STORIES COLLECTED, VOL. 5, PART ONE

Nicholas Biebuyck: Shaun Wainstein, collector extraordinaire, it’s so great to have you with us today. To begin, I wanted to understand what brought you into this world of watch collecting – and in particular, collecting vintage Heuers?

Shaun Wainstein: So, I think a lot of what we do later in life begins in our childhood and when I was growing up, I really loved Formula 1. I grew up in South Africa and I loved Formula 1 so much that when I moved to the UK, my nickname throughout my entire school period was ‘Jody’ – because I was always talking about Jody Scheckter, the South African Formula 1 driver. So you could see Formula 1 was there in my youth and somehow that iconic Heuer crest on the Ferraris, which was my favorite team, must have been burned into my mind. So when I started to get interested in watches, there was always that memory of the Heuer crest, and the watches really spoke to me. So that’s just what I bought and, I’ve been buying them for 30, 40 years, whenever I could.

NB: And what was the first watch that really kicked it off for you? What was the first one that you added to the collection?

SW: The first Heuer, I think, that I bought with my own money was one I bought for my girlfriend at the time – who is now my wife. It was a Formula 1, because I was just a student so I couldn’t afford too much.  And then once I was working, I wanted to get something a bit more like the watches I loved when I was growing up. So the first watch I bought [after that] was a big blue Montreal,a big 70s watch. I must’ve bought it in the late nineties. It just looked like nothing in existence at that timeand then it was one after another after that, and it never really stopped.

NB: And are there any memories from following Formula 1, from Jody’s era of the drivers wearing the watches or the logo? And did that draw you to any particular models?

SW: I love Ferrari, and this isn’t really a Heuer thing, but it’s such a strong memory of mine; when Lauda crashed and he was really ill, I really cared about it. And I went into school the next day and I was like, ‘We all have to pray for Niki Lauda, because he could die.’ I remember that, and the class joined in. So maybe it helped, I don’t know. I think that was in my psyche.

I was also interested in the design, so I wanted something that was completely different from anything that anybody else was wearing, and those 70’s watches were so different. They don’t look so weird now, but in the nineties and early 2000’s, they really looked strange, and then I got more into the sixties, and then going back into the fifties.

NB: I always get asked by people, what vintage Heuer should I buy? And I say the key thing is exactly what you say. Look away from the light. Okay, you can buy a Viceroy 1163 for $4,000 or $5,000. But if you look at even more unusual stuff, Jaramas, Montreals, Kentuckys these sorts of pieces, you can buy them for $2,000 to $3,000. When you look at what you’re getting as a watch, it’s an incredible thing. But I know you have a passion for music as well, and maybe this blend of art and music and design and culture gives you a much broader taste and understanding than than some other collectors might have.

SW: What’s crazy is that you discover that these people who were really respected for their art, they wore Heuer. I recently saw a picture of Oscar Peterson with the Monaco,crazy! I never knew that. And 2001, A Space Odyssey is my favorite film… Stanley Kubrick, you can see hundreds of photos of him in his Monaco, so there’s history there, it’s fantastic.

NB: Well, this is a natural segway into one of the great stories that you’ve shared with me in the past. As you say, there are some great names, Oscar Peterson and Stanley Kubrick, Steve Mcqueen of course. But then, we have this incredibly iconic image of Sammy Davis Jr sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft wearing his Monaco. And by fate, by luck, by everything else, it’s ended up in one of the great vintage Heuer collections: yours! And I really wanted to understand how the watch found its way to you – what was the process like along the way?

SW: It’s a long story! And again, as I was saying about our childhood influences….my parents were young adults in the sixties, so they loved Sammy Davis Jr. I remember hearing him. I remember when I was a young child, they had an Ocean’s 11 Party – so, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr…

And then I read about this watch coming up for sale: the Sammy Davis Jr Monaco, with amazing photographs of him with the troops in Vietnam. And it’s sort of weird because you had Sammy Davis Jr together with the civil rights movement and Vietnam; the combination was a very interesting situation. The watch was really, really beautiful. I like history, but I like my watches even more. It was in such beautiful condition, so I bid on it – and I got lucky.  I was incredibly happy.

But there’s another part to the story, which is really nice. So I get the watch, I’m very, very happy with it. And a few years later, my father passed away and I was clearing through stuff, and I found a Sammy Davis Jr biography in his books, and it’s autographed by Sammy Davis Jr, witha dedication to my father as they had met.. And then I’m looking through this book, and there’s that photograph of Sammy Davis Jr in there wearing the watch! So I just thought, yeah, that was fate, I had to have that watch.

NB: Do you remember where the sale was? And did you see the watch in person, or did you just buy it blind?

SW: I saw videos of the watch, because the dial, it’s one of these shiny transitional Monaco dials. The way that the light reflects is really important, which you can see in video, and it was being auctioned in America. But I just placed a bid,and when I received it, they had the original Sammy Davis estate sale documents from the early 90’s and I think the watch sold then for only $200 with five other watches! But yeah, it was a good moment.

NB: And an incredible piece of history. I always say when a watch is meant to find you, it finds its way. And clearly, there was something very serendipitous happening there. I’m so happy that you’re the proud owner of this piece. There’s another great story, about how you came to be one of the collectors who’ve had a watch named after you. So how did the Shaun-tavia come to exist?

SW: That is a good story. This was back in 2007. There was a time where watch discussion happened on web forums, like Jeff Stein’s On the Dash. People would post messages like “No, that doesn’t look right. That’s a fake.” Jeff had a gallery of fakes and people would just research and discuss. So there were all the Autavias that we knew existed, but none of them had Arabic numerals for the hour markers, other than the first ones. And I was at Portobello Road Market where there’s a military watch dealer and I saw this watch and I’m like “That can’t be right. That’s got to be a fake with those Arabic numerals on the dial.” But I was quite friendly with him and he said, “No, no, it looks good. Look at it with a loupe.” So I’m looking with the loupe and it looks really, really perfect. Like maybe this thing does exist, maybe it isn’t a fake.

So I go back and say this on the forum and people are like “no no it’s a fake” and Jeff’s like, “Oh no, look in the gallery of fakes, it’s in there”. And then the more we look at it, the more people would go “Oh no, actually I have seen one of those. Maybe that’s right.” And eventually through the forum – everyone agreed it was real. And they found good examples of them in really good condition, clearly not fakes. So that was a great outcome.

And then later on, Jeff was like, “Shaun’s been bugging us about this watch for months, let’s call it the Shaun-tavia“, and it’s become a name now.  I think one of the auction houses even used it.

NB: Was yours a Kenyan Air Force piece?

SW: I was looking for more  of these watches, and a guy came to me with loads of these watches, supposedly from the Kenyan Air Force. And again, I was a bit suspicious, but the story was almost too weird to make up. Why would you fake Kenyan Air Force watches? So I bought quite a few of these from the guy, and later somebody who read On the Dash wrote in and said, ‘Oh I’ve been reading your thread. You know, my father was in the Kenyan Air Force. He had one of these. I’ve got one.’

NB: Amazing.

Join us for Part Two with Shaun, when we’ll hear more about the evolving collector community, the ‘White Whale Watches’ Shaun is still hunting, and his take on the best vintage Heuers. Stay tuned!