Demystifying: Vintage Watches—four of the best minds in the industry share their insights for building a vintage watch collection the smart way

Having swam in the deep end of the vintage watch world for so long (it occurs to me that A Man & His Watch will be turning 8 years old this fall! A Man & His Watch 2 is coming—stay tuned!), it’s easy to forget just how daunting that scene can be for those who haven’t already spent years of their life obsessing over it. Plus, vintage watches seem to be hotter than ever, thanks to social media and all the new ways to sell online. While that’s something worth celebrating (I’m not a fan of gatekeeping myself), it also means that there will be a lot of folks who wind up disappointed not having fully understood what they were buying into, or in rare cases, getting ripped off.

For all these reasons and more, I lit up the vintage watch Bat Signal and got four of my favorite names in the business to answer the call: Analog:Shift founder James Lamdin, Sotheby's Watches Specialist Vincent Brasesco, Tropical Watch owner Jacek Kozubek, and Craft + Tailored CEO Cameron Barr. 

We’ve collected their answers to a survey touching on everything from smart sourcing methods to rookie mistakes to what pieces they currently rate as “buy” or “sell” (you might be surprised!). We’ve got a real deep dive today, so find yourself a comfortable spot, maybe with a coffee or a cocktail (depending on your reading schedule!) and click here to enjoy.

For more stories from Bulletin 42, sign up for the WM Brown Weekly.