As watch enthusiasts, we harbor a particular affection for small mechanical objects. Intricate and artistically beautiful, it's easy to marvel at watches purely on the physical level. But for many of us, it's the people behind the watches — and the people behind the industry — that tell the greatest stories. On this episode of Collectors Among Us, we’re joined by vintage watch dealers Dylan Lewis and Jordan Goldstein, two up-and-comers who already command a loyal following.
The world of vintage watch collecting can be intimidating for a number of reasons: There’s the sheer amount of arcane knowledge to learn. Then there’s the unfortunate reality that the industry can feel, well, “stuffy” — gatekept, if you will, by the old guard. This is especially true, unfortunately, for women, as watch collecting can often present as an “old boy’s club.” Thankfully, a crop of new dealers is embracing vintage watch collecting with open arms, changing the stereotypes as to what a true aficionado can look like — and opening up the hobby to throngs of eager young enthusiasts in the process.
Jordan Goldstein
Jordan Goldstein of NYC Vintage Vault is one such dealer. Having come from the luxury marketing world, she took a shine to watches as part of a larger interest in design that she inherited from her parents and grandmother. “I think when you have the collector's gene and you're obsessed with something, all you want to do is learn about it and study it,” she says. “For me, I’ve got to learn something new today. And here's what I have questions about, and I'm going to research the answer until I find it out.” With a particular affinity for Cartier — her first love in vintage watches — Goldstein specializes in the types of unisex silhouettes that have become the stuff of red-carpet fame lately. Especially stone-dial watches.
Some of Goldstein's timepieces
“The thing that I love about stones is that every time you cut a stone, it's different,” she says. “This is probably my favorite, this little Patek ladies’ lapis stone dial. I commonly see this in onyx, but I haven't seen it before in lapis, so I love that. I also have this Ref. 6917 Coral Rolex Ladies Datejust. I don't wear a lot of color, so I think you kind of pull up your sleeve and it's a surprise. And then lastly, I have this Ref. 69178 Rolex turquoise dial. And I actually love to wear the coral and the turquoise together, kind of stack them. They're small enough, and I'm a big fan of blue and orange. Those are the pops in my apartment. So I take my apartment out with me, and I love it. I think it's so fun.”
One thing common to Goldstein and Lewis (more on him in a moment) is that neither is afraid of what they don’t know — a rare trait in an industry in which knowledge is power, and no one wants to seem like a “noob.” “I am definitely new at this,” admits Goldstein. “I think that the best thing I did is I have the best allies and the best mentors in this business. They have gotten me to a place where I feel comfortable going to a show and buying on my own because I've done the work, I've put in the time, and I call them every day and I ask them questions. And that's like the best thing I could ask for. The only way to learn is to be vulnerable, because you're admitting something you don't know. I am super comfortable with not knowing a lot of things. Every time I ask a question, of course, it's a vulnerable thing, and you don't want to seem like you don't know something, but I'm past the point of caring. All I want to do is learn.”
Dylan Lewis
The same is true of Dylan Lewis, founder of Goldfinger’s Vintage in New York City. Inspired by his grandfather — founder of a children’s furniture and clothing store in New Jersey and a lifelong collector of furniture, objet d’art, and watches — Lewis transitioned from the music business to become a full-time vintage watch dealer during the Pandemic. “I started to become more obsessed with watches and I said, ‘Wouldn't it be funny if I just became a watch dealer?’” he says with candor. “And then I just sat down in this chair in this corner and started an Instagram page with zero followers, and launched my website. I have no clue what I'm doing." (Clearly, he's selling himself short. Read on...)
A Seiko Ref. 6139 previously listed on Goldfinger Vintage
"Two weeks into the website launching and like 20 followers into my Instagram, I sold a Seiko chronograph for $200 less than I paid and I was like, 'This is the best day of my life.' I was like, 'All right, let's just do this a thousand more times.'"
Clearly, the work is paying off: His Instagram now has well over 22,000 followers, and business in rare and compelling watches is brisk. Particularly so as regards vintage Movado: “Movado is the working man or woman's Patek Philippe,” Lewis explains. “There's just as much robust watchmaking and design and thoughtfulness put into a lot of these pre-'60s pieces that Patek Philippe was also implementing in the stuff that they were making and selling.” He picks up a particularly attractive chronograph not dissimilar to Patek Ref. 1463. “This was the first watch that I bought about six months into dealing because I had caught the Movado bug. I was just so attracted to the lugs being integrated into the case, these textured ‘Tasty Tondi’ pushers, but then notably the dial with these big Breguet numerals,” he explains.
“Many of these manufacturers were contracting various producers from across Switzerland to make different components for them to their specifications. This is just an amazing example of this cottage industry that existed back then. We had a François Borgel case, Stern Frères dial, and then the bracelet made by Gay Frères. You have three major former tenants of watch manufacturing all baked into this one example. This is the one watch I know I won't sell unless I'm, like, out of the street somewhere one day.”
Patek Philippe Calatrava Ref. 96
And it’s not just up-and-coming brands that Lewis holds dear to his heart — Patek also makes a strong showing. “This is a very early Patek Philippe Ref. 96,” he explains. “This example is one of the early first few ever produced with a LeCoultre-based movement and the dial famously also made by Stern Frères — hand engraved, filled hard enamel. The top layer of lacquer has kind of like “custarded” over time. It has this really unique 'Sahara' or 'Arrakis' kind of patina, which I've really never seen before.” While the Reference 96 has exploded in popularity (and price) recently as collectors have gravitated toward smaller case sizes, Lewis isn’t afraid to branch out into more affordable fare. In fact, price isn’t really the point at all.
Treasure hunting
“With regard to the watches that I find, one of my favorite parts about the job is the treasure hunting,” he says. “Any price point doesn't matter as long as something is well preserved and distinctive. For the most part, I don't want there to be any comps. I don't want there to be any other versions of that thing out there because it makes it easier for someone to really connect with this specific thing. There aren't a hundred of them, there aren't a thousand of them. There's this and maybe another one. That's more exciting to me," he explains.
"That's why I gravitated toward vintage, because over time, a lot of them have been melted or destroyed or lost completely into the void. So they're hard to find when you do stumble upon one that's just preserved in its own way, whether it's like new old stock, ‘tropical dial,’ or [an] extremely unpolished case. It makes finding vintage examples way more fun because ‘X’ can be so totally different than ‘Y.’ Both are still viable, exciting options, but they're totally different from one another because of the virtue of time.”
Ultimately, what Lewis and Goldstein both have in common is a genuine love for the craft of finely made objects. Wristwatches might be their particular mode of choice for converting that love into a business, but it’s an obsession with detail, history, quality, and design that drives them to succeed as the new crop of dealers. These obsessions, however, have led to the best part of the vintage watch world — namely, the genuine friendships formed throughout their journeys.
“Trust is the biggest form of capital in any business,” says Lewis. “It takes years to build and an instant to shatter. And I didn't have any of that when I started. But if you sell hundreds of watches a year now and you have a bunch of Google reviews and you could refer yourself to dealers that I really look up to, and now they're colleagues and friends, I can't believe it. And I do not take any of that for granted.”
