Photo Report: Inside Rolliefest 2025

Much more than Rolex at one of the world's biggest gatherings of watch collectors.

Sep 28, 2025

**Lots of photos in this one, so click the headline above for the best viewing in your browser.** We’ll get a closer look at this collection in a future newsletter.

Good afternoon from Newark Airport, where I’m flying back after a long weekend in New York. Today’s photo-heavy newsletter is free. If you want more, I talked about a few recent finds, where to find value, and more over on A Continuous Lean’s Material Review.

A few winters ago, I took this improv class at Second City in Chicago. One of the lessons I remember: There’s comedy in specificity. The more specific the joke, the funnier it is.

Rolliefest is a sensory overload. The biennial event is organized by Geoff Hess, head of Sotheby’s watch department. Perhaps 200 people attended the two-day event in New York this weekend, highlighted by a dinner at The Met and lunch atop One World Trade. You’ll see write-ups by Hodinkee, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, and others in the coming days. At one point, the NY Mag writer on assignment (wearing: quartz Karl Lagerfeld-branded watch) asked if I could estimate the total value of watches in the room. I had no idea. It could’ve been $5m or $50m.

Either way, the question implies the opposite of specificity. I suppose it’s the only way to fathom the hundreds of watches in the room, the easiest way to write a headline.

But with watches, their beauty is in the specificity. At Rolliefest, it can be hard to appreciate the specifics, the details: The Tuscan and waffle dials, the Wellendorf and Gay Frères bracelets. The best moments I had were picking up watches and getting a few extra moments to appreciate those details, to hear from their owners what these watches continue to reveal after years of wear and ownership.

Enjoy these photos from Rolliefest—I also sat to chat with a couple of collectors about their watches, so look forward to a few editions of The Countdown, where we’ll get into more of those details.

Rolliefest photo report 2025 — Dinner at The Met, including a Piaget with skeletonized Lemania movement and a Berneron Mirage 34 "Tiger's Eye.

Another collection we’ll see more of in a future newsletter.

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