It’s time for another interview on WahaWatches. This time, the interview is with Jeanôt de Graaf. Jeanôt is a huge vintage watch enthusiast with an amazing collection (although his father outranks him). He is a friendly guy who will always share his knowledge with others. He also buys and sells watches as a hobby.
How did your love for vintage watches come to be?
Well, my father was already collecting vintage watches for a very long time, way before collecting vintage watches was popular as it is now. At a younger age, I was not interested in old watches. I found them boring and didn’t understand why my father was getting all excited when he received packages filled with vintage watches from eBay (1999). Because nearly nobody was collecting them he bought hundreds of them at flea markets.
About 10 years ago I started buying old watches from the internet just to resell them and so I started to read more about the movements and other facts. I could get a lot of info from my father about brands that I should and shouldn’t buy. Pretty soon I stumbled across my first watch that I didn’t want to sell because I really liked it’s design and movement, a 50’s Longines Flagship hand wound. So it began.
How is your collection made up?
I have a collection made up of all kinds of watches. The biggest part is made up by vintage Longines watches but besides those, I have kept a lot of watches just because I like the way they look or I have a story of how I obtained them and therefore I want to keep them.
Currently, what is the watch you love to wear the most?
Not a real vintage, I hardly ever wear my vintage watches because I would really hate to damage them. I wear a Breitling Superocean Heritage 2010. Because it’s a heritage version I still consider it to be a bit vintage and I really love its Milanaise bracelet.
What is your vintage watch top 3?
Longines Flagship 1950-1960’s; Breitling Chronomat 1940’s ref 769; Omega Constellations from 1950-1960
What is your grail watch?
Difficult, there are so many beautiful watches out there but I’d love to own a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms diver’s watch.
What is the watch that is now on the wishlist but you’ll eventually own it?
Iwc 3707 and a Rolex Deep Sea.
If you’d start over, what would you do differently?
I would also have bought other brands that weren’t interesting then but are highly collectible now. Purely based on my collection I wouldn’t change anything, I like it the way it is and how it has come to be.
What is the next brand that will go through the roof price wise?
I think all vintage watches with in-house movements will be highly collectible in the future. I think Roamer, Junghans, Certina etc. will be more appreciated in the future.
Do you have any tips for starting collectors?
Yes, buy your watches from me! Just joking, of course, my advice would be to browse the internet for what you like. Read about it and its features so when you make a (first) purchase it will not be disappointing. There are many nice watches for sale out there but there are a lot of fakes and Franken watches out there as well.
