Omega Speedmaster. Breitling Navitimer. 1665 Double Red Sea Dweller.
For the uninitiated, these sound like exotic brands, but of what? Jet skis, maybe, or models of yachts. In fact, they are wristwatches, three of well over a dozen belonging to Henry Flores ’01, an avid watch collector and founder of the Classic Watch Club (CWC) in New York City. The club meets at Pier 76, home of Classic Car Club Manhattan, of which Flores is also a member.
Flores, who makes his living as a senior real estate manager for a major pharmaceutical company, began collecting watches when he fell in love with—and purchased—his first vintage watch in an airport duty-free shop in 2004. Interested in finding like-minded collectors and experts, he launched the CWC in 2019.
The pandemic put a temporary halt to the club’s monthly face-to-face gatherings but opened up a new avenue—virtual meetings—that allowed the club to attract collectors from far beyond Manhattan. Now, with two meetings each month—one in person, one remote—CWC membership has grown to 300, with about 125 collectors from the New York area, the rest from around the world.
Flores has made some real-world friendships through these virtual meetings. In a 2023 interview on the website of retailer Watch Aficionado, Flores mentions taking a “bucket-list trip” to Geneva, Switzerland, with five club friends in April 2023; they went on private tours of several watchmakers’ facilities and attended Watches and Wonder, an international trade show and celebration of fine watchmaking.
For people who don’t recognize the names of classic watches or even know how to tell two watches apart, the CWC may sound like a different world. But its foundation is simple, and it’s one that any collector will recognize. As Flores told Watch Aficionado, “For me, watch collecting is about community and making friendships.”
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