Hello all,
I’ve been a long time lurker here and after many years I thought it was about time I joined in. I’ve enjoyed much of what goes on around the forum and taken a lot of inspiration over the years.
My enjoyment of watches is pretty simplistic really. I enjoy dive watches and have a modest collection mostly Seiko with a couple of Sea Dwellers thrown in. A couple of hand wound Rone’s that my Dad owned (he was a farmer and hard on watches). He always bought Rone purely because it was brand our local watchmaker sold (the now defunct Johnson’s in Ormskirk Lancashire) and then proceeded to kill them with oil, diesel and sweat.
My interest in watches can be traced directly to seeing Ed Harris’s 7049 in the Abyss when I first saw it in the late 80s. It took me years to find the model of watch he wore but eventually I grabbed my own unworn 7049 from a dealer in the USA about 10 years ago (one of my few ebay lucky breaks).
When I moved to London for work, egged on by my colleagues at the time, I bought my first Rolex from Second Time Around for a whopping £600 - that was 1995. It was a Submariner and I remember being really cross they didn’t have one with a date. It was sold to help pay for my wedding a couple of years later and the photographs of me wearing it are too blurry to exactly identify the model. However, looking really closely, the dial looks busy and I have a rather sick feeling it was a 5512. Old story, but I sold it back to Second Time Around for what I paid for it. I thought I did well with the deal...
Since then I’ve had a new Polar Explorer ll (bought at cost from Rolex as a favour in exchange for helping at a Jackie Stewart charity shoot). It cost £1100 against the retail of £2,300 ish - I have the invoice somewhere and will dig it out. I then had a mint 16600 set from Mike Wood, a badly polished sub from another dealer and a Deepsea. All sold to fund ill thought out adventures. Also had a lovely 60s Omega Seamaster from Mike. Gone too.
So my current Rolex set comprises a 2004 16600 and a 2017 126600 from Heywood (I turned 50 and went mad).
So that’s that really. However, I have a quick question to close. I had 10 minutes between meetings around the Strand yesterday and decided to have a stretch by walking to gawp in Austin Kaye. I could be wrong but it looks closed down and the website has no stock listed. As I said I’m probably wrong, but I hadn’t seen it mentioned anywhere.
Have a good day everyone.