Inside a Vintage Watch Meetup in Miami
Where there are fewer G-Wagons and older Daytonas; plus, secure your copy of the 2025 Rewind Magazine.
There’s so much news guys. Releases from LVMH, Audemars Piguet, even small brands like Toledano & Chan. I’m intrigued by the relaunch of Niton and set up a meeting with the co-founders next week, so expect more on that soon. Meanwhile, A CEO (TAG Heuer) and a founder (Stephen Forsey) have already left. Baume & Mercier was sold; Jaeger-LeCoultre could be next. Rumors that the Pepsi GMT-Master is/has been discontinued are in full force, which means Watches & Wonders is coming. What’d I miss?
Oh, subscribers keep sending me docs from the Epstein files related to watches!
I’ve been in Miami and New York the past week looking at lots of watches, mostly old ones, so that’s the focus of today’s newsletter.
2025 REWIND MAGAZINE
The 2025 Rewind Magazine is now available and shipping to Founding Members. It features the best writing, photos, and watches from the newsletter last year. Upgrade your subscription to secure your copy. A peek at what’s inside:
The Steel Patek Philippe 1518: A forensic look under the crystal.
10 Favorite Watches of 2025: The ones that actually made me feel something in a year of endless releases.
Articles on engraved enamel, Berneron, Kallinich Claeys, taste, and more.
No ads: 80 perfect-bound pages of watch worship—with all original images and writing.
Only available to Founding Members, who also get a free strap of their choice from the Unpolished Store. A killer deal for $199.
→ Secure your copy or manage your account here
If you’re having issues, drop me a note tony[at]unpolishedwatches.com.
About the cover photo: I shot it on the rooftop of watchmaker Franc Vila’s studio on the last day of Watches & Wonders in 2025.
As I wrote in my Geneva dispatch then:
“Franc’s studio is on the top floor of a nondescript apartment building, with a ladder that goes out to a roof you’re not supposed to go up to.
Half-drunk bottles of wine sat next to prototypes and random watches from Franc’s collection—vintage Rolex, Vacheron, and Jaeger-LeCoultre. One wealthy collector who’d flown in that day sat passed out in the corner, some combination of wine drunk and jet-lagged.
Sipping wine and talking watches with Franc and a few collectors was a refreshing end to the week.
This is watchmaking, I thought.”
I climbed up that ladder with a few others. Mont Blanc is in the background, with the Jet d'Eau shooting out of Lake Geneva below. In the foreground, a vintage Cartier Cristallor from the 1970s.
A Feverish, One-Night Parenthesis of Vintage Watches
G-Wagons and Daytonas seem to have replaced palm trees and linen suits as the primary scenery of Miami. I was there for a few days last weekend, attending the annual NAABS get-together. “NAABS” is a made-up acronym for a group of mostly vintage collectors and dealers who gather in a different U.S. city every year to talk about mostly the same watches (as this year’s host, Adam Golden of Menta Watches, joked at the opening dinner).1
I joined for the first time in Indianapolis last year, but it was only slightly warmer in Miami this year—as you might’ve seen, the iguanas were falling off trees onto sidewalks or, if lucky, one of those G-Wagons.
Things are decidedly less flashy among the NAABS crowd. It’s vintage-heavy, though there’s room for stuff like Tudor, Berneron, Lange, and the Patek Philippe 5960. But even at NAABS, there are a lot of Daytonas, even if they’re generally a few decades older than the ones you see walking into Dolce & Gabanna.
Even with all the Daytonas, one of my favorite watches of the weekend was a Pre-Daytona ref. 6238 with a black dial, from a collector we’ve featured before. There are maybe 10 silver dials for every black one—it’s kind of like a Heuer Carrera in an Oyster case, or the result of a feverish, one-night parenthesis between an Explorer 1016 and a Daytona that somehow managed to inherit only the best traits of both.
Here’s the watch of the weekend, and maybe the best chronograph ever:
It’s a Longines 13ZN with a white enamel dial, Breguet numerals, waterproof case, mushroom pushers, and stepped bezel. From Adam Victor, who briefly showed it in his Talking Watches episode.
NAABS is basically two dinners and one long lunch where everyone rolls out their watches on a large central table to be circled cautiously like the dance floor at a Protestant wedding. A few more highlights:
This is a unique Audemars Piguet Starwheel in platinum with lots of diamonds and a mother-of-pearl dial. There are similar unique Starwheels with emeralds and rubies—probably all special commissions—but this one’s the best.
A pair of center seconds Reversos from the 1940s—one with a white dial, one with a black dial double-signed for retailer Walser Wald. Fun to see a couple of Reversos amid a sea of sports watches. I used to have a center-seconds example, and they feel a bit sportier than other old Reversos.
Patek Philippe Amagnetic ref. 3417—the most elegant of tool watches. The late 50s were the era of anti-magnetic watches: The Railmaster, Geophysic, Ingenieur, and Milgauss were all introduced around the same time. But Patek Philippe’s effort is perhaps the most considered, balancing tool and elegance in the effortless mid-century way that we can’t seem to replicate nowadays. The dial, made by Stern Freres, has that Amagnetic signature in the most elegant of scripts. Only about 500 examples were produced through the 60s.
Speak of sports watches: A bunch of vintage Rolex and Tudor, including a 1016 with a dial that has a nicely gradient tropical, and a pair of Submariners. Meanwhile, the Patek Philippe Calatrava ref. 565 is on the sporty and muscular side, but the rose gold indices and leaf hands dress this one up:
Notice what’s different about this Black Bay 54? It’s been modded by watchmaker Greg Petronzi—Mercedes and lollipop hands, along with a swapped big crown. A little controversial, but hey, do whatever you want with your watch, right?
A skeleton Audemars Piguet perpetual calendar and a transitional Daytona ref. 6262, on the wrists of Lex and CJ, two co-founders of the Miami Watch Club.
Dr. Jimmy Field’s lineup of vintage Breitling chronographs—they’re all interesting, but seeing a Duograph is always special. It’s estimated only a few hundred were made.
A Patek Philippe ref. 3796SG—white gold with a salmon dial from Wes Wynne. Thought to be a limited edition of 100, it seems like only a few were actually made. In addition to that special dial, it’s also got an exhibition caseback. Perhaps the best neo-vintage Calatrava around.
Here’s a neo-vintage skeletonized Vacheron Constantin Perpetual Calendar. Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron all released their ultra-slim perpetual calendars around the same time in the 70s-80s. Vacheron’s is distinguished by its longer, straight lugs and lapis lazuli moonphase disk.
Touched? Untouched!
So How Do I Attend NAABS (or Something Like It)?
Watch meetups can look exclusionary and cult-like from the outside. They kind of are. There’s an element of patronage and trust, ensuring that those invited in care about preserving watch collecting and aren’t tourists. It’s also motivated by an awareness that watch collecting is always just a generation from extinction.
I could try to give you a roadmap of watches to buy, people to schmooze, and events to frequent. But if you treat it like a checklist, it’ll feel like one, and you’ll miss what collecting is supposed to be about. Meetups like this rarely have just the biggest collectors. You can’t buy your way in. But they always include some of the craziest, most passionate, and most excited to learn.
Take time to discover the corners of the hobby that resonate with you. Find people you click with, and you might even look up one day to realize you’re on the “inside,” though it’ll hardly feel like it.
-Tony
Technically, NAABS is the North American Advisory Board Summit.
“Take time to discover the corners of the hobby that resonate with you. Find people you click with, and you might even look up one day to realize you’re on the “inside,” though it’ll hardly feel like it.”
Amen brother. Amen.
G-Wagons and Daytonas. You possess a gift with words. Fantastic write up.