Raison d'Etre

Why Independent in Time Exists

My fascination with watches began a very long time before I ever imagined I might make a living from them.

I grew up near Liverpool, England, and as a boy I was always fascinated by mechanical things. LEGO, Meccano and anything that involved putting things together, taking them apart and trying to understand how they worked held my attention.

When I was ten years old, I received my first mechanical Timex. I can still remember the luminous glow from the dial under the bedcovers at night. There was something quite magical about having this little mechanical object strapped to my wrist, ticking away and keeping time.

A few years later, around 1975 or 1976, some of my schoolmates began appearing with the first digital watches, with those wonderful red LED displays where you pushed a button and the time suddenly appeared in glowing red numerals. They seemed terribly modern and exotic at the time.

Mechanical on one wrist, this completely new electronic technology on another. I was fascinated by both.

I didn't know it then, of course, but the flame had been lit.

I wore that Timex for many years, eventually progressing to a grey plastic Swatch and then an analogue quartz Pulsar for my eighteenth birthday.

Entering the Jewellery Business

In September 1986, I entered the jewellery business with Boodles in Chester, England, and was rather thrown in at the deep end.

Suddenly I was surrounded by fine jewellery, gemstones, silver and watches. Rolex, Omega, Zenith and all sorts of interesting pieces came through our hands, and my childhood fascination with watches quickly returned.

I remember very clearly a stainless-steel Rolex Milgauss we had, with a silver dial, no date and red lettering. Today, collectors would immediately recognise the significance of such a watch. At the time it was simply an interesting, rather unusual Rolex.

We weren't looking at every watch through the prism of auction results, investment potential, Instagram or what everyone else thought we should be collecting.

We were looking at the watches.

I think there is something rather important in that.

I remained with Boodles until December 1987. By then I wanted to understand much more about the gemstones, jewellery and objects I was handling.

In March 1988, I left England for the United States and came to California to study gemology at the GIA in Santa Monica, subsequently becoming a Graduate Gemologist.

It was quite a move for a young Englishman from near Liverpool, and at the time I certainly couldn't have imagined where it would eventually lead.

Boston, Roy Eyges and a Patek Philippe

I moved to Boston and went to work for the late Roy K. Eyges, a wonderful character and a highly respected dealer in antique jewellery and gemstones.

Working with Roy was an education in itself. We handled some marvellous objects, and I began to understand that experience, instinct and curiosity could sometimes tell you things that weren't written in a reference book.

There is one watch from that period I remember particularly well.

Around 1990, we acquired a wonderful circa-1935 Patek Philippe: a rectangular watch with a stepped case in 18K rose gold.

I thought it was absolutely lovely.

We showed it around locally and received various trade offers, none of which seemed to reflect what I thought the watch was really worth. I felt there had to be somebody out there who would understand it and appreciate it properly.

Eventually, I sold the watch for $5,500, which was quite a considerable amount for it at the time.

Looking back, the interesting part isn't really the $5,500. It was the idea that an unusual watch might simply need to find the right person.

That thought has stayed with me throughout my career and, in many ways, still describes a large part of what I do today.

San Francisco and Finding My Own Way

In August 1991, I arrived in San Francisco and initially joined Jackson Square Fine Jewels before going out on my own in 1992.

Through 1999, I bought and sold jewellery and watches in what was essentially a wholesale business.

Those years were tremendously useful. When you are buying watches and jewellery with your own money, you learn rather quickly to trust your eye—but also to question it. You learn about condition, originality, quality and value.

More importantly, you begin to understand the difference between something that is merely expensive and something that is genuinely good.

In 2000, I rejoined Jackson Square Fine Jewels, this time as a Partner, and helped build the business over the following eight years.

It was during this period that my interest in watches began moving in a rather particular direction.

2002 — The Independent Journey Begins

By 2002, I had become increasingly interested not simply in mechanical watches, but in the people actually making them.

I began looking beyond the obvious names and found a small and rather extraordinary world of independent watchmakers.

Independent watchmaking in 2002 was a very different proposition from what it is today. Many of the watchmakers whose names are now familiar to serious collectors were known to a comparatively tiny audience. There was no Instagram and nothing like the constant flow of information we have today.

If you wanted to understand these watches properly, you had to make an effort.

You had to see them, handle them and ask questions.

And, best of all, you could go and meet the people who made them.

That appealed to me enormously.

Here were individuals who had chosen a rather different path. Some had left the relative security of established manufacturers. Others were creating tiny ateliers virtually from scratch. They were developing movements, making components, finishing them by hand and pursuing their own ideas.

And then they put their own names on the dial.

There is something wonderfully courageous about that.

Beginning in 2002, while I was a Partner at Jackson Square Fine Jewels, I began working seriously with artisanal independent watchmakers and introducing their watches to collectors in Silicon Valley and further afield.

I travelled to Switzerland, visited workshops, attended Basel and other watch fairs, handled the watches, asked an enormous number of questions and tried to learn as much as I possibly could.

Most importantly, I got to know the watchmakers themselves.

Over time, some of those professional relationships became longstanding personal ones. I watched watchmakers develop their ideas, create new movements, establish their ateliers and gradually find an audience for their work. Some of the people working in relative obscurity then have subsequently become very well known indeed.

It has been quite something to watch.

2009 — Independent in Time

I left Jackson Square Fine Jewels in December 2008 and, in January 2009, started Independent in Time.

By then I had been working with independent watchmakers for some seven years, and it seemed entirely natural that when the time came to create my own business, this should be its focus.

Independent in Time was founded for a very simple reason.

I wanted to champion these watchmakers and their work.

Not simply to sell their watches, although of course that is part of the business, but to help collectors understand who made the watch, why they made it and what makes their work different.

A beautifully made mechanical watch is an extraordinary object in its own right. But when you know something about the person who conceived it, designed it, made it and finished it, the watch takes on another dimension entirely.

The Watchmaker, the Watch and the Collector

We, as collectors and enthusiasts, are richer for the work of the independent watchmaker.

These individuals create their micro-mechanical horological art for people who appreciate the individuality, craftsmanship and, importantly, the human hand behind it.

Perhaps the most remarkable part is that you can actually meet the person who created your watch.

You can sit across a table from them, talk about their ideas and understand why they made the watch the way they did.

In some cases it can go considerably further. Independent watchmakers are often willing to work directly with collectors, perhaps creating a special dial, incorporating an individual detail or, occasionally, making an entirely unique watch.

The collector can become part of the story.

Over the years I have had the pleasure of introducing many collectors to watchmakers whose work they had previously known only from photographs—or sometimes had never encountered at all. I have watched some of those introductions develop into relationships and friendships of their own.

That gives me enormous pleasure.

For me, the relationship between watchmaker, watch and collector remains at the heart of independent watchmaking.

The Path Less Travelled

The independent watchmaking journey is one of constant discovery and learning.

It is certainly a path less travelled, although considerably less so today than when I first started down it in 2002.

In an increasingly homogenised world, there is something very appealing about individuals who are prepared to pursue their own ideas and develop their own distinctive language through this extraordinary form of micro-mechanical horological art.

Of course, not every independent watchmaker will appeal to every collector.

Nor should they.

That is rather the point.

My job has never been to persuade somebody that they ought to like a particular watch because the market tells them it is important. I would much rather help a collector understand the watchmaker, the work and the ideas behind it, and then allow them to decide whether there is a connection.

Sometimes there is. Sometimes there isn't.

And sometimes a watchmaker whose work leaves you completely unmoved the first time you see it becomes fascinating five years later because your own understanding and taste have evolved.

That, too, is part of the journey.

Raison d'Etre

Independent watchmaking has changed enormously since I first became involved in 2002, and it is gratifying to see the attention these watchmakers now receive.

But for me, the fundamental attraction hasn't really changed.

It isn't primarily the auction result, the waiting list or how many people on social media tell us that a particular watch is desirable.

It is the watchmaker.

It is the idea.

It is the extraordinary amount of thought, skill, patience and human effort contained within this tiny mechanical object that we strap to our wrist.

It is now forty years since I first entered the jewellery business at Boodles in Chester in 1986 and, rather wonderfully, I remain as fascinated by mechanical watches as I was when I started.

Perhaps more so.

I have had the good fortune to travel alongside many independent watchmakers on their respective journeys. I have visited their ateliers, watched their work evolve, represented a select number of them as an Authorized Dealer and shared their stories with collectors.

I have learnt an enormous amount from them.

I am still learning.

Independent in Time exists to champion these watchmakers, to share their work and their stories, and to introduce collectors to this small and rather remarkable world.

If I can introduce somebody to a watchmaker they had never previously encountered, help them understand a familiar maker a little more deeply, or perhaps begin a relationship between collector and watchmaker that continues for many years, then I think Independent in Time has done what I intended it to do.

And after all these years, I still get a tremendous amount of pleasure from doing exactly that.

That, ultimately, is the raison d'être of Independent in Time.

I invite you to spend some time getting to know these watchmakers and their work.

You may find the journey as compelling as I have.

Cheers,

Tim Jackson G.G.
Independent in Time, Inc.

Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London
Academy Member of the GPHG, Switzerland

Championing Independent Watchmaking Since 2002
Independent in Time — Established 2009