Stop me if you’ve heard this before...I think my modest collection is now complete!

[jstan9]

It all started with a larger-than-life nice wealthy guy in our neighborhood sho sported a yellow gold day-date back in the 70s when I was a kid. It was so over the top. Diamonds ringed the bezel and and dotted the dial as hour markers, and, if memory serves, the bracelet was barked gold (fashionable back then).

I’d always been fascinated with analog watches and when he showed me this miracle watch, that ran just be walking around and which you could swim with in the pool or the beach (Gulf of Mexico in the Florida panhandle). He didn’t baby the watch. Just rinsed it off from time to time.

I was hooked.

In 2000, when I’d hit a career milestone I celebrated by putting a deposit down on my dream Rolex, a polar Explorer II. It was at Tourneau at 53rd and Madison in New York (yes, I didn’t know anything at the time) and, after two years, they said, “the watch is too hard to get; we’ll give you your money back”).

On a business trip (I lived in the Bay Area but commuted to New York monthly for work), I went in a spotted a beautiful watch.



It was a mid-sized 35mm SS/PL Yacht-Master. I later put it on a white rubber b. I knew nothing about watches and since this was the only version in the window (the YM then was a hot watch), I paid the difference and bought it.

I loved that watch and wore it for almost 20 years.

In 2017, my lust for a GMT resurfaced and I bought the incredible BLNR at the amazing Shreve & Co in San Francisco.




A year later, to celebrate a new job, I fell in love with the rhodium YM and had a great transaction with DavidSW on the 37mm version. It’s stunning.



A year later, I bought my partner a surprise birthday present, the black-dialed Explorer II and threw in a Tudor North Flag for myself (exploring Tudor because the NF is cool and because it’s now so hard to find SS rolexes).



The rubber b on the Explorer was also a gift : )





I got the bracelet and the amazingly constructed leather strap, thanks to Shreve.

And then we get to the end. I’ve always loved that 35mm YM but grew to wish I’d known what I was doing and gotten the 40mm version.

While not hard to source, it was a challenge to make sure that I found a model with the sand-pebble platinum dial and not one of the newer versions with the painted dial. It’s hard to tell from even great photos.

I found one on davidsw but they never got back to me this time. And when I finally gave up on texting or using the bot on their website and just called, it had been sold.

I then saw a candidate at Bernard watches in Texas. The owner, Jeff, was super patient and knowledgeable. He went on vacation but I was left in the capable hands of P.J.

I proposed a trade of my beloved YM along with a twenty year-old Breitling that a client had given me. We tore into every box in the crawl space under the house but couldn’t find the box and papers. PJ was incredibly fair and knocked a bit off their offer, and the deal was done.

I now have the watch I’ve dreamed of. A 2006 Yacht-Master, serviced in May 2019.

I got it sized Thursday by Gio on post street (an amazing resource for anyone who lives in the Bay Area)

Quite a journey. I know I speak for most here when I observe how much pleasure I get from wearing each of these machine works of art.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk