I've been in the watch industry almost all my life – I don't remember not doing it. My father was of Italian descent and was among the original group of dealers that started in the UK. From a very early age, he dragged me around flea markets and antique fairs such as Portobello Road, Camden Passage and Bermondsey Market. As I got older, I started to appreciate the beauty of timepieces and the fact you could make a business from them. At the age of 15, I started buying and trading on my own to some of the big collectors in Europe and by the time I was 20, I already had five years' experience and was dealing with very high-level watches internationally.
I opened my shop in the Royal Arcade in 1996; at the time it was called Royal Arcade Watches, but has since become The Watch Club. Originally, we mainly wanted the location as a buying address; it had the prestige of being in Mayfair and we were advertising for watches in a lot of the broadsheets at the time, so we thought people would trust the address. Then one day we made the decision to start displaying the watches in the shop window and found there was incredible demand – we'd put out a Rolex Submariner and two days later, it would be sold. We started buying and selling to the public more and from there the business has grown quite organically.
(Image credit: Watch Club London)
The vintage market was very different back then; everything was much slower paced. You couldn't depend on the internet and the wealth of forums and blogs we have now – there were no real reference points and you had to rely on your own experience and judge everything. I was – and still am – very selective in the watches we deal in and I never wanted anything where elements had been changed, such as restored dials. Over the years it's paid off and we've curated some amazing collections for clients. I've always believed in giving the best advice I can – if I know that a watch is going up in value. I will tell a client that and it pays dividends because we build up long-term relationships based on this trust.
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Nowadays, everything is so immediate. If you show somebody a watch, they take a picture and post it on Instagram and all of a sudden you've opened yourself to the biggest collectors and enthusiasts in the world. I've seen it clean up the market a bit because there are so many sources of good information out there now that educate the public, which in turn has had an effect on the price because people are buying with confidence. With better technology, particularly photography, there is also nowhere for the fake watches to hide.
We've recently relaunched our website and are really focusing on showcasing incredible imagery, sometimes publishing 15 images of a single watch. It's important to have that level of attention to detail, both visually and in the descriptions, and we hope that through this our customers get a sense of the care we put into the business. We'll be adding some new features soon, including a section that will act as an archive of historic pieces.
We'll be showing at SalonQP for the first time this year and will be bringing an interesting mix of watches. There will be the pieces everyone is talking about and those that are always popular, including some Patek Philippe complications and Rolex Paul Newman Daytonas. Importantly, we'll highlight not just the incredibly high-end pieces, but the timepieces I believe are good value and think are wise investments that will perform strongly over the years.
For me, a watch has to tick all those boxes – I'm not interested in something you buy and then the next day is worth 50 per cent less. Personally I'm a fan of uncluttered dials and adore 1960s Patek Philippe perpetual calendars, particularly the 3448, which was the very first self-winding version of this complication the brand ever made. When I was collecting I was drawn to the Rolex Milgauss from the 1970s – it's really elegant and pared back. If you looked at it you would think it was a normal Oyster, but it was actually a rare antimagnetic watch. One of the appeals of a vintage watch is that you have to look deeper to discover its story and the secrets that people don't commonly know.
DANNY PIZZIGONI is founder and director of The Watch Club, a leading specialist in pre-owned watches. 4 & 5 Royal Arcade, 28 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4SD; watchclub.com
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