Telling Time: Hamish
Q: Who are you? Where are you from? Where do you live? What do you do for a living?
A: I’m Hamish Robertson and I currently live in London. I’m an Entrepreneur building The Watch Collectors’ Club, a club for everyone who likes watches.
Q: How did you first get into watches? What interests you about watches?
A: I always wore a watch as a kid, and in my late twenties decided to explore collecting vintage watches. I started with a time-only steel vintage Omega from eBay, and it’s grown from there. I’ve been collecting for about 9 years now and started this Club 2 years ago to help more people enjoy their passion for watches.
Q: Do you collect? If you could make a collection, what are 3 must-haves at any price point?
A: I like watches because there are so many things to enjoy about them; design, technology, materials, history, style, function, and so on. In every category of watch there is an incredible amount of variety, and whatever interests you most there is a way of collecting that suits you. If you like tracking serial numbers and completing sets of rare niche models, it’s great. If you like a certain design style and exploring it over a few different brands, it’s great. If you like a movement type and want to explore its history and improvement, that’s great. If you like a function and collect for that, it’s great. There really is something for everyone who wants to explore and find out more about the watch world.
If I had to have 3 watches in a collection that I didn’t already have and I was starting from scratch, and the price was no object, it would be The Citizen Eco-Drive Ray Mears original edition, the Jaeger LeCoultre Master Control Geographic Worldtimer (3rd version), and the Hermes Arceau L’Heure De La Lune special edition with the Lapis Dial. To be honest though, these three change all the time. My long list is long!
Q: If you had to sell all of your watches and just keep one, which one is it and why?
A: If I had to sell everything and keep one it’d be the Tag Heuer my parents bought me for my 18th birthday.
Q: What is a watch you would love to see in real life? (real or imaginary)
A: In terms of seeing some watches in person I’m lucky that I get to see a lot, but seeing some of the super rare Pateks would be fun, as would a lot of the very famous watches from the mid-twentieth century that are icons but just not that common, e.g. original Tag Monaco, or the Cartier Crash watches.
Q: When you are looking at watches, what is one thing that stands out about a watch?
A: When I look at a watch I look at a lot of things — if you come to our event you’ll get to do a four-minute-long watch appraisal process that’s really fun! I mostly look at the design though. How are the dial, hands, indexes, and text spaced out and balanced, what other functions are there and how have they been incorporated so they are useful? After that, its case shape and material.
Q: Watch Stories — How did you get it? Why is it special? What memories are tied to it?
A: I got my Vintage JLC “Dirty Dozen” military watch off eBay, but via a day trip to a tiny port town on the South Coast of England and an extremely unusual hour and a half with a Military memorabilia nut. Since I wanted to suss out the watches and his credibility, this was the only way as he had no online presence apart from 7 completely different eBay listings. His partner picked me up from the Station in a military adapted jeep covered, and I mean covered, in Dog Hair. Back at his warehouse, he was deep in conversation with someone so I was perched on an old barrel, offered tea and cake, and told to play with dogs.
My time there didn’t get any less strange, as I had to have a tour of his warehouse full of ex-military junk, learn all about his man hobby (archery), and hear all his thoughts on watch servicing and the industry.
Despite putting up with all this I didn’t get too good a deal on price, but I did get almost as good a condition watch as possible for Jaegers of this age. It was an afternoon of insight into an eccentric character who’s been selling military watches for years. Great fun to be honest. He brought the watch up to me in London a week later and he was like a fish out of water gasping at all the tall buildings. The watch world is full of characters, that’s for sure!
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received? What is one piece of advice you would give someone?
A: Best piece of advice in the watch world is always to buy the seller, not the watch. Also to explore vintage, where value for money can be exceptional. In a blatant piece of promotion, I’d tell you to look up The Watch Collectors’ Club and join one of our in-person or online events. We exist to make the watch world simple and help people explore and share their watch stores. Join us! www.thewatchcollectors.club
