs the thing. My father and I sit and go through the book thinking, âItâs extraordinary what weâve had â and what the price would be nowâ.
Openly, some of these watches would be unaffordable to buy today.
This Paul Newman section at the back [of the book]⌠we would be unable, nowadays, to hold the collection we used to hold. The window âas youâve seen walking past many times â has a few hundred pieces there. To keep that window going versus ten years ago, itâs probably five times the cost, if we were going to put the same exact, identical pieces in it.
Watches that might have sold for a quarter of a million pounds in the "Paul Newman" Daytona section, when we had them, would now be pushing a million each. Itâs significant stock. You can drive yourself crazy thinking âIf only Iâd kept hold of that one..." Well, exactly.
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Steel Oyster with fluted steel bezel, bronze dial with Roman numerals and diamond markers (2009) |
Are there watches youâre still hunting for?
Colours. For me, I still get surprised by a Stella dial, or a tone of colour Iâve never seen before. In terms of âgrailâ watches â I think Iâm lucky enough to be able to say that anything Iâve wanted, Iâve been able to have over the years. So, if itâs not in the book, then I didnât honestly want it. Thatâs the truth. People will say there are gaps [in the book]. Thatâs for a reason.
Whoâs trickier to deal with: celebrities, hardcore buyers or first-timers with too much cash to spend?
Itâs people who obsess about minute details. Thatâs not to say thereâs anything wrong with that â but theyâre not necessarily my customer. People have to understand that this store and collection is a hand-picked, hand-curated selection of watches for an audience that understands style and design. Itâs not about the âengineâ [ie: the movement] so much here.
If youâre too obsessed with those details, I donât think youâre going to enjoy the experience as much as someone else being here. Because weâre not that type of store. Here, it really is about: âHave you seen this colour before?â
People will spend five minutes buying a watch, then an hour choosing the colour of the strap that matches identically their wardrobe. Not to say that in a comical way â but thatâs the truth. |
18ct yellow gold Oyster Day-Date with diamond bezel and shoulders and jumbo diamond-encrusted dial with ruby hour markers (2000) |
Do you have regulars over the years who come in and try and sell you back the watches you sold them? If so, how do you deal with that?
Not as much as weâd like! Ultimately, no. Because hereâs the thing: the nice thing about the way the introduction to the book is written is that it coincides with world events. Because whatâs going on with Rolex should be set alongside whatever was going on in the world at that time â wars, outbreaks, regional problems, innovation.
Going through financial crises, Covid, and all these unique events... the last thing on peopleâs list to sell is a coveted watch that they know they canât replace. The modern watch world has experienced those boom-and-bust times â nowhere more visibly than the post-Covid collapse, those extraordinary prices of modern Patek Philippe, Rolex and Audemars. [Luxury watch prices surged after Covid due to supply shortages and speculative demand, but began falling in 2022 as economic uncertainty correct the spike.]
The vintage market is much more stable and much more immune to that, because the customer profile is so different. |
18ct yellow gold Oyster Day-Date with fluted bezel and purple lacquer dial (1986) |
Whatâs the largest amount of money youâve seen change hands in a single day in the shop?
[Laughs] You know⌠a jaw-dropping amount.
Yes?
Okay â Iâll put it historically. I remember writing an invoice for my then most expensive watch â maybe 20 years ago. I think it was ÂŁ19,500. My wrist was shaking. Those moments exist. And they push you, drive you to understand the ability to sell luxury products â and upgrade. Thatâs something weâve knowingly done over the last five years, since the last book â weâve upgraded the collection. We are operating at a higher level now than we used to, in terms of individual pieces, rarity, and so on. It is now much more commonplace for us to sell watches at ÂŁ100,000 each than it was five years ago. And people buy more than one.
How do you persuade them to do that?
The likelihood of not seeing it again. Unfortunately, weâre the best and worst place to come for buying! Donât come here if you think youâre only going to see one of something. You turn up in stores most of the time, and itâs a rare occasion to see one vintage piece. If you come here â Iâm sorry for you â but Iâm going to try and show you a range.
If I had a fashion store, like I used to, thatâs my heritage â I was working in fashion from age 16 â Iâd have a range of 20 t-shirts, every colour, every size. Thatâs what we do here. So, if Iâm going to show you a Day-Date, Iâve got to show you all the different options. A 6263 Daytona comes in four steel combinations and four gold ones â Iâm going to show them all to you. And some people canât wait. They want all four. |
London's Burlington Arcade, 2006 |
From my own experience, I know how much you love to get pieces out of the window and show them off. People look at the window and think, âWhy have they got so many? Why do they display them like that?â Modern watch windows typically have one watch in a space the size of any other personâs entire shop front. Thatâs not our style.
Thereâs a retail term â âcritical massâ â where you get to a point that you have such a large collection of something that the mass produces the impact and forces the collection to be viewed and sold. They do tours in the Burlington Arcade, and on them they show that the marble under our window has degraded more than anywhere else. Thereâs barely anything left of it, its collapsed â because the traffic is so high outside our window. People walk past, do a double take, and walk back. And thatâs on purpose. Thatâs the attraction of the window. Youâve seen it. Youâve seen how many people are constantly looking. Even if youâre not buying, to look in the window is a marvel. Rolex is one brand with that breadth of range to gawp at. I am a huge advocate for it. No one will ever find a better exponent of the brand than me. Iâm obsessed with it. Iâm not obsessed with watches â just Rolex. |
Steel Oyster Milgauss with honeycomb black silver dial and sword hands, with red lightning bolt second hand (1956)
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On that note, is there a model you personally consider ugly, but you stock it because it does well?
There are things we do not do. The Cellini range, for example, from the earlier period â is something thatâs not popular. [The underloved Cellini dress watch was introduced in 1968, and finally retired in 2022/3.]
Then the quartz era. Generally, quartz and Rolex never sat well together. People didnât want to buy a battery-powered watch from a fine watchmaker.
It wasnât the shape â it was the movement. Now theyâve created that shape again in the Land-Dweller series, and marketed it brilliantly â it was on Roger Federerâs wrist the week before it was even released. Genius. Do I like it? I donât know â I havenât worn it. Do I like the quartz versions? No. Will I stock them? No.
Do you ever get emotional over a watch, or is it strictly business now?
My father has a stock phrase: âWe are unemotional.â ie: everything is for sale, ultimately. And I think thatâs true. Iâm the same. Iâm not going to say, âI can never let this go.â Because where do you draw the line? Thereâs so much argument for everything in here.
I get emotional if I donât get to buy something â I might have a mini tantrum. But, ultimately, Iâve had the freedom that my buying is unrestricted. As a team, father and son, my father never doesnât back me. Thatâs a good combination. To be able to have the grey hairs of business experience, plus my obsessive, 24-hour buying.
The world is open now 24 hours to me be now â people are WhatsApping me all the time. My father has this mantra: the day you refuse a watch, you should close the store. Because if you canât financially control yourself and buy the rare things all the time, youâve done something wrong. So we never refuse something because we canât buy it. It would be for another reason. |
18ct yellow gold Oyster Veriflat with champagne dial, gilt hands and batons and subsidiary second hand. Mechanical movement (1958) |
Whatâs the tallest tale a customer has told you, when trying to sell you a watch?
Itâs not so much a tale â but I had this extraordinary experience that always stands out in my mind. An elderly lady came in with many, many Sainsburyâs bags â things to sell, loads of watches. And with the greatest humility, Iâm standing there, watching each bag be opened, with each watch coming out wrapped in tissue. Endless. Unfortunately, each one being pretty much worthless.
Then, after about 25 watches, I said, âIâm not 100 per cent sure thereâs going to be anything â we only deal in Rolex.â And she said, âWell, I think there is something in the bottom of this bag.â She pulled out one of the rarest watches ever â a military-issued Submariner. Someone in her family mustâve been in the forces. Theyâre extremely rare, marked with a âTâ letter written on the base of the dial, on a military strap. So that was extraordinary. Patience is the buzzword. Always let people waste your time â because you never know. She ended up receiving a life-changing amount of money, and we had to sit down on a chair and have a cup of tea. |
18ct yellow gold Oyster Day-Date with smooth bezel and pyramid lapis lazuli stone dial and diamond markers (1996) |
Is there a type of customer you can tell will be a nightmare even before they open their mouth?
Iâll be honest with you â the people around the people are the problem. So, if you are expecting someone to come, and theyâre a "notable", meeting them is often a joy. But itâs the people around them, who somehow assume fame on their behalf. Youâll know this more than anyone.
The PRs and the handlers.
Exactly. Theyâre trying to create that allure. But if you canât come to the store, weâre not interested. Thatâs been a discipline. Weâve only ever left the shop once, in 30 years, to visit somebody that we wanted to meet. Otherwise, heads of state, royalty, President Clinton and his huge cavalcade can roll down Burlington Arcade.
And thatâs happened? Many times. Most Christmases. You know Iâm going to ask you who the person you left the shop to meet was. [Pause] Jennifer Aniston.
I wasn't expecting that answer. When I was very young. In London?
In the Dorchester. And she opened the door to her suite herself. |
18ct yellow gold Oyster Datejust with houndstooth, diamond dial and black date (1990) |
Apart from money, whatâs the most insane thing someoneâs offered you as part of a deal for a watch?
[Laughs] Probably two weeks in their villa.
Did you say yes? No! We didnât want to get involved in that kind of deal. Our view is that they should throw that in anyway, for being allowed to buy something extremely rare.
If you werenât dealing in Rolexes, is there a back-up passion? Cars? Art? From a young age, I wanted to be a chef. Can you cook?
Yeah. I once had my own restaurant. So, meeting certain chefs over the years has been quite something. Paul Smith is a mentor of mine â I worked for him from the age of 16. I probably wouldâve stayed there had I not come here.
Theyâre my main passions, I would say. I was in a real estate job before this, not really enjoying myself. That quote at the front of the book â âLove what you do and youâll never work a day in your lifeâ â I firmly believe that. I say that to my children. I say that to anybody.
If youâre lucky enough to pursue a passion and make a living from it, thatâs an amazing achievement. In any walk of life. So please find something that youâre passionate about and try to do it. Because youâll be more successful. |
Shining bright: David Silver |
And youâre sticking with Rolex?
I have the passion more than ever. What excites me is how many people are entering the market now. That constant âwhoâs going to walk through the door today?â vibe. Weâre a mini, mini, mini fraction of the market. Thatâs what the books do â expose me and the store to a new audience. And Iâm lucky and grateful for that. The book is sitting in homes of people whoâve never bought from me â and maybe never will â and still admire and appreciate what we do.
When the book is stacked on top of Tom Ford, or other icons I admire, thatâs something quite special. So I feel very proud.
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As Iâve mentioned elsewhere, podcasts about watches are maybe an odd idea.
Since watches really need to be handled, or at least seen, to be appreciated, listening to people talk about them might sound even less attractive than reading a weekly newsletter about them. (And with that at least there might be some nice photos.)
Watch podcasts typically fall into one of two camps â reviews of the latest releases, or conversations with industry insiders. Sometimes they do both.
The Watch Enquiry offers something different.
Hosted by Chris Hall and Timothy Barber â Esquire contributors and two of the finest watch writers in the business â the new podcast explores off-diary stories with the depth and flair of world-class longform journalism.
The first two episodes of the first series arrived on Tuesday, and ask âWhat became of the concept watch?â and âWas 1941 Patek Philippeâs most important year?â respectively.
âI think we're both a little creatively stifled by what's on offer in traditional written media â much as we both still love it and make a living by it, there are few opportunities to go as deep into a subject as you can in an hour's conversation,â says Hall.
âEach series will have six to eight episodes of the kind of substantial stories you'd want to read in a heavyweight (in both senses of the term) coffee table publication.â The beauty of the format is that it is so open-ended.
âItâs unconstrained by any concerns other than what we find interesting. We're not wedded to stories about what's happening this week,â says Barber. âWe both like trying to make sense of an industry that enjoys cloaking itself in mystery and grandiose, sometimes oversimplified narratives, so I think you can expect episodes that try and cut through that a little bit.â
Perhaps the nearest comparison are the suite of podcasts made by Goalhanger, in which amiable specialist presenters scrutinise their given subjects with wit and charm, are seldom mean, and wear their considerable knowledge lightly.
The Rest Is Horology, anyone? âThere are some episodes that are a bit less serious,â advises Hall. âWeâve taken a look at what we think are the craziest complications of all time, for example.
"Because deep down we still absolutely love what the watch industry can create.â |
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Tudor Black Bay Chrono "Carbon 25" |
Tudor's most recent releases have either been colourful, hype-y limited editions, or sports-centric tool watches.
There was the pink one, the blue one and the boats one.
Yesterday the brand announced a new watch that sits somewhere between the two.
The Black Bay Chrono âCarbon 25â is a 42mm motorsport-inspired statement piece crafted from carbon fibre with PVD-coated titanium accents. Limited to 2,025 pieces and powered by the COSC-certified MT5813 movement, it combines solid performance with eye-catching design, including a domed white dial accented in blue and carbon. It will set you back ÂŁ6,260. |
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HUBLOT TEAMS UP WITH CHOUPETTE THE CAT |
| HOW CHRISTOPHER WARD MADE ITS NEW "LOCO" WATCH |
Full steam ahead for the British watchmaker.
Read more |
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THE 58 BEST WATCHES A MAN CAN BUY IN 2025 |
| PANERAI'S NEW WATCH COMES WITH MILITARY TRAINING |
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Images: The Vintage Watch Company; Johnny Davis; Tudor |
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Remember: A gentleman's choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Savile Row suit
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