Cool Britannia – Ben Dunn of Watch Brothers London

I’m a curious collector at heart, with the sad and very common reality that I can’t experience and collect them all,” he explains to me. “After furiously dropping significant amounts of money into what was lovely collection at the time I just couldn’t stop the itch for the next even though my bank account had given up long before! I have a strong design interest and a passion for the details so I built my own website and began to write and publish about different variants via reference guides, the first few were on the AP 14790 and PP 3940, and from here the idea of buying and selling to fund what is really an addiction began to emerge. “

Ben Dunn’s first watch was a Mondaine, gifted to him by family for his 21st birthday: “I think total wrist time for that Mondaine has far outweighed anything I’ve worn since, it was on the wrist everyday regardless of activity!” An encounter with a watch very close to my own heart though, truly sowed the seed of horological passion for him. “It was my partner’s father’s two-tone Daytona; he rocks that thing everywhere from the beach, to the pool, fixing his car, you name it he’s wearing it! After one family holiday drooling over it daily the fever had set in and my interest in watches took off.”

Once he made the decision to become a dealer, there was no turning back. It wasn’t all plain sailing though. “You know to be honest it was scary as hell. The reality of trying to sell as a new dealer was that there was a significant lack of trust, and fairly so, from buyers. Also, the reality check that often prices you see pieces listed for are not what they sell for. This hurt even more, as I was selling off my collection piece by piece to reinvest into the business. It took me a long time to build a solid base of trust to deal from, I approached this exactly how I wanted to be treated back when I was collecting and buying for my collection; I had to be personable, transparent and responsive – the three things I push for everyday and I hope my clients feel this reflects in the service they receive.”