Ben Clymer

I think there's something beautiful in that, that kind of symbiotic relationship between the device and the man.

And it's just a wonderful kind of totem to a different way of living.

That has become ever-present, and I think more so now than ever before.

Just speaking of my own experience, 15 years ago, when I started Houdini, nobody knew what a vintage Rolex was.

We were, if I may say, we were the first people to give any attention at scale to vintage Rolex and collectible Rolexes.

Basically, if you went to an auction, Christie Sotheby's auction in New York, there would be about seven dealers in there and they would just be buying and selling amongst themselves.

Now you go and it's a black tie affair with champagne and several well-known personalities from entertainment and sports are sitting in the audience.

It's a totally different thing.

Again, we can talk about the origins of Rolex and how they were at the forefront of this.

They were effectively the first people to have real marketing dollars put behind a watch.

There were people that ran ads here and there.

Longines was a big one with Charles Lindbergh.

But Rolex did it in a concerted way.

And they have continued to do that in a way that is simply just unmatched by others.

And I think what's so remarkable, Rolex was always the number one brand in the United States, historically speaking, from the 1950s to today.

But if you look back, say, I don't know,

15, 16 years.

So pre-2008.

So the financial crisis of 2008, which is actually how I started when this all kind of came to be, was a real turning point for Rolex in the US because when all the other brands, their competitors being Omega, which is a huge, huge brand, Tag Heuer, which is a good sized brand, the folks that you would think,

They were there.