From a Rolex GMT-Master II to an Omega Railmaster: Watch-Spotting at the Tucson Gem Shows
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Among gem lovers, the Tucson gem shows, the umbrella term for a confluence of gem, mineral, and fossil buying fairs that take over this Sonoran Desert city every February, are an essential event on the buying calendar. And while they lack the polished crowds of, say, Monterey Car Week, the shows, which take place in convention halls, hotel rooms, and dusty tents around town, are a pretty good place to go watch-spotting.
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That’s because most attendees, it’s safe to say, appreciate accessories. The shows draw gem lovers of all kinds, from consumers shopping for crystals to high-end designers like Lauren Harwell Godfrey and James de Givenchy of Taffin, who use the occasion to hunt for the components of their upcoming high jewelry collections. On my recent visit to Tucson, I found it difficult to ignore the flashy wristwear.
As I walked the shows, I asked people to tell me about their timepieces. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Rolex emerged as a clear favorite, both for its style and its symbolism. Another commonality: Pre-owned watches were an overwhelming favorite. What struck me most, however, was how sentimental people were about their wristwatches.
Andy Lifschutz, whose fine jewelry brand is called Andy Lif, was in Tucson searching for Guatemalan jade, among other stones. On his left wrist, he wore a stack of silver and beaded bracelets along with a steel Omega Railmaster that he bought new for himself in 2019 as a tribute to his family’s ties to the American West.
“My [paternal] grandmother, her uncles, and then her great uncles were chief engineers for Union Pacific and the Oakland Rail,” Lifshutz told me. “And they helped to chart the course from Omaha to Sacramento and build the rail system that now lays out the United States.
“And engineers—that’s as close as I’ve gotten to jewelers in my family lineage. So when I went back to look at, ‘Who were the tinkerers? Who was building things?’ I looked to those guys, and when it came time to invest in an adult watch, that’s immediately where I went.”
Don’t, however, underestimate the importance of style to most watch lovers. As she assessed a wide array of fine sapphires, chrysoberyls, and spinels, the jewelry designer Vanessa Fernández wore a teeny-tiny quartz-powered gold and diamond-set Piaget, which competed for attention with the gem-set gold rings that adorned her fingers. “It’s a Piaget Polo from the ’90s,” she said. “I was in the market for a gold watch. I saw this one, and I fell in love with it.”
The size, which Fernández estimated at smaller than 26 mm, was another selling point. She bought it last month, at the Original Miami Beach Antique Show, from the Los Angeles vintage dealer Excalibur Estate Jewelry, whose director of sales, Amy Rothner, made clear that the diminutive piece was a genuine rarity.
“She told me it was really small and special and that they’re not common to find in that size, which, of course, is what sold me,” Fernández said.
Rothner was equally successful at outfitting Dave Bindra, the vice president of B&B Fine Gems in Los Angeles, with a gold timepiece. As he presided over his company’s booth at the American Gem Trade Association GemFair at the Tucson Convention Center, he looked down at his Rolex Day-Date, a vintage piece from the mid-1980s that he purchased from Excalibur at a jewelry show in Hong Kong in September.
“I’d never owned a solid gold Rolex, and it was always my dream,” Bindra said, drawing attention to the 36 mm model’s slate blue dial. “It was a 40th birthday gift to myself. I wanted to buy something around my birth year, which is ’84. I just like the size of it. It’s a very wearable size. It’s more elegant than, I think, the modern 40 to 41 mm Rolexes.”
Size also mattered to Gabrielle Saunders, founder of the fine jewelry brand Ruveil, but in a different way. As she walked the shows, she, like Bindra, also wore a vintage gold Day-Date, though hers had a larger diameter.
“I got this watch as a gift from my husband’s family after the birth of our son, David Charles Saunders III,” Saunders said. “We call him Charlie. He was born on October 17, 2019. And I got the watch as a surprise for Christmas of 2022.”
“I wear it every day because I love that it’s masculine and it has that beautiful masculine chunky gold energy. As a woman, I wear it and I feel super powerful. It’s like a statement piece and it elevates anything I wear.
“What I love about it is on the back, you’ll see the crown,” she said, pointing to the crown-adorned clasp on the bracelet. “It’s a little worn. I like to think about who wore the watch before me, and the fingers that touched it to open and close it. I like to daydream about who that was.”
Dennis K. Law, executive vice president of Vivid Gems International, a gem and jewelry dealer in Denver, chose an idiosyncratic Hublot to accessorize his suit. A pre-owned watch made for the brand’s 2016 collaboration with the Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation, the rose gold piece was distinguished by the outline of a tiger’s face on its dial.
“Just 25 of them were made,” Law said. “One in white gold, one in yellow gold, and this is rose gold. I’m into horses and animals and things of that nature. I just like the animal motif and the fact that it’s more artistic. I’ve had it for a few years. I bought it at the Las Vegas antique show.”
Last but not least, Richard Pesqueira, an executive at the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, Calif., wore a Rolex GMT-Master II with a black and blue bezel, nicknamed the “Batman,” that he’d coveted for “a long time.”
“I bought it new a year ago from a dealer that we have a connection with, but I can’t say exactly who,” Pesqueira said. “I wanted it to be like a ‘getting there’ kind of piece. It’s a grown-up watch. And it’s my first Rolex.”
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