Appraiser writes book on watch collecting
GREENWICH — Laurent Martinez can remember the first watch he ever bought, a diving watch made in France, and the unadulterated joy it brought him as a youngster.
He still has the watch today, and his passion for wristwatches has never subsided.
Martinez, a Greenwich collector, dealer and appraiser of fine watches, has compiled decades of research on the topic of watches in a new book, “Timepieces: A Lifelong Love and Passion / An Insider's Guide to Watches and Tips for Watch Collecting.”
The watch collector, who grew up near Paris as the grandson of Spanish immigrants, has been an adept student of watches and time-keeping since his childhood. As Martinez writes in his book, which contains a memoir section on his upbringing in France, “Watches evoke something in me that's hard to express in words.” His examination of a fine timepiece, he writes, brings out a “profound absorption in which the universe does not exist and nothing can reach me.”
Martinez, who writes regularly for International Wristwatch magazine, says he's something of a purist when it comes to his passion, and he's not especially fond of loads of jewelry on a watch or fancy advertising campaigns meant to sell them.
“Aesthetics and mechanics, that's where my heart is. I could care less if it's the watch of the moment. A watch has to talk to me,” Martinez said in a recent interview in his central Greenwich office.
The Greenwich watchappraiser has put together a handy compendium on the history of watch-making, as well as the main components that make up a fine watch: the dial, the movement, the hands and the casing. Martinez spells out the different kinds of hands that watchmakers use: “batons,” “swords,” “sticks” and “lancettes,” among the more common varieties. Martinez describes the trends that a beginning collector should be aware of, how to spot forgeries and what role provenance plays in the value of a watch.
The self-published book available at Amazon.com, illustrated with hundreds of photographs, is meant to be easily readable and brief. While other books have been published in recent years on watch collecting, Martinez notes his work can be completed in an afternoon, and it contains a lifetime of research on the topic.
“Basically I did the research for people to understand watches, to make life easier, with a book,” he says.
Martinez has lived in Greenwich for over 20 years and says it reminds him of his old hometown outside Paris. He has lived in Brazil and Argentina — and speaks Portuguese and Spanish — during a previous career in finance and the energy field. But always, his love of timepieces was ticking away inside him, and Martinez eventually made it his full time occupation when he turned 50. Writing a book on the subject was the crown on top of his longtime obsession, Martinez says.
Proceeds from the book are benefiting a program that trains disabled U.S. veterans to become watchmakers, the Veterans Watchmaker Initiative.
Martinez says he's finally living the life he always yearned to live, spending time every day with beautiful and exquisitely designed objects and working with other people who share his passion. “I'm the most happy guy on Earth,” he says. “I'm living my dream.”