Dear friends
As we approach to grand finale of POTM series
I couldn't think of better candidate than our own man behind the scenes
our one and only Bill...man we can all thank to have this virtual home of ours..
man of great taste in divers watches, wines and cars...but not to spoil it you'll see it...
so final POTM is Bill.
Enjoy
D
1. Please introduce yourself!
My name is Bill aka “Bill”in the forum and I am a watch addict.
It has ten days since my last watch purchase and three hours since my last visit to this forum.
But then again I just described 95% of the forum community. I need to go back a few years to find the old me before I went watch crazy.
I live in southern California not far from the ocean and try to stay in shorts at least 350 days a year wearing my big boy (long) pants on the formal occasions.
I have pushed my habit on the family and believe the phrase “A family that plays together stays together”.
I have an old fashion MBA under grad BSC Bus Admin (before everything went the way of "social") and fell into the tech industry back in 1988. This stems mostly from my passion of technology.
I will date myself a little but some old timers may recognize the name Kaypro with CPM operating system.
CPM was before DOS as we are talking 1981. I was a whiz at multiplan, wordperfect and lotus 123. DOS took over the world not long after.
The Kaypro was my first portable (Luggable - 30lbs) computer and we are talking two 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives (high density of course)
with no hard disk as my second computer from Kaypro had a ten megabyte hard drive. When I started in tech online services included Compuserve,
mainframes and we used phone couplers connect to 300 baud modems but it was not to long before we hit blinding speeds of 9600 baud.
Ok you guys now know I am a computer geek of sorts but it is the storage and use of data like our forum that enjoy. It is all about getting the right amount of data at the right time.
To close the loop on the career side MBA mixed with tech you end up being in sales but being entrepreneurial minded and I opened up shop to serve publishers distributing their
data on the info super highway (the Internet) in the mid nighties. The forum here today runs on the upgraded version of what we started way back in the day.
2. How did you discovered WatchProSite and what it means for you to be one of PuristS?I met ThomasM in 2005 he founded of the ThePurists in 2001. He helped me acquire one of my first watches which I still have the JLC Polaris Amvox1 Aston Martin first edition.
We got to talking and PuristSPro/Watchprosite was born in 2006 the next chapter of this fun forum.
The biggest challenge we had was maintaining three versions of the site to make sure every user was happy and nobody likes change.
Lucky for us when the Iphone became omnipresent it gave a good reason to drop all the version and now we run just one flavor and a dedicated Iphone app.
OKay I am boring you guys. Back to the forum, I also met Nicolas (amanico) not long after 2006 ish and the virtual friendship translated perfectly into real world friendship
and that is one of the great things everyone finds after discovering the site. First we come looking for information and quickly there after we discover there are so many
likeminded people present that we end up part of a community. These friendships continue as I get more and more opportunities to meet members in the real world as they
pass through town or I pass through their town. Most recently was "GIGI aka Giorgio from Italy" and Zabreg1 aka Zabreg1 not far from Damjan and many others from Indonesia to the UK.
The fabric of this forum is in the great people we meet where we have real conversations and things we enjoy not just clicking on a like button and saying "nice".
3. What watch are you wearing today and how you choose watch “of the day”?Patek Philippe 5980 not in my general theme as I am vintage guy but the watch has been discontinued.
I just love the look and feel and with a nautical aspect fits me perfectly.
Choosing a watch or watches of the day, in my case, is pattern less. Or maybe I do have a few patterns.
When I buy a new watch I wear it for a couple of days even sleep with it. I tell myself I am testing it as most watches I buy are "vintage".
I use the term because they are not just second wrist but really old my average watch is 25 years old and they all have a story to tell.
4. What is your favorite watch/brand/complication?For the favorite watch question it is like the favorite child question. I don't play favorites.
My favorite watch is the watch I am wearing at the time. I have no favorite child answer.
Rolex. Yes Rolex is my favorite brand but not new Rolex but Vintage Rolex. Now I need to describe what vintage
Rolex is as it is not a moving target of 20 or xx years but a very specific time period.
Vintage Rolex can be described in a few simple terms. First and a relatively easy way to recognize vintage Rolex is that it has a plexi crystal.
The second is that it has lug holes on the case which allows you to push the pins in to remove the bracelet.
These two give your average guy a way to recognize a vintage Rolex. Now diving a little deeper Vintage Rolex
has applied markers on the dial or if you wish painted index markers i.e. the lume plots are laid by hand.
And finally the model number is for digits i.e 5513, 1675, 1680, 5510 etc. I know I said lastly but what I described give you 90% of vintage
Rolex with the last catch all being serial numbers that start with a number and the last range is 9 million serial i.e. 9xx,xxx,xxx and this effective puts the cutoff date of 1987.
My favorite era is the gilt glossy period which ended around 1966. Yes, this is a pretty long answer to the simple question of what is vintage Rolex.
I have to admit I don't really have any deep knowledge of the mysteries of complications and how the hell my Perpetual JLC knows how to skip leap years and it is mechanical and it knows how to do this for 122 years. I have to say my favorite is the perpetual calendar.
5. When and how you discovered horology?I have photographic proof that I owned watches early on “Young Bill – fashion Bill”.
But at the same time I was also a one Rolex guy for 17 plus years with
this Rolex Thunderbird REF # 1625 which I still own today.
It was from
the mid-seventies and stayed with me day and night wet and dry until it
was replace in 2001 with another Rolex.
But I have to say completely fell into collecting watches through the forum here I would say around 2008.
I discovered that I was hooked when I started to collect every variation of the same watch.
If I just show you some of the Doxa or Seiko watches (other favorites) you will immediately see watch insanity.
6. What element of the watch is for you make it or break it factor?I really care about is how easy is it to tell time on the watch. So I would say legibility. I have to admit I have seen watches where the hands blend into the dial like with skeleton dials and I just can tell what time it is.
I do also have a favorite size with is around 39/40mm which is what you basic vintage Rolex watch sits at. I have a collection of Panerai watches and there I have them as large as 47mm and they work for me. However, I would say my favorite size has to be 40mm. Little part of the Panerai collection PAM203, PAM127 and PAM 217
7. If you could design your own watch what would it be and what it would look like?I don't have the talent to design a watch. But dive watches have always been a favorite style for me.
Easy to read, rotating bezel with 5 minute indicators. I like both rubber and metal bracelets.
8. What is the watch that will last leave your collection and why?
I like to think that every watch I have has a story to tell. Most of the stories are around the hunt and the desire to locate a specific watch.
Also each watch, again going back into my vintage theme, has history of its own. Cousteau divers had this model.
The Aquanaut Berry Cannon wore this model Doxa on the fateful day when the Sealab III tragedy happened.
So that is to say there is not really one standout watch with a very specific attachment.
On by the way did I mention I am a watch hoarder. I can't seem to let go of anything as every watch was a challenge to acquire.
9. What do you love and hate about watch industry today?I know that for many the love hate relationship revolves around after sales service / customer support.
It seems all too often they are so lovingly on the retail front but can't afford the customer the same courtesy when is it comes to service.
My expectations are very different in service as my watches are all vintage and they have to go into the caring hands of independent watchmakers who do the best they can with the little options they have.
We often have to by a second watch to scavenge parts to fix the first watch so I live in a very different service / restoration world.
10. What was the evolution of your collection and how do you see it in next decade?For me my theme has remained pretty much the same over the years. Focus is on a few brands with a general sport / dive theme.
11. What other hobbies do you have?Anybody who sees my posts in the forum knows I love the ocean. If I could be out every day I would.
So I am not sure I can call the ocean my hobby but I like to spend time on the water.
More along the watch hobby theme is collecting and enjoying wine. My wine collection is 25 years in the making.
Finally I like old sports cars much like vintage watches. They all seem to have a history unlike new cars where you create your history.
Pictured below is the frame of my 1930 Ford and the second picture is the body.
12. Your life motto and life philosophy is…I saw this on a billboard not long ago.
It is nice to be important but it is important to be nice.
For me it is all about generosity to others.
