We recently published the definitive guide to the 25 greatest independent watchmakers in the world , and that got us thinking: What does an enviable collection of watches by independents look like in practice, and how might one go about assembling it? We knew just the guy to ask: A collector in Manhattan who’s spent more than a decade building a mechanical watch collection that’s now roughly 80 pieces strong and includes models by some of the rarest and most coveted independent makers working today, from avant-gardists like MB&F and Urwerk to relative traditionalist like Grönefeld , Simon Brett and F. P. Journe .
Known as @nycwatchguy, he’s a venture capitalist with only one obsession that eclipses his love of watches: basketball. He asked to remain anonymous due to the security risks inherent to being a collector of high-end watches. We agreed—provided he was willing to let us handle and photograph his collection, and that he’d share the stories behind some of his most treasured pieces.
In 2011, the collector bought his first mechanical watch, a pre-owned Zenith El Primero Chronomaster. Shortly afterwards, he caught the bug for the independent watchmakers, captivated, he says, by “the risks they were taking and what they were doing relative to the Pateks and Richard Milles of the world.” In 2019, he made what in retrospect looks like a prescient move: He placed a deposit on the AkriviA AK-06 , the first non-tourbillon wristwatch produced by the brand, whose f.