Two brothers, best friends and twins, sharing a passion (bordering on obsession) with watch collecting.
We’ve both loved for watches for over 20 years, but Lockdown 2020 was the catalyst for us changing up a gear. With all that time on our hands, our collections have grown considerably, from a few to (too) many.
As identical twins, we are very similar in person and our minds work in similar ways. Our tastes in life, however have always been a little different. That includes women, fashion, cars and haircuts. 🙂 With watches, however, we have scarily similar tastes. More on that later.
Â
Early collections
Growing up in London, we we weren’t exposed to the world of watch collecting until much later in our lives. Maybe its just something that comes with age, or having a little more disposable income, but watches were just a utility until then. We both have had a few watches each, until Lockdown started in 2020. More on that later. Although we didn’t realise it at the time, we’ve been collecting without realising it and without any specific focus or purpose. Perhaps that is how many collections start.
Mark had his Breitling and Apple Watch as daily wearers and an old Tissot T-Touch as his beater. Purchased around 2005, he still wears it today as part of his daily rotation (although mainly for gardening and when he knows it might get knocked about). Its super tough, reliable and still looks cool with 6 mulit-functions; Meteo, Altimeter, Chrono, Compass, Alarm and Thermo. Not quite a smart watch, but pretty close to one 10 years before the Apple Watch.
Neil had a similar eclectic collection he’d added to over the years without much focus. His early watches consisted of an Ellesse Chronograph, a few different Casios, a Seiko and a very nice Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean (which turned out to be a fake a few years later!). He also dabbled with smart watches, owning a Pebble watch, which was the most funded Kickstarter campaign in its time in 2012, and an Apple Watch.
Telepathic Twins?
What we both find funny is, as we grow our collections and search for the ‘next one’, we have extremely similar tastes. We both spend time most days trawling through forums, Chrono24 and eBay and bookmarking possible candidates for our shortlists. When we meet up and share what we’ve each found, at least 50% of those we each find are the same.
Mark picked up the beautiful Oris Diver 65 last year and on arrival, didn’t connect with it. The minute he told Neil that he’d ordered one, Neil said “you ******. I wanted one of those..!”. Its hilarious. Luckily, as our tastes are so close, Neil was only too happy to give the Oris a good home (or wrist).
Keep looking out for our blog articles to hear about our latest finds…