{"id":84843,"date":"2025-12-30T18:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T18:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/84843\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T18:45:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T18:45:25","slug":"48-hours-at-rolliefest-with-the-worlds-top-watch-collectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/84843\/","title":{"rendered":"48 Hours at RollieFest with the World\u2019s Top Watch Collectors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1cf60fed96e9828a272a27d43719b432d2-250926-NYM-RollieFest-137.rsquare.w700.jpg\" class=\"lede-image\" data-content-img=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"700\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>\n                  On the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center, some of the world\u2019s top watch collectors gathered for the two-day RollieFest.<br \/>\n                  Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n              <\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph_prologue text-centered\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhm4v1f000e3b7bs73aat5c@published\" data-word-count=\"14\">This article was featured in New York\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/tags\/one-great-story\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">One Great Story<\/a> newsletter. <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/promo\/sign-up-for-one-great-story.html?itm_source=csitepromo&amp;itm_medium=articlelink&amp;itm_campaign=ogs_tertiary_zone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph_drop-cap\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjde5zb9000i0jfzs8hotquh@published\" data-word-count=\"86\">The Temple of Dendur would be a great set for a disaster movie, I\u2019ve always thought. Maybe an asteroid hits the city. Or a Russian missile. The glass wall shatters, statues crack, history and modernity collide in a room built to air-condition antiquities. Tonight seems as good a night as any to end it all because here, in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are 209 of the world\u2019s top watch collectors, gooning over $15,000 Piagets, $20,000 Cartiers, $50,000 Patek Philippes, and $300,000 Rolexes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7fq000l3b7a4ipqwmic@published\" data-word-count=\"82\">It\u2019s the welcome dinner for the biannual RollieFest, a two-day, invitation-only meet-up of horological enthusiasts, dealers, and influencers where tickets cost $1,500 apiece. Around me, grown men swig negronis and lock arms to snap group selfies with their watches. Rolex Submariners worth $100,000 slide off hairy wrists and get passed around like Eras Tour friendship bracelets. I think, Comrade Mamdani would be appalled. Then again, his mother worked with Rolex in 2004, so maybe he has a soft spot for the brand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7h4000m3b7a7hb6kmdt@published\" data-word-count=\"167\">Some of these men \u2014 and they are mostly men \u2014 are hobbyist collectors, guys with jobs like health-care executive and financial adviser who, when I ask how many watches they own, flash a look of panic. \u201cIs this for print?\u201d one says. \u201cDon\u2019t tell my wife!\u201d Others are very Shark Tank. Linden Lazarus (yes, that\u2019s his real name) is 22 and owns a vintage-watch-reselling company that was reportedly valued at $15 million in 2023. Mike Nouveau, a DJ turned TikTok watchfluencer, proudly shows me his 1967 Patek Philippe Calatrava that he values at $34,000. \u201cThe most special thing is that it\u2019s a black dial, which kind of, like, triples the value of the entire watch because they made a lot of Calatravas with Champagne dials or silver dials. Black always boosts the price of any Patek,\u201d he says. Like a handbag snob rambling about her favorite Chlo\u00e9 Paddingtons and Gucci Jackies, Nouveau could tell me every last detail about the making and provenance of his hardware.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7ir000n3b7ahu3gaxtn@published\" data-word-count=\"100\">Watches have always offered men the chance to queen out about jewelry without seeming too feminine. They are products of complex engineering, consisting of heavy metals and tricky machinery with a clear, dispassionate functionality, a butch toy only other toy-havers can appreciate. A watch guy is likely to collect cars, too, another phallic substitute to whip out at the grand urinal of comparative wealth. Vehicles and timepieces, both mechanical repositories for a sublimated organic lust: Look at the curves on that Porsche 911, the richness of the lapis dial on this Rolex Day-Date. Doesn\u2019t that just \u2026 turn you on?<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7kh000o3b7avw62li3v@published\" data-word-count=\"235\">For a long time, the average yuppie encountered an expensive watch maybe once in a lifetime, perhaps as an anniversary or a graduation gift. But lately, Instagram is clogged with pictures of Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet; Tyler, the Creator; and A$AP Rocky wearing vintage watches, often going rogue with women\u2019s models \u2014 a Cartier Tank here, a steel Panth\u00e8re there. An athlete without an endorsement deal is rare; at the U.S. Open, both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s champions were spoken for: Carlos Alcaraz by Rolex, Aryna Sabalenka by Audemars Piguet. Cross-market collaborations abound: Marni x G-Shock, Casio x A.P.C., Timex x Fortnite. Watches are now something like a $60 billion-plus industry, larger than the entire art market by some estimates, and auction houses such as Sotheby\u2019s, which is underwriting this dinner, have raced to cater to a previously untapped collector class. With art sales wavering this past year, luxury goods like watches and jewelry have been an unexpected but helpful lifeline for the trade. And auctioneers keep breaking records. In December, Phillips sold an F.P.Journe FFC prototype Francis Ford Coppola helped design for $10.8 million, more than twice what his Megalopolis made in its opening weekend. The same week, the Important Watches auction at Sotheby\u2019s totaled $42.8 million, led by the collection of the late financier Robert M. Olmsted, a connoisseur who\u2019d set aside Monday nights to personally wind every one of his clocks and pocket watches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7lr000p3b7ayhjq5bnk@published\" data-word-count=\"90\">Watching the uptick in popularity for fancy timepieces while staring at my naked, impoverished wrists, I\u2019ve been mystified. How did the nerdiest and most prohibitively expensive of hobbies break into the mainstream? A baby Rolex \u2014 an Oyster Perpetual or a Datejust \u2014 might run you $5,000 or $7,000. And even if you had $200,000 to blow, you could not personally walk into a Rolex store and buy a Daytona Le Mans, named for the French car race. Much like purchasing a Birkin, procuring one can be a lengthy process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7n0000q3b7ajwtig7kg@published\" data-word-count=\"109\">Not anyone can get in to RollieFest, either. \u201cI cannot tell you how many people wanted to come to this. I was getting messages from strangers all over the world,\u201d says Geoff Hess, the global head of watches at Sotheby\u2019s who conceived the event in 2019. He reserved those coveted 209 spots for people he knows or follows on Instagram: \u201cIt has to be a trustworthy environment.\u201d We don\u2019t want our Le Mans fondled by Les Randoms. I offer that it\u2019s sort of like getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka\u2019s chocolate factory. \u201cIt\u2019s somewhere between Willy Wonka and La Cosa Nostra,\u201d he says. \u201cBut no one gets whacked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7op000r3b7afrdum6uk@published\" data-word-count=\"86\">The exclusivity, I realize, is part of the sales pitch, including the dad joke about the mob. The men here aren\u2019t just looking to bro out together but to telegraph membership in a higher caste, a kind of Adventurers\u2019 Club without all the animal poaching. \u201cWhat\u2019s amazing about this community is you\u2019re not judged by the value of your collection,\u201d Hess says. \u201cNo, you\u2019re really judged by the stories and the narratives and the thrill of the hunt.\u201d Better a Rollie than an endangered rhino, no?<\/p>\n<p>                      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/f51820a6d3bebebabb0b6aa3fb988f4503-250926-NYM-RollieFest-126.rsquare.w570.jpg\" class=\"img-data\" data-content-img=\"\" width=\"570\" height=\"570\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>                      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3bedd2f5db51eb0971e646da1db397b5fe-250926-NYM-RollieFest-43.rsquare.w570.jpg\" class=\"img-data\" data-content-img=\"\" width=\"570\" height=\"570\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>\n        At a lunch on the second day, collectors displayed millions of dollars\u2019 worth of watches. A Rolex Daytona 6241 ($350,000), a Rolex Daytona 6265 ($200,000), a Rolex Daytona 116588SACO ($300,000), a Rolex Daytona 6241 ($350,000), and a Rolex Pre-Daytona 6238 ($150,000). All prices are estimates. Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine.\n      <\/p>\n<p>\n      At a lunch on the second day, collectors displayed millions of dollars\u2019 worth of watches. A Rolex Daytona 6241 ($350,000), a Rolex Daytona 6265 ($200,&#8230; more<br \/>\n      At a lunch on the second day, collectors displayed millions of dollars\u2019 worth of watches. A Rolex Daytona 6241 ($350,000), a Rolex Daytona 6265 ($200,000), a Rolex Daytona 116588SACO ($300,000), a Rolex Daytona 6241 ($350,000), and a Rolex Pre-Daytona 6238 ($150,000). All prices are estimates. Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph_drop-cap\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7ua000t3b7amkkul7zi@published\" data-word-count=\"111\">The Rolliefest email arrives in my inbox in September with the ominous warning \u201cFor everyone\u2019s safety please DO NOT SHARE these details with anyone.\u201d The top-secret itinerary is grueling: first, the gala dinner at the Met. The next day, a \u201cWatch Luncheon\u201d at Aspire, the event space on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center (\u201cPlease bring watches \u2014 all brands are welcome\u201d). Finally, there is a \u201cFarewell Cocktail\u201d at the Waldorf Astoria. Devoting one-third of a two-day schedule to saying good-bye seems dramatic, but then I realize this is probably my one and only RollieFest, and I feel wistful at the thought of parting ways with my soon-to-be friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7vu000u3b7a83sukt9k@published\" data-word-count=\"125\">What will I wear to the \u201cMet Gala for Watch Collectors\u201d? I decide on khaki cargo shorts and a white button-down with a red rockabilly tie, white socks, and brown penny loafers. I\u2019m not wearing a watch because I never wear a watch and now seems like the wrong time to start pretending. I\u2019m sure these captains of industry would smell a rat, anyway. As I enter the museum, I immediately regret the choice of shorts. I\u2019m at a gala! At the Met! And everyone is in a suit. I reek of poverty and inexperience, but I hope that reduces my threat level as an interloper. Then again, why would these men fear me? Or anyone? They\u2019re rich enough to collect six-figure watches for fun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv7x6000v3b7ajpami0w3@published\" data-word-count=\"105\">A publicist hands me a velvet-lined box with my credentials: a RollieFest dog tag with my name engraved on it. We\u2019re like Band of Brothers now, if the soldiers were all dweeby millionaires. For every tanned would-be Jack Donaghy here, there are ten more pasty, bespectacled nerds arguing complications (the things a watch does besides tell time) and bezels (the rim around the dial). Despite the opulent setting, the mood in the Temple of Dendur reads high-school reunion: dads in off-the-rack Zegna and Adriano Goldschmied jeans. Maybe because I look about as menacing as Tintin on safari, everyone is very excited to talk to me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv84z000w3b7avl1xkfjb@published\" data-word-count=\"134\">\u201cThis is a 1942 vintage Movado,\u201d says Raymond Milnarik, showing me the grail on his wrist, which he comfortably places at $25,000. Milnarik, a consultant, built his former business by finding vintage watches with various \u201cincorrect\u201d parts \u2014 mostly on eBay \u2014 which he then tweaked, or \u201ccorrected,\u201d before flipping them for a profit. \u201cI\u2019m talking about vintage Caravelles, which is a subsidiary brand of Bulova, which I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of.\u201d I have not. \u201cCaravelle is to Bulova as Tudor is to Rolex,\u201d he clarifies. This also does not help. \u201cI knew that the seconds hand right here on the sub-seconds register was incorrect. It\u2019s pretty well documented that the running minute counter on these is supposed to have this squiggle. It looks like a snake, so you call them \u2018snake hands\u2019 \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv86x000x3b7ayeuseixr@published\" data-word-count=\"177\">Everyone tells me I need to meet Drew Coblitz, a 37-year-old collector and former race-car driver. From his Instagram, Coblitz appears to be every YouTube-addled tween\u2019s fantasy of male adulthood: Porsches, Rolexes, sunglasses. He later tells me he owns eight or nine cars \u2014 \u201cmostly Porsches, one McLaren\u201d \u2014 and between 20 and 25 watches, at least half a dozen of which are \u201cbigger-deal ones\u201d ($50,000 or more). In person, he reads more Michael Cera than Jeff Bezos. \u201cThis 6239, this is the model that Paul Newman actually had, in this configuration,\u201d Coblitz says, gesturing to the Rolex on the wrist of the guy next to us. He\u2019s referring to a particularly prized Daytona model from the \u201960s once owned by the late actor. Then, indicating the $400,000 Rolex on his own wrist: \u201cBut this one came out a few years later and was one of the first ones that had an acrylic bezel.\u201d He pauses. \u201cBakelite, actually. A Bakelite bezel.\u201d He confesses, \u201cI don\u2019t remember what my serial number is, but it matches up with 1968.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv88h000y3b7a4hrrokb6@published\" data-word-count=\"14\">\u201cDo people know their serial numbers off the top of their head?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8ae000z3b7a7e28l3zz@published\" data-word-count=\"23\">\u201cI actually should know,\u201d Coblitz replies almost sheepishly. \u201cThat\u2019s where I should be nerdier. But this is a \u201968 and it lines up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8fz00103b7ae4ss4101@published\" data-word-count=\"134\">As with any subculture, watch wonkery has a hierarchy. A yen for vintage is a dividing line: There are the true believers who appreciate every scratch and ding for the stories they tell, not just the watch\u2019s monetary value. And then there are the Johnny-come-latelies, profit hounds who want to show off their fresh bling. COVID swelled the ranks of the latter. Bored rich people were parking their money in tangible assets, and watch auctions began breaking records. \u201cA watch that was, say, worth $50,000 before the pandemic went up to $200,000. Another watch that was $70,000 went up to $250,000. It was nuts,\u201d says Matthew Bain, a Miami-based dealer. Outsiders smelled opportunity and drove up the market, drawing complaints and derision from serious devotees who were now priced out and surrounded by speculators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8hn00113b7a30erj1gq@published\" data-word-count=\"70\">\u201cHonestly, it\u2019s a bit disheartening to me,\u201d I heard Kevin O\u2019Dell, an Instagram watch dealer, say the next day at a panel. \u201cBack when we started, there was no such thing as \u2018resale value.\u2019 You would buy what kept you up at night.\u201d Losing sleep over a Rolex \u201cPaul Newman\u201d 6263 Oyster Sotto RCO is a beautiful thing, as is the market price (somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million).<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8j700123b7ak707k3c4@published\" data-word-count=\"244\">For the more insider-y flex, there\u2019s microbrand collectors. \u201cLook, they\u2019re beautiful watches, but it doesn\u2019t take a lot of imagination to buy a Daytona. It requires money,\u201d says Phil Toledano, owner of the independent label Toledano &amp; Chan. Over dinner, he shows me his own creation, a watch inspired by the brutalist windows of the Breuer Building (now owned by Sotheby\u2019s); it retails for $4,000 and can fetch $8,000 on the secondary market. To me, this pick-me bracelet is missing the patina, the homoerotic minimalism of Eastern European housing blocs. It\u2019s too new, too bulbous, too carlike. But most of the watches here are too carlike. The dominant silhouette for this crowd is a big-boy timepiece to go with an overly tight blazer and rubber-soled dress sneakers. It\u2019s the opposite of Timoth\u00e9e and Tyler with their oversize fits and undersize Cartier Tanks and Dal\u00ed-esque Crashes, models that don\u2019t equate status with weight. (Zohran Mamdani subscribes to this anti-fat-cat aesthetic, too, even if his usual skinny Casio costs $160.) \u201cLots of cocktail watches were so undervalued for so long that you can still get good deals on them and you can wear them creatively,\u201d says Brynn Wallner, the founder of Dimepiece, a hub for lady watchists. \u201cYou\u2019re a guy and you\u2019re wearing your sterling-silver Tiffany bracelet and then you stack it with this cocktail watch? All of a sudden, you look like Jacob Elordi.\u201d Suffice it to say, no one here looks like Jacob Elordi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8ko00133b7aau8nrvd5@published\" data-word-count=\"101\">The rarest sight of all are female collectors. \u201cI\u2019m always in awe of any woman who shows up here because it\u2019s Dungeons &amp; Dragons\u2013level nerdery,\u201d says Toledano. The ones I talk to are type-A shebosses working for auction houses, in public relations, and for microbrands. They can express themselves in a way the glaringly heterosexual men simply can\u2019t and are likely wearing tiny cool-girl watches. Courtney Bachrach, a collector and consultant, shows me a snakelike 1940s Cartier bracelet ($12,000 to $16,000) with four intertwined ropes of gold cradling a modest dial that feels the most appropriate for this haunting Egyptian atrium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8mi00143b7atvf91ylu@published\" data-word-count=\"161\">Before the filet mignon and delicata squash arrive, I meet an influencer who goes by Old Watch Lady on Instagram \u2014 \u201cOwl\u201d to her fans. She does not share her real name and, kinkily, posts only wrist, no face. She has a blunt bob and tatted arms with three Rolexes on each wrist, all with gold bands and stone dials (what a civilian might call the \u201cface\u201d) in jewel tones like jadeite, malachite, jasper, and coral. At a top estimate of roughly $25,000 for a 26-mm. stone-dial Rolex in gold, Owl might be wearing a combined $150,000. If it is possible to remain punk while drenched in six figures\u2019 worth of jewelry, she makes the best case for it. \u201cPeople are going, \u2018Oh my God, your watches are knocking against each other!\u2019\u2009\u201d She rolls her eyes. \u201cI don\u2019t care! I know fuck all about watches. I just know what I like. I\u2019m nowhere near as anal as some of these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8sv00153b7acopfy47y@published\" data-word-count=\"115\">Maybe that\u2019s the point. RollieFest is anti-cool. The only celebrity here is the actor Fred Savage. Every branded event in New York these days is a variation on \u201cAdidas x Bespoke Vodka Brand Invite You to Nepo\u2019s Ceramics-Line Launch at Le Dinner Bistro.\u201d But the watch guys are just sincere geeks who crave community. It\u2019s sweet. \u201cWatches mark time,\u201d Hess says from the podium. \u201cBut it\u2019s moments like this that make time worth marking.\u201d The corniness is a relief. There was nothing to be afraid of after all. These guys never wanted to harvest my organs for adrenochrome. And they never saw me as an intruder, either. They just wanted me to join their club.<\/p>\n<p>\n        Clockwise from top left: A Rolex Daytona 6239 ($250,000) and a Rolex Submariner 5510 ($300,000).A guest deep in study.A collection of Patek Philippes ($3 million).A Rolex Champs Elys\u00e9e 8651 ($1 million). All prices are estimates. Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n      <\/p>\n<p>\n      From top: A Rolex Daytona 6239 ($250,000) and a Rolex Submariner 5510 ($300,000).A guest deep in study.A collection of Patek Philippes ($3 million).A &#8230; more<br \/>\n      From top: A Rolex Daytona 6239 ($250,000) and a Rolex Submariner 5510 ($300,000).A guest deep in study.A collection of Patek Philippes ($3 million).A Rolex Champs Elys\u00e9e 8651 ($1 million). All prices are estimates. Photo: Brian Finke for New York Magazine\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph_drop-cap\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8w900173b7a9djibz17@published\" data-word-count=\"59\">The next day, I squeeze past tourists in the lobby of One World Trade toward a sign reading ROLLIEFEST: MARINE BIOLOGY CONFERENCE, a twee bit of misdirection for anyone planning a heist. Seeing my dog tag, a security guard asks my opinion on the most expensive watch upstairs. \u201cProbably a Rolex,\u201d I say. \u201cReally?\u201d he replies. \u201cNot a Patek?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv8ye00183b7aam1xctgn@published\" data-word-count=\"88\">At this point in the festivities, it\u2019s dawned on me that I can no longer play the na\u00eff with nude wrists. I opt for not one but two watches, wearing them over my silky long-sleeved shirt, one on each arm. The first is a cheap quartz (battery operated) I bought off the street, the second a slightly more impressive Karl Lagerfeld\u2013branded quartz with the letters K-A-R-L running from noon to 3 p.m. on the bezel. Don\u2019t get too excited: The Karl retailed for something like $200 at Macy\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv94100193b7afeudcsta@published\" data-word-count=\"99\">Ascending to the 102nd floor, I find a sun-drenched horological bacchanal. A long table covered in Breguets, Rolexes, Patek Philippes, Audemars Piguets, and Universal Gen\u00e8ves stretches down the center of the room. As if it\u2019s a grown-up playdate, attendees bring their favorite LEGOs from home, dump them on the table, and leave to mingle. I approach the bounty, running my unsupervised median-income paws over millions of dollars\u2019 worth of merchandise \u2014 gold, silver, diamond encrusted, leather banded, vintage, indie, brand new. Whoever owns the gems I\u2019m sweating on simply does not care. They\u2019re among friends. They trust me now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv95u001a3b7a8hvoy2ja@published\" data-word-count=\"103\">During the panel discussion, softball questions are met with insider guffaws and friendly chanting. At one point, a spontaneous \u201cPhil! Phil! Phil!\u201d breaks out with Toledano rising from his chair to wave to the audience. When asked about who is most exciting to him, boy wonder Linden Lazarus shouts out \u201cVincent Brasesco,\u201d another watch-car overlapper, before offering a Kamala-esque fugue of positivity: \u201cIt was remarkable coming into this event and seeing so many faces that I feel like I\u2019ve known for so long, and we\u2019re all rooting on for the furtherance of all of our journeys.\u201d All journeys are valid at watch camp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv99u001b3b7aiiqs4gqs@published\" data-word-count=\"86\">I ask everyone how much money in watches is in the room. Guesses range from $5 million to over $100 million. Hess suspects the figure is closer to $40 million. Bachrach, the luxury consultant, shows me one of the heavy hitters: a Rolex Daytona Le Mans, which she estimates goes for between $250,000 and $315,000. I caress it. It\u2019s big and gold. This one has a black dial, classier than the Champagne dial of Tony Soprano\u2019s Day-Date, although, in my opinion, Tony\u2019s tacky gold was cooler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9ba001c3b7aqdj68zr5@published\" data-word-count=\"97\">Personally, I\u2019m more drawn to the military models I see around me. Rolex, it turns out, was the favored supplier for Royal Air Force pilots in World War II because the dials were easy to read in the air and the straps fit over flight jackets. There are also dive watches, racing watches, field watches. What\u2019s sexiest about these styles is that they were once engineered to accompany the noble pursuits of a masculine life. Now they\u2019re purely decorative. No one\u2019s flying a fighter jet in this room. We don\u2019t even need watches to tell time anymore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9cp001d3b7ay52qjx8e@published\" data-word-count=\"135\">As we finish chicken and waffles that are somehow both soggy and dry, Bachrach brings out a Patek Philippe Calatrava 5296 (estimated value is $30,000) with a transparent case and visible shifting gears, a design feature of no practical purpose other than to impress you with its technology. I know it\u2019s a gimmick, like a glass-bottom boat, but it allows her to explain to me with great patience how the machine winds itself, using gravity and the movement of her own wrist to coil up energy, which is then regulated by a \u201cbalance spring\u201d and released through an \u201cescapement,\u201d a little notched wheel that ticks forward in perfect rhythm, like in Wheel of Fortune. It is remarkable, especially if you imagine the little Swiss maestro who made it, futzing away in his remote alpine lab.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9e6001e3b7ag7zs9eqs@published\" data-word-count=\"46\">The balance spring was invented in the 1670s, significantly increasing the accuracy of pocket watches. In his diaries from the same period, the English civil servant Samuel Pepys described a fascination with his then-newfangled piece of wearable tech that may ring familiar to our modern ears:<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9fr001f3b7ay0o76cp2@published\" data-word-count=\"55\">\u201cLord! to see how much of my old folly and childishnesse hangs upon me still that I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what o\u2019clock it is 100 times; and am apt to think with myself, how could I be so long without one \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9jn001g3b7aw2u7cxbs@published\" data-word-count=\"152\">Not me checking my phone to see what o\u2019clock it is 100 times a day! Maybe all neurotic males are hardwired to be into this stuff and we have been for centuries. It\u2019s just that now, in an era of turbocharged conspicuous consumption, we can channel this borderline-antisocial obsession with mechanical arcana into gizmos worth upwards of tens of thousands of dollars. Well, not all of us. A week later, I email Milnarik, the former flipper, a mood board of watches I like and ask if he has any recommendations for a virgin with a tiny wallet. He responds the very next day, sending a link to a private Connecticut-based dealer selling a $900 U.S. military\u2013issue field watch from the first Gulf War. Frankly, I love the political intrigue and the raw masculinity suggested by the dial\u2019s faint nicks. But I fear my budget is more in the range of Mamdani\u2019s Casio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9m3001h3b7ao29wbmf5@published\" data-word-count=\"166\">At the newly renovated Waldorf Astoria later that night, I repeat my over-the-sleeve look for good-bye drinks. Under lighting bright enough to conduct surgery, I knock back two old-fashioneds while everyone gleefully swaps more loot. Some guy lays out a dozen or so watches on a coffee table, all wrapped in plastic. Deals are being hatched. The clock, after all, is ticking. For all the dollar signs, the rampant acquisitiveness, the horse-trading, there is an emotional current coiled up in the balance spring. Watches make these people feel something \u2014 something nostalgic, a connection not just to an apocryphal past but to their own childhood. Bachrach tells me one of her fondest memories as a girl is visiting vintage dealers in London with her father, gazing wide-eyed at 1920s Art Deco cocktail watches. \u201cWe\u2019d call them \u2018princess watches,\u2019\u2009\u201d she says. For her 21st birthday, he gave her a Rolex Daytona 116505 in Everose with an ivory dial. As I get misty-eyed, I run into Fred Savage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9nm001i3b7ac55g2fvv@published\" data-word-count=\"83\">\u201cWhether you\u2019re buying, you know, a watch of military provenance or whether you\u2019re buying an aviator watch or an astronaut\u2019s watch or a TAG Heuer because of its racing heritage, it\u2019s all a costume you put on,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s one of the most natural things since we were little children: We put our feet in our dad\u2019s shoes. Or it\u2019s wearing our mom\u2019s jewelry. That was part of feeling close to them. It was part of being a grown-up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.thecut.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmjhlv9ox001j3b7asl6cwi5h@published\" data-word-count=\"127\">It was surreal to hear this icon of nostalgia summarize the human desire for familial cosplay. As a child, I watched The Wonder Years with my father because it was how I imagined his childhood. It allowed us to meet in the present. Maybe the proverbial watch is always the father\u2019s and wearing it places us in the awestruck, hopeful mind of someone who still thinks of adults as heroes. Suddenly, I\u2019m 9 years old again. I\u2019m in my mom\u2019s closet, drowning in her bejeweled Escada blazer, slipping into her leather pumps. I suppose it\u2019s the same feeling for the watch nerds. Perhaps it\u2019s the heaviest of watches, those big fat Rolexes, that make our wrists feel the tiniest, like we\u2019re still just little kids playing dress-up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"subscriber-copy\">Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.<br \/>\n    If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the December 29, 2025, issue of<br \/>\n    New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"non-subscriber-copy\">Want more stories like this one? <a class=\"subscribe-link to-landing-page\" href=\"https:\/\/subs.nymag.com\/magazine\/subscribe\/official-subscription.html?itm_source=csitepromo&amp;itm_medium=siteacquisition&amp;itm_campaign=end-of-magazine-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe now<\/a><br \/>\n    to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage.<br \/>\n    If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the December 29, 2025, issue of<br \/>\n    New York Magazine.<\/p>\n<p>          One Great Story: A Nightly Newsletter for the Best of New York<\/p>\n<p>The one story you shouldn\u2019t miss today, selected by\u00a0New York\u2019s editors.<\/p>\n<p>        Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n<p class=\"expanded-terms \" aria-hidden=\"true\">By submitting your email, you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/newyork\/terms\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Terms<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/newyork\/privacy\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center, some of the world\u2019s top watch collectors gathered for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[40802,1242,10784,237,9,24,55,54,2409,56,2414,2407,11847,4692],"class_list":["post-84843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-audio-article","tag-fashion","tag-men","tag-money","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-magazine","tag-ny","tag-one-great-story","tag-style","tag-watches","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}