Ep. 173 - Matthew Bain (Watch Dealer)

I recently started doing some of these episodes with a cold open, however, this episode commands a bit of a backstory. Many of you are familiar with Matt Bain as he is certainly one of the original Vintage watch dealers in the world still working today. He has sourced some of the finest pieces the community has ever seen and he’s widely known among the top collectors in the world. For me, however, it was back in 2009 when I first met Matt. I was working at James Perse in Malibu, when in walks this gentleman who I could tell was not a local resident. As I began to ask him questions to get to know him a little bit, he told me he sold watches. For example, Ralph Lauren, and more specifically, the RRL store around the corner was one of his accounts. I had seen the odd vintage Rolex submariner in their case lines before, but I guess I just didn’t realize it was being sourced by someone outside of the company. This was around the same time that I started reading Hodinkee as well as writing my own fashion & lifestyle blog, Screaming Mouth. Matt told me he went by “Watch Commander,” so I continued to check his website off and on for years to come. I didn’t see Matt again until last year in Miami when I attended the Antique Show for my first time. I walked up to his booth, re-introduced myself, basically explaining to him that there’s no way he would remember me, but we had met some 15+ years ago. Matt actually said that he indeed recalled that meeting, and we started chatting immediately. I kindly requested that he come on the show, and here we are roughly a year later. As many of you know, I returned to Miami a few weeks ago, and fresh off of my red eye flight, I took an Uber over to Matt‘s office where we recorded this conversation. Matt has amazing taste not only in watches but in cars as well. I was beyond excited to sit down with him as he’s been someone I’ve looked up to from afar for over a decade, so this was a special one for me. Matt and I talk about his early days as a dealer, his affinity for Art, the best investment he ever made, as well as his furniture business, which I’m not sure many of you know about, and course we touch on his car journey as well. This one was a long time coming, so I hope you enjoy it.