René Rondeau on Building a Great Watch Collection

This week's post is by my good friend and fellow watch dealer/collector/historian René Rondeau on becoming a serious watch collector and building a great watch collection.

For those of you who may not know René, he is the one who, literally, wrote the book on Hamilton electric watches ... four of them to be precise. His latest edition of The Watch of the Future: The Story of the Hamilton Electric Watch, published in 2006, stands as the definitive reference guide to these amazing timepieces. In 1999, he also published Hamilton Wristwatches: A Collector's Guide, which stands to this day as the definitive reference on mechanical Hamilton wristwatches.

I've known René for the better part of 30 years, and I've always considered him a mentor figure. I have always admired, and tried to emulate, his business model of providing education along with the watch. Back in the days (1980s) before the Internet, René's paper catalogs were like no other. While other watch dealers would cram 50 and sometimes 100 watches into a couple of sheets of paper, with each watch maybe having a one-line description, René's catalog would have maybe 10-12 watches, with a half to full page of text describing every watch. It's a model that continued when René switched over to his website.

I have also endeavored to follow René's example of constant learning. Both René and I are perpetual students of horology and have been frequent visitors, among other places, to the NAWCC Library and Research Center in Columbia, Pa. You can never know too much about watches and their history. It's a lifelong learning process, and after nearly 30 years in this business I continue to be amazed and fascinated at new discoveries.

And most of all, I have tried to follow René's lead of impeccable integrity. Sure, we both love to "talk up" the watches we sell. But we never represent a watch as something it's not. And if the customer is not satisfied, we do everything within reason (and sometimes outside reason!) to make it right. René knows that the vintage watch business is a pretty small world. You live and die by your reputation, and it simply doesn't pay to start cutting corners; word gets out pretty quickly! Conversely, if you're good and treat people right, word gets out just as quickly. I have seen this time and again in René's business, and have tried my best to follow his example.

I recently asked René to reflect on his years both as a collector and dealer, and offer some tips on becoming a serious collector and building a great watch collection.

René in his workshop. This is a video still from a 2012
appearance on CBS Sunday Morning.

Here is what he had to say:

* Buy what you like. Pay no attention to what people say you should like. Your own taste is the guiding force.

* Become educated. As they say in coin collecting, "buy the book, then the coin". Knowledge really is power, and with all the great books out there, and the wealth of information on the Internet, there's no excuse for not learning as much as possible about anything you choose to collect.

* Focus. This is the hardest part, at least in the beginning. It's typical to start out scattershot, accumulating rather than collecting. But after a while your tastes will become refined. You'll find the area that holds more interest than others. Once you have found what truly inspires you, focus on that. Sell off less interesting pieces to finance acquisitions in your now-defined chief area of interest.

* To the best of your ability, always buy the best you can afford. Rare pieces tend to hold their value best. Common pieces are always common. Quality should be the goal, not quantity.

* Plan to upgrade. You have two ways to go if you're hunting a very scarce or rare piece: accept only perfection, and expect to hunt for a long time before finding your grail; or be willing to accept minor flaws like case wear, dial refinishing, etc., at least if the price is fair and reflects the condition, and be able to enjoy owning it while you continue your quest for a finer example. When a better one comes along, upgrade and sell off your lesser example. I spent my entire collecting career doing this. I'd rather own a less than mint example of a rare watch than to not have it at all. Sooner or later a chance to get the perfect one will come.

* Focusing doesn't necessarily mean limiting yourself to a single brand, or single type, as I chose to do when I became seduced by Hamilton Electrics. I know a lot of people who collect all types of early electrics. Or people could focus on certain shapes, or mechanical complications, or lesser-known watchmakers, or any of a thousand things that prove to be their chief area of interest. It all comes back to the difference between accumulating and collecting. We all start as accumulators; the 'eureka moment' where a more limited area of interest comes at different times for different people, but sooner or later I think everyone does find a focus, and that's when it really gets to be fun.

* And I think most collectors would agree that the thrill of the hunt is often the most enjoyable part.

Thanks, René!

Sincerely,

Bruce Shawkey

Visit Bruce's Vintage Watches

A Bevy of Bulovas

Continuing my search for inexpensive wristwatches, I did a little "horsetrading" a couple days ago with a collector friend who lives in nearby Rockford, Ill., who is a pocket watch enthusiast. I always keep a few inexpensive pocket watches around (usually part of "package deals") so I can work such trades. I went through this guy's "junk box" and came up with four Bulova wristwatches:

The one on the left I believe has the original band with it, and runs. The second one is a rare Academy Award model from 1953, also with original bracelet. It needs a cleaning. The third one is a "His Excellency" from 1949, running, with a 21 jewel movement. All three are gold filled cases, front and back, and in excellent condition. All have their original signed crowns. The last one is a stainless steel Art Deco styled "Senator" with a 15 jewel Caliber 10AE movement manufactured in 1936, gauged by the box-shape emblem engraved on the movement plate.

With what I traded the guy, I figure I have $20 apiece into the Bulovas. The stainless Senator should be an easy $100 sale all by itself, no work involved. With a $35 cleaning, the Academy award should bring $150-$200. The other two gold-filled Bulovas I will probably sell on eBay as resto projects. With their blemished dials, it will probably cost more to restore them than will bring.

So all in all, a good haul, and I'm sure my friend is happy with his two pocket watches.

Bulova watches are a budget watch collector's bonanza. They are plentiful, reasonably priced (most models anyway) and parts are readily available.

Joseph Bulova, a Czech immigrant, founded the company in 1875. Only 23 years old at the time, Bulova opened a modest jewelry shop in New York City. Initially, Bulova sold mainly pocket watches and other jewelry, but over time he expanded his line of products. He was manufacturing and selling his own desk clocks and other timepieces by 1911, the year he incorporated the operation as J. Bulova Company. By that time, Bulova's pocket watches had already attained a reputation for excellence, and New Yorkers bought them as fast as he could make them.

In 1919, Bulova introduced the first full line of jeweled wristwatches for men. In 1926, the company sponsored the first nationally broadcast radio spot commercials, featuring the immortal "At the tone, it's 8 p.m., B-U-L-O-V-A Bulova watch time" tag line. Bulova began selling the world's first clock radio two years later, and continued to make them into the 1960s. Meanwhile, the company's name was changed to Bulova Watch Company, Inc., reflecting the growing role of Arde Bulova, Joseph's son, in the firm's management. Arde Bulova, along with his head of sales, the brilliant John H. Ballard, are responsible for taking Bulova from a relatively small company to one of the world's largest watch companies. Though always based in the United States, Bulova is considered a Swiss watch, since nearly all their movements were imported from Switzerland, and then cased and timed in the United States.

Bulova continued to innovate in the areas of marketing and advertising over the decades that followed. The company launched the first million-dollar advertising campaign the watch industry had seen in 1931. Ten years later, Bulova aired the world's first television commercial. Broadcast just before a 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game, the advertisement showed a simple picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States. The message was simply "America runs on Bulova time."

Some people denigrate Bulova, saying they are all too common to be considered collectible. But Bulova has its legions of fans, and in fact there are two websites devoted exclusively to Bulova watches. One is My Bulova, and the other is Watchophilia.

Cheers,

Bruce

Mid Winter Regional Draws Fewer Dealers/Collectors

DAYTONA BEACH -- Wintery weather in many parts of the country may have played a factor in what many people were calling the most lightly attended Mid Winter Regional in memory. Two full days of the World Wide Traders (WWT) collectibles show also may have diluted attendance, especially among wristwatch folks, in what was, once upon a time, the largest regional show of the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors (NAWCC).

I arrived at the Plaza Resort & Spa Monday afternoon Feb. 10 to temps in the '70s, and promptly stripped down to cargo shorts and T-Shirt, and walked down to the Daytona Beach Pier and had an early dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. All of it was a welcome relief from sub-zero temperatures in Wisconsin.

The first day of the WWT show netted me three Omega Seamasters from collector/trader (he doesn't consider himself a dealer!) Keith Yarbrough, of Dalton, Georgia. We had agreed to meet ahead of time via email and telephone, and there is a good tip right there: It often pays to set up meetings with contacts ahead of time if you are both going to a certain show. This provides a good "ace in the hole" if the pickins' are slim. I also picked up an Elgin watch from one of my repair people. It's an oversize model with two-tone gold filled case from the 1930s, and I have never soon one like it. When I bought it, it was missing the bezel, and this fellow manufactured a bezel for me out of sterling silver. I have the hands for it back home, where I will complete re-assembly:

I also picked up two Hamilton electric watches that were repaired by Jarett Harkness of Longview Texas. These were a Summit II, and a Nautilus in one-piece stainless case. (I subsequently sold the Summit II at the NAWCC show on Friday). 

Summit II (left) and Nautilus

Jarett is an extremely nice fellow who runs a website, and also repairs Hamilton electric watches, having tutored under the great René Rondeau (René will be doing a guest post on this blog, by the way).

Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of dining with Fred and Joy Friedberg at nearby Anna's Trattoria (wonderful place, by the way). We talked mostly about Fred's new book on the Illinois Watch Co. that will be published by Schiffer sometime mid-year 2015. This is Fred's second book on the topic, the first one being published in 2005. You might ask yourself, "What else could be said about Illinois after the first book?" And the answer is "plenty." This book will focus less on the watches (though there will be plenty of info, including newly discovered models) and more on the company. Specifically, what happened when Hamilton bought Illinois in 1928, and closed it in 1932. The story is a lot more involved than originally thought, and involved a TON of original, forensic-style research through newspapers and trade journal archives.

Another good chunk of the book is devoted to the period during the 1950s when Hamilton introduced (and then quickly withdrew) the Hamilton-Illinois wristwatch models. The big question: Would the Illinois Watch Co. have survived had it been left to run on its own? I don't want to ruin the surprising answer to that question! You'll have to read the book.

From left: Joy and Fred Friedberg, Bruce Shawkey

The second day of the WWT show yielded two more Omegas, a manual wind, and an automatic, from a dealer I had not met before by the name of Francisco "Frank" Dumenigo, of Coral Gables, Fla. Like me, Frank is into a little bit of everything watch-wise, and is also collects/deals in writing instruments. He is a consummate professional, and a very nice fellow, and I hope to be doing more business with him in the future.

That afternoon (Wednesday) I also met Stan Czubernat (pronounced ZOO-ber-not) for a couple of beers in the Plaza hotel bar, to talk about American WWI trench watches in general. He identified and evaluated six American trench watches that I had brought to the show, and bought three of them. We also talked about Stan's book on WWI Elgin trench watches, which is coming out this summer. I will mention this again when I hear from Stan that the book is near publication. Do not miss it. The book will be the first ever devoted to this sub-genre of watch collecting, and I don't believe it's exaggerating to say it will turn this part of the collecting community on its ear.

Stan enjoying a cold one at the Hoffbrau beer garden in Munich, Germany

Stan is a frequent contributor to the Vintage Watch Forum, as well as running his own blog. He is extremely passionate about American trench watches, having restored over 150 of them to pristine and "as original" condition.

On a couple of non-watch related notes:

1. I'm sorry to report that the Plaza Hotel, long my favorite of the two host hotels for the WWT and NAWCC shows, fell way below standards this year, and forced me to bail after just two nights, and move about 1/4 mile north to a Comfort Inn. The issues/problems with this hotel can no longer be considered "quaint and charming"; they were just a damned nuisance and detracted from the overall experience. Certainly, the regional is about the "show," but at the end of the day you need a comfortable sanctuary in which to recharge your batteries.
2. A pretty serious storm moved through central Florida Wednesday night, and left in its wake temperatures that were colder than originally predicted this week. This makes three years in a row that Daytona has had unseasonably cold weather during the mid-winter regional. Luck of the draw, I guess.

The first day of the NAWCC show proved disastrous, sales-wise. I sold one watch, a 2-register Orloff chronograph with Valjoux 92 movement, that I mentioned in an earlier blog posting. Sold that for 60 bucks. I purchased another Omega Seamaster, an earlier bumper-wind model with gold shell case. That makes six Omegas that I'm coming home with, most of them Seamasters.

An Omega 6-pack!

I also purchased a Vietnam-era military watch with hack set (not sure if it's a Hamilton or Benrus yet):

Vietnam (1967) era miltary watch with hack

And also a beautiful 1930s era Alpina rectangular model with formed movement:

1930s Alpina rectangular wristwatch

I spent Thursday evening with Mike and Pat Porter, of Dayton, Ohio. at their rented condo along Atlantic Blvd. We had lasagna, fried calamari, salad, garlic bread, and strawberry gelato for dessert. Wine with the meal, and coffee with dessert. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal while on this trip. Mike has been a long-time friend and watch source of mine, and we always try to get together for a meal and some watch swapping during this regional.

The final day of the NAWCC show, I attended a morning lecture, Evolution of the Wristwatch: From Wristlets to Wrist Devices, presented by Randy Jaye, who is president of NAWCC Chapter 154 - Daytona Beach, Fla. Randy has done quite a bit of research into the past, present, and future of wristwatches, and has an article in the queue for publication in the NAWCC Watch & Clock Bulletin. Be on the lookout for it.

I sold one additional watch, the Summit II, and on a last pass through the mart room bought a bundled lot of 15 wristwatches for $20 apiece, or $300 for the lot.

eBay meat

This is further evidence of my statement in the home page of this blog that there are still a TON of watches out there that can be had for $50 or less, in this case much less. They were all in nice shape, most of them running, and all were complete with stems/crowns/crystals. All that remains is to "band" them and they will be coming soon to an eBay listing near you. I should easily double my money (or better), and the proceeds can be used to buy a nice watch for myself, or (more likely) pay next month's heating bill.

All in all, a great Regional, and I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures and acquisitions.

Sincerely,


Bruce Shawkey

Diamonds in the Rough -- Working with Pickers

This week's post is about working with "pickers." Pickers are people who comb the flea markets and garage sales in search of items for dealers with whom they have a relationship and whom they trust them to pay a fair price for the items they find, in this instance, wristwatches. Pickers usually have no interest in selling wristwatches at a physical location (consignment shop, antique store, etc.) or online, for a variety of reasons. They want to sell the item(s), and usually for cash, and be done with it. They don't want to monkey around with eBay or with Paypal, or worry about money back guarantees, or IRS Form 1099s.

The Internet culture has definitely taken a toll on the number of pickers out there. There are fewer of them, as more and more are gravitating toward selling their watches "out in the open," despite the drawbacks mentioned. And the pickers who remain are getting smarter about watches, and want more money for them, oftentimes shopping the items around for the best price.

Despite all this, pickers are still out there, and remain an important resource for me, and I encourage people to cultivate this important resource as one more tool for collecting watches on a budget.

Just this week, I met with one of my pickers that I usually see once every couple of months or so. My deal with this guy is that I buy everything he has for sale ... the good, the bad, the ugly. And even beyond into the realm of "fugly," a term which my friend and fellow watch enthusiast, Amy, introduced to me about a week ago. The term is in the urban dictionary if you can't guess what the combination of the words is!

"Fugly" watches, possibly treasures to others!

 I price out the better watches, so he can see and hopefully learn what are the better watches to look for, and then I make him a package price on the "junk" ... the quartz watches, the Timex watches, the fake Rolexes (I always destroy those), the China-made fashion watches, and so forth. These I will resell as "bulk lots" to people who use them for arts and crafts, jewelry making, sculptures, steampunk, etc. This is a relatively new market that has opened up, and I've found it to be a great way to dispose of watches that are of little to no use to the average wristwatch collector. I sell this stuff in 20 pound lots, and usually get about $5 a pound for it. So the moral of the story is don't pass up a deal if you have to take some junk in order to get some good watches. One person's fugly is another's treasure.

Anyway, here are the four best watches I got out of the bunch:

Clockwise, from top left, they are: Bulova Accutron 214; Orloff 2-register chronograph with Valjoux Caliber 92 movement; Zodiac Sea Wolf; and Technos manual wind in all stainless steel case. All together, I paid $150 for these watches. A bargain, I'd say, but fair considering these are in rough, unrestored condition, and considering my picker probably paid $2 apiece, or less, for them. (I never ask him how much he pays for the watch by the way, because it's immaterial. I pay based on what they're worth to me, not based on what he paid for them. The biggest mistake a seller can make when negotiating with a potential buyer is to reveal what he paid for it. If asked, I always reply, "That's not relevant," or some variation thereof.)

The Accutron started right up when I put a new cell in it. And it has the original bracelet. It needs a new crystal, and the sweep second hand occasionally catches on the minute hand (an easy fix). A little spit and polish, and this will easily be a $150 watch.

The Orloff is one of a hundred or more brands from the 1950s that competed for the "entry level" chronograph market. World War II put the chronograph on the map, and everyone from motor sports enthusiasts to armchair adventurers wanted one, whether they had a practical use for it or not. Orloff was an import company, and did not make their own watch movements or cases, but merely bought them from other suppliers, stamped their name on the movements, purchased dials from a dial fabricator, and offered the watches to jewelers who wanted an entry level chronograph of offer their customers. The best thing this watch has going for it is the Valjoux Caliber 92 movement, a well built movement that has found its way into many more well known chronograph brands, including Wakmann, Movado, Zodiac, and even Rolex. The movement appears complete, including pushers and all linkages, and the balance is good. But the movement is not running and needs servicing. This is one of those pieces where the movement is probably worth more if sold by itself for parts. The movement alone should bring a solid $150 the way it sits. A servicing would likely be a zero net gain.

The Sea Wolf is arguably Zodiac's best known watch, and one of this vintage would fetch an easy $400 all fixed up (more if the watch had its original stainless steel bracelet). But it needs a lot of work, including having the dial and hands refinished, and the turning bezel ring replated. There's easily $200 worth of work involved in this, and it may be better to simply sell this one as-is for a hundred bucks or so, and let somebody else worry about restoring it! Want more information about vintage Zodiac watches? The best source is Butch Dunn's website.

The last watch is a Technos. Here's a 1950s ad from them:

Once upon a time (from the 1920s to the early 1970s, with its heyday in the 1950s), Technos was a very visible and respected brand. They used high quality movements, and usually the cases on their sport watches (for which they are probably best known) were all stainless steel, versus cheaper base metal. But the company fell victim to the invasion of cheap throwaway watches. And so far, the brand has not been resurrected. The watch runs, and all it really needs is a new crystal with white (silver colored) reflector ring, which might run $15-$20. This is one of these watches that might have to be "romanced" a bit, but it should bring an easy $100.

So all told, we're looking at around $500 on an initial investment of $150, plus maybe another $30 or $40 spent on crystals, and a little time spent on "spit and polish." I lucked out this time because the Accutron worked. They don't always, and I suppose it would be a good idea in the future to carry an Accutron cell to these meetings. I'll probably flip my guy an extra $50 the next time I see him, which will also go a long way to building trust and loyalty. But all in all, a nice return, whether you're a dealer looking to make some profit, or a collector looking for a nice return on investment and possibly trading one or more of these on a more desired piece.

So any way you look at it. pickers can be a good resource. They can be a little "weird" sometimes due to their lifestyle which is often "off the grid." Maybe not the kind of person you want to take home and introduce to your family. But they recognize and respond to respect just like anyone. Treat them nicely and fairly. Don't "cherry pick" their stuff and leave them with the junk. And a nice meal out (like a breakfast or a lunch) can often work wonders in building a good relationship.

Well, I'm off to Daytona Beach next week for the back-to-back World Wide Trader show and NAWCC Mid-Winter Regional. My next blog entry will be from there.

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