Collectors Among Us: Brian Fisher

I'm an English teacher for 26 years if someone looks at records or guitars or watches they aren't thinking that I'm wealthy they aren't thinking that it's like some elevated thing they're just judging me for spending too much money on the stuff I like so that's funny that people use watches like as a way to sort of like class themselves up a bit or make themselves seem like they're whatever I find in my situation that it's the exact opposite people look at it and they're like you're a tot totally and I'm into it hello everyone Raymond from analog shift here today we're talking with Brian who is someone I've gotten to know a little bit the last couple years uh first walked into our office uh I would say about two years ago um and had recently been working on making a transition from selling some guitars and to roll it into a watch if I recall that watch was a Rolex Explorer 1016 and it's kind of gone a little bit crazy since then crazy is a word I'd use yeah and one thing I know about your collection is that it's it's leans heavily toward vintage but you do have a couple modern pieces and I and I've seen you wear these pieces and and you know they make for great travel watches but I think we both share a preference or heavy draw toward vintage um it out that's no doubt my guest do in part to uh guitars records where it all comes from stuff y what's your what's your feelings toward V watches versus modern cuz there is a little bit of both I mean I think everyone always tries to give an answer to explain sort of like why people collect certain things and I think if I had to give my justification or explanation it would be I think I'm just a design person I like buildings you know I like Furniture I've always like guitars I like the way that they're built um I'm very technical um and I think what I'm really into um are classic design where they kind of got it right the first time you know just like sitting right there as a like a Telecaster and that guitar has not changed at all since 1950 and they really haven't bested it and I think with vintage watches if you get a great design like an old speed master or a GMT or a datejust or something like that they haven't really changed them and I don't necessarily feel like they've improved them um so yeah I do have like two modern watches that I wear all the time and they're great but I just don't get the same feeling from them that I get from an old watch even though I really like them um so there are a couple of watches that I travel with and one of them is a benis just a type one benris that I really really love and pretty much looks exactly like the original vintage one and my family we went to Vietnam for 3 weeks last summer and this is the watch that was issued you know during the Vietnam conflict um and I felt like it would would be cool to bring it so on that trip I mean we were on a motorbike like going through the mountains and we're there like doing overnight trains and we we travel kind of rough we're not like fancy Travelers so this was with me every single day so as a result I would never get rid of this one we're sitting here in your Brooklyn apartment and I see an incredible stereo system art what is your take on the relationship between design and functionality cuz seems like pretty well balanced Synergy between the two things it's really basic for me if something is really really great it usually has a couple of elements and they kind of all have to be there in order for me to get really really into it it has to emotionally you know move you and if it's part of your like home where it's going to go on your body it should look really great you know so it should have great design and it should function like it should just you know it should uh be robust and if you're going to spend money that you know is hard to come by like you might as well spend it on something that's that's worth it uh were there any lessons that you learned in Guitar collecting or um you know buying stereo equipment and flipping stereo equipment that kind of directly related to watches I mean the big thing with guitarist is that you get into the old ones and it's like a Minefield everyone always says that vintage is the Minefield they say that you have to you know buy the seller buy the dealer all this other stuff well they say the same exact thing with guitars um but it doesn't always work it just really doesn't and that's been my experience and just as an example I got a 1943 Southern jumbo Gibson acoustic guitar and I remember getting it and then looking at it you know just sitting on the stand and I noticed that the back binding was really really white and that the top binding was really really yellow and old and everything else was yellow and old all over it and then I put it on my lap and I looked into the sound hole and I realized that someone had taken a router and removed all the back binding take the back off of the guitar and rebrace the whole entire guitar top which changes it from being Gibson frankly and certainly a vintage a vintage correct Gibson and the guitar had been totally altered and they were passing it off as something I mean unless they didn't notice it and then if they didn't notice it then like what kind of a seller am I buying you know so I got really burned on that one and I had to have that guitar restored and I had to eat a lot of money and a lot of time and just a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears so with watches it's the same exact thing you know you get a watch and then you take a look at it and you're like what's going on with these hands what's going on with that insert or something like that and then you start talking to people and people give you different answers and it's just extremely frustrating and I think really what ultimately happens is that you just need to get as many of them in your hands as possible so that you have the sense versus taking someone else's word for it so you do buy the seller um but I think you also need to really know that seller and you need to know the watches in order for that to sort of make sense so out of any of the watches uh that we have here on the table or or not on the table do you have a watch that you you very clearly wear the most so I'm a teacher um and it's kind of fun because kids don't really know watches so you can kind of wear your watches and you don't have to deal with them judging you or making comments or whatever but they do have these really annoying like aluminum water bottles that they swing around on like lanyards and stuff like that so I do have like some sort of like a terrible vision of me wearing a cool old vintage watch and just getting it like clanged with like one of those like water bottles and like it makes me very upset so the funny thing this is going to sound totally bizarre I turned 50 and there is an authorized dealer in the town in which I teach and I've known these guys for a long time and they sold me a Daytona a white Daytona so it's like the most hyped up watch Ever um I did not buy this on the gray Market I bought it for what they're selling it for I didn't have to like make a big deal to get it I just asked for it I turned 50 I have like practically no spend history with these guys whatsoever and they just know that I love watches and they they you know allowed me to buy it so this frankly is one of the watches that I wear the most and it's the one that I think is probably most recognized iable and it just that's not how I look at it at all and this one's got a pretty cool engraving on the back as well right yeah that's just cuz I'm a freak so it has a Hunter S Thompson engraving on the back of it English teachery uh it says when the going gets weird the weird turn pro am I Pro Raymond I don't know so I wear I wear this one a lot the watch that I wish that I could wear the most I think this is my favorite watch period um 16 75 um from 1970 this has an engraving on the back um from the Royal sa Air Force to a pilot um for delivering an F5 um to the sa Air Force and uh engraved on the day that he got it um it's a full set watch which I don't really care about but it's nice to know that the watch went to the original owner and that he kept everything he wrote a book about flying in Vietnam um have a signed copy of that and then the coolest part was you know me like I'm going to try to find the person you know whose watch it was like that's just the way that I am I do it with guitars so I found this guy on Facebook because he wrote a book um and I was able to find him retired in Arizona um he had had some health challenges and when I finally got in contact with him I was in Vietnam randomly with my family so I'm messaging him on on Facebook and uh when I got back to the States I got on the phone with him and he sent me a a direct letter of provenance with the watch um signed it sent it here so I have all that stuff and it's just it's my absolute favorite watch it just happens to be in such nice condition that I'm sort of afraid to wear it the way that I would just wear a watch normally cuz the water bottles sure what what are you most into right now I I know that's a DAT that's kind of a yeah date just that's your that's your Obsession currently I don't know why well I do know why my dad wore datejusts datejusts he had a datejust and he had like the cheesiest American Psycho datejust ever he just had the two-tone you know like gold dial datejust and I remember being obsessed with it when I was a kid but I was into Subs so you know I have a really really nice 5513 that to me is my probably this and the 1675 were my favorites um this is what I had in mind when I was a kid cuz I was a James Bond you know fanatic and I used to get National Geographic magazine um so I used to see ads for these all the time but when I saw this one I believe this is the this was the first HS that I ever got I got it from you guys at Analog um and it's a mosaic dial I think they call it shantong so it looks like Silk so it's blue and you know when you sort of turn it in the light it's got like a little bit of a disco ball effect I like lenen dials too for the same exact reason they just kind of play off with the light so you find yourself staring at your watch and annoying people people are like look at him staring at his watch I mean how do you not stare at this watch yeah I don't I don't use the term lightly um the day just is an icon but like like you and there's some similarities here and and some differences uh I worked in golf for a little while and I would see thank you I would see people with two-tone datejusts with a champagne dial spinning around on their wrists totally to me that's what I thought a Rolex was for years bracelet and unlike you I grew up in the era of brazen and the SE master so I always thought that was a watch it wasn't until I got into older watches where I paid attention to the fact that James Bond did wear a samarin Rosen was when I started teaching and I got out of graduate school and I was first starting to get like a paycheck so I was in that period of time where I was like I think I can actually buy one of these so my first really nice watch I had for 10 years and it was just an Omega SE master and it was the Pierce broen one like it was the it was the wave dial The Blue Wave dial and I actually got that that's an interesting story I got that on eBay from a guy who like just took pity on me I couldn't believe how expensive they were and I had my first couple of years of teaching and I really wanted that watch so I contacted him on eBay and he let it go really cheap and I got it from him sadly in the basement of uh the one of the Twin Towers because there was a torno down there and he worked at the very top at caner Fitzgerald I don't have his name I always wonder if he survived you know what happened there but that was my only watch for 10 years this would have been early eBay early eBay like wild west eBay what's the watch here that you've had the longest uh you mentioned this Omega um I don't see that on the table I'm guessing that's no longer with you it's gone yeah so that's the funny thing like if it were guitars I could show you guitars that really old I've had forever for watches I only ever had one watch always so I went from the seam master and I bought myself that was 10 years and then I bought a Rolex Submariner just like your standard you know 2006 uh Submariner loved it wore that for a decade um and I sold that and then I decided that I wanted to get a Submariner um and then also to get a you know a cave dweller 1655 so I got those and that kind of started off my collection um and then I kind of just spun out from there what's what's next how do you see your watch collecting Journey evolving and what might be a gril down the road I did get a really really nice um Paras style tank Louie um this one's incredible um I don't think this has ever been touched the Hallmarks are really really deep and it's just pretty it's got a Flawless style you know me me and it's like it really needs to function in order for me to get into it and these things didn't have any seals whatsoever you know no they're negative water resistance they're sponges that normally would not be a watch for me um but I'm learning as I started go along with all this stuff that like you don't need to have something that does it all this is something that you wear when conditions permit although I have to be honest with you I wish I could just wear this every single day you don't even feel like you're wearing anything does it like get more Art Deco or classic than this probably not no I you know I would like to explore cardier you know in the future but I think everyone's doing it so it just means that they're getting really really expensive this was not insane but uh I think that cardier is becoming insane right now so the Tank's a a pretty obvious deviation from what your your Norm is um what's next I don't know I I I don't know I I think I went a little bit nutty and I basically was selling instruments that I had around um and that's how all the watches sort of came to be um so I think there are no more guitars to sell and uh I'm a teacher so I can't picture giant purchases happening I I could imagine I know myself like I I do feel like I could picture selling some of them and rolling them into one but having something overly precious also makes me nervous too so I'm probably just going to enjoy what I have and and I think sort of where I'm heading is not having something in mind and then letting something show up because it it happens that way with guitars you know you're on a road trip you're driving someplace you see a tag sale and then I see an old lift in case and I'm like I know what's in that case and then you're like oh God and then you know that's kind of where I would like to be with watches a lot of these were like I'm looking for something I ask you or James or I ask Andrew and I say hey look can you find me X Y or Z and that's cool too but it's also really cool to have something show up and then you're like that's just really right and it's a special cool like thing so I think that's where I want to go

Channel: Analog:Shift

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Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2024