I’ve always been drawn to the obscure, the vintage, and the well-worn.

I worked in various antique shops when I was living on the East Coast during college. What started as just unloading trucks, quickly became a deep interest in furniture and the history and purpose of vintage objects. I remember learning so much about the world through those experiences and thinking what a fascinating way to learn it was.

Fast forward to 2012 and a few career moves, much like many of the collectors that came up in these years, I was reading every Hodinkee article as if it was the single most important publication to ever exist. Between that and forums, I learned so much! I quickly started buying and making some fantastic mistakes.

“What’s Selling Where” by Eric Wind (@ericwind) was at the top of my weekly scouring and educational activity. I would eventually have the chance to meet Eric in 2018 in NYC. That was rad!

Where my collecting was originally tied to affordable vintage and a vast array, it has evolved into more concise group of unaffordable vintage and a few select modern pieces such as the 2021 Speedmaster 3861 Hesalite.

Like many, through my early affordable vintage days, I was better at digging deeper and exploring more; because of my inexperience, I had to be more resourceful. One important discovery I made was my first Aquastar 63 in 2018. It came from South America via eBay. It was mint, nearly unworn. Once I received the watch, upon close inspection, I saw attached to the bottom tail of the original Tropic strap a Celsius thermometer. It was about the size of a button and was clearly well made. It had some fantastic heft to it. I looked closer and saw “Aquastar” printed near the dial indicator and “Swiss” underneath. The rest is history! It was a mind-blowing piece of ephemera that has impacted my collecting significantly.