Gathering of the Timekeepers with Giancarlo Rosselli of Atlanta Watch Society

When Giancarlo Rosselli, the heart and soul behind the Atlanta Watch Society, sits down with us, you know the hands of the clock are poised for a fascinating journey. His tale, one that weaves from the camaraderie of soccer clubs to the hallowed halls where timepieces are revered, is a narrative rich with the essence of community spirit and horological passion. Our latest episode peels back the curtain on the collector's world, offering insights from Giancarlo's experience in fostering a space where the appreciation for every tick and tock is shared by many.

As the conversation ticks on, we explore the challenges that come with nurturing a love for watches in a digital era where opinions can be as divisive as the brands themselves. We laugh over trying to get family members on board with our horological obsessions and swap stories of triumphs and tribulations within the intimate circles of collectors. The podcast becomes a private gathering itself, where respect and positivity keep the gears of our dialogue well-oiled and welcoming to all who find solace in the pursuit of the perfect timepiece.

Capping off this episode, anticipation for our Vegas event sets the stage for a momentous occasion that encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be part of the watch collecting community. The excitement is not just about the event itself but the stories of connection and the shared experiences that bind us all. With our guest's insights and the vivid recounting of our collective escapades, listeners are invited into a world where time is more than just numbers on a dial—it's a heartbeat that resonates with every enthusiast's wrist.

Be sure to check out Giancarlo on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/gentilogio

Be sure to check out Atlanta Watch Society on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/atlantawatchsociety

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Transcript

Blake Rea: 0:00

Well, so everybody, welcome to another episode of Lonely Wrists. Hey, everyone, we have a fully stacked panel here today. I think Jess and I I don't know if we've talked about this, Maybe we just talk about it now but I think we're going to go into like a 2.0 of our podcast here, and what I mean when I say that is I think we're going to start bringing some collectors on. We've talked about, of course, with industry people and we're still doing that, but, you know, having collectors on and understanding their thought process about why they buy watches, how they collect, I think that could be really inspiring for some of the listeners. So I think that's going to be 2.0. So stay tuned. We're still going to keep our schedule, but welcome to the 2.0 podcast. And today we have the founder of the Atlanta Watch Society. Please introduce yourself.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 0:54

Hey guys, John Carlo Roselli yeah, founder, has Blake mentioned of the Atlanta Watch Society. Happy to be here.

Blake Rea: 1:01

Obviously we know what the Atlanta Watch Society is. Obviously we know you. But tell everybody out there who may not know you or may have never heard of you or what you do. Tell them what you do and why you do it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:12

Well, it's a good question. I really love to bring people together and that's really one of the things that kind of rings true with what I've done with the Atlanta Watch Society. You know, for a long period of time I've, you know, I've always liked to bring folks together, as I mentioned I used to. You know, I'm originally from New York City, born and raised in New York, moved down to Atlanta three years ago and up in New York I had been part of a few watch communities, but even before I went into watches I'm a huge Italian soccer, european soccer fan, football fan, for those that might get offended. So I started a club back when in my early 20s, called the AC Milan Club of New York City. Ac Milan is a huge Italian team, one of the larger teams in Europe, and I started this group.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 2:06

I started this. I started this group around bringing people together to watch games. You know, obviously here in the US, you know you don't have the ability to go to the stadium in Italy. So we found a pub in Manhattan, started bringing people together and that's what I started. So, doing that and having grown that group to what it became, which ended up becoming an official club of AC Milan. So the team actually recognized us after a few years and gave us the official fan club seal of approval. We had about 300 active members and back I'm dating myself back then it was Twitter. We ended up having, you know, within a couple of years, 50,000 followers on Twitter. So it resonated something. I mean, if you would come to our meetups for watching games, people really loved it and came together and that kind of thing right. So I always thought, you know, I could do this with something else in the future.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 3:02

And then, you know, my passion for watches kind of started taking more and more control of my life before COVID. And you know, I started to frequent some of the local groups in New York City. But then, right around, you know, a couple of months after COVID, you know really started to hit hard here in the States, my work asked me to move to Atlanta. They had already asked me before COVID. We had agreed upon it. Things obviously got delayed because of the pandemic. But, long story short, moved down to Atlanta for work, settled here, you know, new life, new house, I have kids setting up kids. Once I got all that settled, you know I had no watch friends here. All my watch friends were up in New York or scattered about the country in different forums. So I've also like aside from just like the soccer group that I mentioned I've always been very active in like communities on the forum side.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 3:58

On Facebook, you know, I run like four or five Facebook watch groups and I was also part of a YouTube channel that you may know, the Urban Gentry channel back in the day, you know, helping out with like content and being on some episodes, right. So there was also a Facebook group tied to that YouTube channel and I used to help run it. So I said you know what, I could start something myself. I've started Facebook groups myself. I started a soccer club. Why not start a, you know, a watch club here in Atlanta?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 4:28

And you know it was a right pandemic was still going on, you know. So it was a tough time to really kind of get people together. But here in the South, you know, and probably like Vegas as well, different than the Northeast and in California where everything was closed, people were starting to get together a bit. So I put a post out there to a few you know to on a couple of the Facebook groups that I run and it resonated with a few folks who were local. A couple of them knew me already from like interactions we had. Funny, we didn't. I didn't even know they lived in Atlanta, they didn't know I had moved.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 4:57

So the first event was an official event, was in my basement. We joke around, you know, like now from from basement to like you know what we've built now, but it was in the basement, real grassroots. And then we started meeting up at, like the local pub, local brewery, and you know, once we started getting to a point where it was like several people, like 10 to 12, you know the comfort level of just being out in the open with watches, as we all know as collectors, gets a little sketchy and scary right. So I started thinking to myself I'm going to have to start thinking about security or getting some sort of private space. So, luckily, where I live, I live in a subdivision and we have a clubhouse.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 5:35

So one of the members said, hey, why don't you just do it at your clubhouse? And I said, okay, let me try it. And the clubhouse is a decent size and it's nice. So we did it there and people loved it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 5:45

So about four or five events in a row of just collector meetups we did there and then the brand started taking notice, right, and then the brands came in and obviously with the brands we don't do it at the clubhouse, that's really just for the collectors in our community just getting together. But when the brands come to town then you know, obviously they, they get a space for us and they pay for security and and that's kind of how it goes. But we went from, you know, the basement to you know five, six people to now, you know, having 220 members on our waiting, I don't know sorry, on our member list and averaging about, like you know, anywhere from 60 to 80 people per event. So that's a bit, you know, very long-winded apologies, but kind of like the elevator version of what's been done here in the last, in the last two years.

Blake Rea: 6:31

Yeah, what do you feel like is different about? Obviously like you've grown really rapidly, so people kind of recognized your club as being a different approach to like a traditional I don't know if that's the proper way a traditional watch club to address it, but you know how. How did you bring that like that feeling of exclusivity and how did you differentiate yourself? Because you know there's clubs out there that we all know about that they feel different, right. So how did you bring that feeling into your Atlanta Watch Society?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 7:02

That's a great question. Yeah, that's a great question, and for me it was all about being open to any type of collector and making people feel comfortable, right? You know, one of our members told me you know, john Carlo, if you built, it's a, it's a line from a great movie, fields of Dreams. But if you build it, they will come.

Justin Summers: 7:22

They will come Yep.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 7:23

And it's true, and what and what it is is. I built the kind of group that I really wanted to be a part of, right, and what I mean by that is a group with an excuse my language, no, assholes, right, nobody that's going to be judging you in a negative way because you're wearing a Seiko Five, right, but also still having the opportunity to have a member who brings in you know, his, his, his, his, his Patek Philippe Turbion, right, or is a very high, you know high horology collector, right. So kind of bringing everybody together in one place, making them feel comfortable, giving them that safe space, giving them the opportunity to engage with each other on a regular basis. One thing we all know, and that's why, you know, podcasts like this are great.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 8:10

Us watch nerds, we want content, we want places to listen to people talk about watches, we want places to go where we'll see posts about watches, because we are a select of a group of people and we can't just talk to these. You know, we can't just talk to our regular friends about these things. They think we're crazy or they're like all right, no, please, no more watch stuff, right, my?

Justin Summers: 8:32

my wife. She kills me every single time I get on a rant about watches and she's like bro, shut up. No, I know I mean I've got.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 8:40

I've since now life drowned my wife in it so much that I think she's starting to like it. But my kids and then they're young, like they can't stand when I stop and take a picture of my watch, like you know, and and one of the biggest jokes in our community now is John Carlo, anytime he does a wrist roll.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 8:56

Sometimes I like to have a wrist roll. Like you know, when I do a roll I like to have the elements of nature to be the sounds around me. But I can't because my kids are always like that stop taking pictures of your watches, so I always have to have like music now Covering it up.

Blake Rea: 9:12

But yeah, sorry Did I send you the the meme, like a little video of the guy that was like when you did a watch collector, did I send you that?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 9:20

Yeah, she did. That was fantastic. I know, I was like so good.

Blake Rea: 9:24

I send that to my wife. Did you see all you saw right.

Justin Summers: 9:28

I did too.

Blake Rea: 9:28

Yeah, yeah like so true, and I said it, my wife, my wife like she's like accurate, I know and and yeah, we're weird people, but it's so weird because the community is divided, in my opinion, like, and so Obviously, I just started a YouTube channel. I'm sure some of you may have watched some of my videos or maybe came from the videos and came backwards into the podcast, but you know, it's so weird to see people Argue like. I've been arguing with people, my comments, you know, and I, my friends, are like dude to stop.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 10:03

You know I'm doing, no, I'm doing.

Blake Rea: 10:05

I'm here to dig my feet in like actually do it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 10:07

Hold on, do it. It helps the algorithm Sorry.

Blake Rea: 10:10

No, that's exactly right. Like If you argue with people in your comments and then the algorithm helps you like no, it sounds weird, but like you know, you get. You get these weird people that are like, like I was talking to somebody about like an IWC mark 18 verse, a railmaster or something. He's like like you know and and we're just going back and forth and Eventually, like I was just like, alright, this is kind of boring, but like, like, who are you to tell somebody how to spend their money?

Justin Summers: 10:41

Exactly like it was a stinker.

Blake Rea: 10:43

Yeah, you're not putting food on my table, like you're not paying my bills, you're not paying my rent, like you definitely, definitely don't it helped me in any way. Like, I respect your opinion, of course, about a real master cool, that's fine. But like, how are you to, you know? And his, his argument was, oh, the IWC mark 18 and the mark 20 are like shitty watches because their movement is cheap, right. And then he referenced, like the no time the die bond, which has the same movement as the railmaster, and I was like, well, let's just spin it backwards Like the no time the dies, a piece of shit because it has the railmaster movement. You know, I mean not that it is a shitty watch, but I'm just saying like that's the reason why I hate it. And then, yeah, it just kind of went from there.

Justin Summers: 11:30

But dude, it was using reverse psychology on you bro.

Blake Rea: 11:34

I personally feel like IWC is a brand that has like been very transparent about their movement choices, like you know, like, even like if you look at the description, like I added the watch to my collection boom, it's online. It says the IWC caliber, whatever it is, I can't remember off the top of my head and then it says based on the salita, or like a modified salita, like SW 200, I don't know like. It literally says that in the product description of the watch that I purchased, obviously now with you know the acquisition and Val Fleurier, and then started to make the movements for IWC, like that has been kind of Defined, like it's changed a little bit. But but now, in house doesn't necessarily mean that IWC manufactures the movements, correct, because that that's not the way that it is at all anymore. Like in house means in group Right.

Blake Rea: 12:25

Yeah, so right so people have this weird sense of like, oh, if it's in house, like they have to be doing the bridges Internally or like, but you never see somebody trash a tutor, you know, cuz they're not in house. Tutors essentially a watch, a Symboly company, like they get all their parts and and different things from different, different sources and different partners and you know, you know it. Just it just seems really weird to me that that were, that were this, that that the community has, that's a, that's a huge force in the community, that and you're always gonna yeah, you're always, you're always gonna have sorry to cut you off.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 13:03

But, you're always gonna have people like that, right, and you know. Back to your original question, you know we've been lucky, I'll be honest, you know, and a lot of it has to do with how we kind of and you're in our group like, so you see, we try to keep things really positive, right? You know, no, we won't allow for people to talk down to each other like you know, it's just also. We don't. We don't want to want to be like a police state either. Right, we want free conversation to flow, but you know, we just don't want, like you know, somebody getting put down by you know, folks that think that their collection is better than yours, right? So it's really just like.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 13:39

I guess that's why I say we've been a little lucky. We've had a couple people float in that haven't been, you know, the quality human that we thought they were initially. But we don't have, like an application process. We have an application on our website, but it's not like and and as we continue to evolve as a, as a society and, you know, kind of maybe expand, and we can get into that later expand outside of Atlanta, we will take that more seriously, but for now it's been just like gut feeling on. Like people who reach out to me to join, either through the website, the Instagram and and, and, and really I think I even said this to somebody recently I look at people's LinkedIn pages before they actually join. Oh yeah.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 14:19

Investigate work correct I need, first of all, I need your full name, like I, we had a member who gave me like a nickname. I'm like, I'm sorry, can't like. That's very few rules we have. I need your full name if you're to come to an event. We need to know who. You are right, because there's gonna be, you know, really expensive watches there, right, and I try to ask some questions about collection, but really not not too much more than that, right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 14:40

But I do do my due diligence on on the back end and At least just try to see if they have some sort of professional profile, which most do. And if they do, you know you keep that on file. God forbid something happens. You have their professional profile and you could, you know, kind of do some work there behind the scenes if needed. But that's that's really how it's been. But we've been lucky and a lot of it's been word of mouth. So other members bringing friends of theirs in, that's really helped and they know how the group is, so they kind of tell them beforehand. Hey, listen, this is a real open community. You have members who have seco's only, who have, you know, paddocks, who have 30 longas. We have a member who has like 30 longas, right Anyway, like it doesn't matter, it's a place for everyone. We all started somewhere.

Blake Rea: 15:25

Well, that's what I feel like is, I guess, kind of setting that the different standard where, like, we're already, like there's a small group of us, like there's a small group of people out there that are to appreciate watches, and then when you start getting into these watch Collecting groups, like you get said you get segmented again.

Blake Rea: 15:41

You're like, okay, well, if you can afford a patak or a Rolex or whatever, you're gonna be in this group. Or if you afford a seco, you're gonna just gonna be on some Facebook group of seco collectors and not have like a local presence, or so we're already segmenting ourselves a little further. But you know, it just seems like that's the way it should be, like where, like we all appreciate watches on the same level and, honestly, like somebody may own a seco and they may look at it as their patak, correct, oh, and they still appreciate it as much. I mean, we just don't we not all of us have the means to buy watches like that or the resource you know resources means connections, whatever right Like so I Can't walk in and buy a patak, like they just don't even know who the hell I am.

Justin Summers: 16:27

So here I am. But yeah, I wanted to ask you, john Carlo, and I guess that kind of segues me perfectly in. I know you mentioned by word of mouth and in your community members and stuff. But how do you guys attract and retain the members that are in your watch club community? Is it mainly by word of mouth that you know? What do you think about that?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 16:45

Word of mouth helps a lot and then just really posting our events on Instagram and things getting shared, right, so our accounts grown organically over the last couple of years, right, so that helps. I have my own personal watch Instagram that has quite a few followers, so I repost things there, you know, and then other members share, you know our events hashtags work, right, that helps. So we're always getting people coming that are new, you know, reaching out to us on Instagram, reaching out to us through Facebook. Although the Facebook group is there, it's not we really just have it there, just to have it, but it's not really the means of how we do things. Where we really do most of our Day-to-day and Blake knows this is our WhatsApp group.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 17:30

And then, you know, whatsapp has developed kind of like Slack. They've developed community right communities and you can create within this Atlanta watch society community, you can create sub channels, right chats when we have like an Atlanta watch society chat. Obviously, underneath that, then we have the Atlanta like car group. We have, you know, food, the grub hub, you know. So the chat itself, the watch chat itself, doesn't get consumed by Like car talk or anything like that.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 17:57

Like we want members to continue to talk to each other. That's why we've set up different channels, but let's keep the watch society, chat, watch, talk. And then we have other sub channels where you can talk about other things, and what that's done is we've kind of created a little world where you can just kind of spend all your day and just talk to people about things, not just watches, but you know, other things that may interest you and we all know, within you know, the collecting universe, collectors of certain types of things collect very similar things, right, like. That's why, like whenever you see, like a watch event, there'll be a pen company, there'll be a knife company, they'll be like the leather thing, the coffee.

Blake Rea: 18:40

So we kind of, we kind of did that the same way with the, with the channels and the chats obviously, whenever you kind of like Told our viewers about your journey, whenever you you spilled it it, you made it sound like it just happened very organically and very and very frictionless Right, obviously, that's probably not the case. So Tell us about some of the the unique challenges that you faced. You know building a watch community and, like you know how you've kind of stepped over those and overcame them.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 19:12

I think initially it was all right. So initially we we started with just a few collectors and that's really. I didn't. I didn't think much more than that. I didn't think that we were going to grow. I didn't really even have a vision to grow more. I didn't envision us to get like 200 and something people in our group. I just it wasn't the plan right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 19:32

And in my head, you know, if you would have asked me two years ago If that was going to happen, I would have probably been scared because I'm, you know, I'm a one-man show in reference to a lot of what's done, I mean have some great help from a lot of people in the community, but really a lot of it's done just by me. So if you would have told me two years ago that I was gonna embark on this journey to build this watch group and have to do and all this like stuff on my own, you know I probably would be like, oh my god, where am I gonna have the time? Where am I gonna find the time to do it? But I did. But you know, you kind of figure it out and you know back to your point about, like how do you overcome things. You know it's amazing, you just, especially when you're passionate about something, you figure it out and then you find people who can help, right. So not being shy to ask for help when needed.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 20:16

But you know, the growth happening so fast, soon after we started doing the events at clubhouses at the clubhouse, really, is where you know it started getting to the point where I'm like, all right, I need a little bit of help. I need to figure out how I'm gonna send the mail, how I'm gonna send invites out. When do I start engaging with brands? I was lucky the the first brand event that we did. The brand reached out to us Because they had seen what we were doing and it was Seiko, right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 20:44

But then from there I was able to use that springboard that that Seiko event to sell it to other brands, right. And and since that moment we haven't had a month, basically, where we haven't had a brand in town, right. That's how it's kind of snowballed. So it's really just been a matter of trying to figure out how to juggle things, how to keep things organized, how to delegate and work with folks who can help within the community. Those are really kind of been the challenges, but luckily we have such a great community that it's, you know it's been, it's been positive overall.

Blake Rea: 21:16

Yeah, I've been a I've been enjoying the community, for sure, and there's been a lot of people that, like I had the dialogues with in the public Chat and then it turned into like a little private chat Like I've been talking to. I'm not gonna drop his name, but he's a professional baseball player. Yeah, he's a really good dude.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 21:36

Yes, he's wonderful.

Blake Rea: 21:38

Yeah, I mean, we've literally been chatting like probably on and off for about a week, almost every day, yep and so, and so, yeah, he talked about me like his AP acquisition and you know some of the Regrets that he has on his collection journey and yeah, he shared that with me too.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 21:57

It's funny he's. He's going through that remorse moment, but yeah.

Blake Rea: 22:02

Well, well, and I tried to tell him, like, obviously, coming from the industry, I came from a sales role. But you know, like they, the industry and the brands, create this problem. Like, hey, you have to buy this watch. You don't want to buy a watch you do want. And then, of course, what do they do? They get to watch in. They don't love it, right, then it ends up on the secondary market, ends up on on eBay or ends up in Chrono 24 or whatever. And then they're like, oh, like I wonder how these, these places get inventory because of you, like because you're making people buy shit they don't want to buy, you know. And and then of course, you put this little scare tactic on them. You know we talked about this where it's like, oh, if you, if you sell it, like you're never gonna get another AP or Whatever right insert brand here, rolex, you know it's so stupid that that that exists in this industry. You know, I agree, and and we were talking about and I've noticed personally, especially with the market falling, like a Lot of purchasers, consumers, aren't buying into that anymore.

Blake Rea: 23:09

They're like, look, I have worked hard for my money. You keep increasing the prices every single year. Like I can't get the watch that I want. I'm just not. I'm just gonna buy something that I can get, you know, and something that is was likely better than what you're selling.

Blake Rea: 23:24

You know, because a lot of these hype watches and we can talk about the overseas, for example, you know, ten years ago Nobody wanted that, like you could buy them at discount, or even the Royal Oaks, you know, like you could buy those at discount, like the AP, the offshore diver, like you should be able to get those for $9,000 like crazy, brand new, you know. And now 20 right. But so the market is is in that weird Transitional period where it's coming back to consumer powered and not brand powered, in my opinion, which is a good thing, you know. So I think I think there's gonna be a lot more collectors. Like this is gonna open the door for a lot more collectors, you know. I I've heard of all my friends getting more Rolex calls in the past two months or three months than ever before, which is great. So I think we're gonna start seeing a rapid growth and the community will expand further, right? So Sorry, my spiel.

Justin Summers: 24:24

I'm curious, john Carlo and I know you had mentioned, you know, touching on, you know Seiko being one of the first, you know brands that you guys kind of featured and then having that snowball I'm curious what's been like the most memorable event For your club that you guys have organized, at least in your eyes. I'm sure everybody else has different opinions on what's been the most memorable, but just curious. I.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 24:46

Mean there's been so many in the last two years.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 24:49

But I would say our Group watch event with Foremex, right, you know, being able to announce our group watch Before our two-year anniversary, having sold out 50 watches, we made 50, they made 50 watches, we sold them out in 24 hours. To be able to do that in such a short period of time, being such a young group, I mean, that's, that's really. That was like the, you know, like the pinnacle for me. You know, never thinking that, like I said, we would grow this large and then, if you would have told me also that we would have our own group watch, that we'd work with one of my favorite micro brands on very closely with them, on, you know, developing the whole the dial and everything with my buddy dib, who's one of our founding members, you know it's that that day was really special and we did it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 25:41

That it's usually with with brands. We do the events, as I mentioned, outside of the clubhouse. We did it at the clubhouse because that's kind of where it all started, right, we couldn't fit all my basement, so we had to do it. We did at the clubhouse and and let's go to John Carlos basement everybody.

Blake Rea: 25:58

It's like it put put solution on the scan vibes.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 26:10

What's the song that plays? I always love that song. Oh, I always love that song, but it's such a creepy moment in like movie history that I don't like listening to the song anymore, but I love the song.

Blake Rea: 26:20

It's like Goodbye horses or something.

Justin Summers: 26:22

Yeah, I think.

Blake Rea: 26:25

It's a it's put the watch on the wrist, vibes, yeah. So I mean that sounds pretty epic and pretty iconic. I know you've done some, some events with other brands. Tell us about some of those. I think it's important to to understand.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 26:43

You know how you've established yourself, you know sure, yeah, we've done events with, as I mentioned, seiko. We've done grand seiko, which was amazing. You know Joe Kirk, who I know, you know Blake, just, you know it's like Lopiti of grand seiko knowledge came to Atlanta and did you know? You know they, you know Grand Seiko just outdid themselves with the event that they did for us. Amazing, our collectors, you know our members, were so happy because they came with. You know this concept of education and that's really what a lot of the brands end up doing. Right, they come with really kind of bringing an educational aspect, not necessarily trying to sell watches, right, and we're fine either way, like we're not. We don't put parameters in place for brands like, well, you know, we just want you to come and if you have to sell watches to pay for the event or just to get ROI, we, I'm in, I'm in, say, I'm a sales guy, I get it. But I mean, I think, at the end of the day, and most brands I think all of them, almost get it that they don't want to sell at the event. Technically, they, they rather have it be like a subtle sale, right, they'll drop all this incredible information on you, they'll give you some cool pamphlets, some cool gifts and then afterwards, you know people will, you know well, we'll buy watches, myself included, and you know my wife hates every time we have an event. I owned the pie buying a watch from that brand. But I'm like the perfect example, right? Iwc is a great example. I did, you see, came to town and you know several people, but IWC is after the event and you know, blake, they did an incredible job, you know with and you know, educating us on the brand and transparency, as you mentioned. You know, and just was incredible.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 28:20

We had FP Jorn here, not Francois Paul himself, but Rocky, who runs. You know they're they're not we don't run in Miami boutique, but he's like, you know, their guy, their community person, their brand ambassador, if you will. He came to Atlanta to talk to our collectors about FP Jorn. You know the whole mindset around Francois Paul and how he does things and the whole watch. You know all the watches that they make. He brought watches for us to see, which is incredible because a lot of people don't get that opportunity to be so hands on with a lot of. You know FP Jorn watches Breitling. We've done events with Tudor Monta, so we've mixed it up. You know we've done micro brands, independence, large brands and then this year, you know, we we have a lot of that already going to start next month with, you know, blvd and Jack Mason, to start in February and then several brands after that.

Blake Rea: 29:18

That's really what it's all about. Like the community, like when the brands show and I'm sure there's going to be some listening but when the brands show support for people like us, the community, that's where it translates into sales Correct, right. Like that's where it translates into into creating, like you know you kind of touched on it but the GS9 club, right, like super passionate group of watch nerds, grand cycle collectors, but that's that's exactly how grand cycle has done it. They've said hey look, we're going to support you. Personally, I don't own a grand cycle and I have a confession. I was at a GS9 meeting and I don't own a grand cycle, but I got in and I just saw like they had somebody painting, like, like you know, like yeah, like tell me what you want to paint.

Blake Rea: 30:08

And then they had like an all you can eat sushi bar. And then they had like literally some of the the newest pieces that you know were online exclusives or or whatever that were open. And then they had like little samples of the movements you know, like outside of the case, where people could actually see and they were folk you know talked about. You know some of the. Yeah, yeah, they talked about some of the innovation, some of the finishing decoration.

Justin Summers: 30:32

Damn, I got to get me a grand seca. This all sounds great.

Blake Rea: 30:35

They're great watches. I don't own one of my.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 30:37

You go to one of their events yeah, you go to one of their events. You'll want to buy one.

Blake Rea: 30:41

I do. I want like one of the entry level spring drives.

Justin Summers: 30:44

Like the force.

Blake Rea: 30:45

I think it's the.

Justin Summers: 30:46

Every time I pick up a spring drive I'm like I want this.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 30:49

Yeah, I have a snowflake. I mean, if you want to start off, you know the classic, the classic spring drive. Grand seco to me is the snowflake. It's like and I'm not comparing it because they're different watches, but I'm saying like it's there like Submariner, like you know what I mean. Like that that's there like watch. Like when you think of grand seco, the first watch you should think of is is a snowflake.

Blake Rea: 31:10

I actually like the. I think it's the SPGA465, which essentially is like $4,800. And it's got the little like woven like it's almost like it reminds me like the Rolex linen dials, like from the seventies, and I'm just I do. I love that so much.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 31:27

One of our members, steven. He has one timepiece tango and it's beautiful.

Blake Rea: 31:32

And what I what I love about it too is is like on some of the like, for example, the snowflake they have like a recessed power reserve indicator.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 31:40

Yeah.

Blake Rea: 31:41

And this one actually has like little blocks, like okay, this is 24, this is 24, this is 24 hours, so I know I can look down at my watch maker. Those 48 hours of my power reserve, you know like yeah, like that's so amazing you know it's a beautiful.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 31:54

Now they make incredible watches, incredible dials, the finishing, and you know like we were lucky in Atlanta, so they basically did like a GS9 event for us in Atlanta, right, like everything you described was like the same right. So, yeah, we've just been blessed.

Blake Rea: 32:08

That's ultimately and I don't know. So obviously we met through Chris and I don't know if Chris told you about the IWC stuff. That happened Neuron, formula One, a little bit Like that was where I realized like IWC is a brand that really supports their customers, like really supports the people that support them. And yeah, I mean we got invited out to like a Formula One event. Chris wasn't able to make that because he was flying in, but you know, we got to see like all the new AMG cars before they released, like we had to sign non-disclosures. I mean I got to meet Total Wolf.

Blake Rea: 32:49

And then James Marsden was there, and then the guy from Breaking Bad, aaron Paul. They were all just kind of like mingling with everybody. It was just super cool. You know. Of course they had kind of like some presentations and then, you know, they shuttled you back over to like the other side of the racetrack and then from there they had like a little pop-up boutique where they had all the new stuff that, like you know, you couldn't see, like the perpetual, the white ceramic perpetual, and then of course, they had the new AMG chronographs and then, and then, yeah, of course, boom next thing, you know, george Russell, lewis Hamilton, they're doing some driving stuff on the track. They had like a drone show. Oh my gosh that's so cool.

Blake Rea: 33:31

I mean it was just insane. And then after that there was like they'd niche down even further and they're like OK, here's our best customers. And somehow Chris and I got invited to that and we got approved to go to that. And then that was where, you know, we were like I was sitting next to the brand director for IWC and we were talking, and super nice guy, and then on the other side of the table is the CEO, and then on the other side was Westwood-A-Wolfe and I mean there was a lot of huge collectors there.

Blake Rea: 34:03

And then, yeah, I mean the next thing, you know, like it was this very weird thing, but I spoke on a watch panel earlier in the day for Robber Port, and after my panel it was Jensen Button and Wolfgang Puck who came on after the panel. And so after that, like I posted a video of like Wolfgang Puck like talking, and then he reposted it. And then after that, like I was like hey, we're at your restaurant, spago, like come by. Because he saw whenever I wrote him, I was like thank you for all that you've done to the food industry in Vegas, like the fine restaurants, and he like dropped a little hard on it. And then, anyway. So after I said like hey, we're at your restaurant, spago, come by, I'm here with all the IWC guys and AMG guys, and then he literally dropped a hard on it and I was like OK, like he didn't reply, the next thing, you know, shows up.

Blake Rea: 35:03

And I was like I was like, oh shit, and then he went around and was taking pictures with everybody. I mean there's probably 100 people there. He was like literally, he literally came into the restaurant and took pictures with everybody. Like I mean, he was there for probably like two hours, like him and his son or, you know, nephew or whatever, and I was like this is really what you know supporting communities about, like you know, not only just for the IWC guys, but just the fact that they give their customers the opportunity to be face to face with them, to listen. You know they were like hey, what do you want to see? Like you know, obviously they gave us a disclaimer. Like, hey, we're, like you know, a year behind, like you got to be a few years out in the watch industry, like because it takes time to develop these watches. But what do you want to see from us? Like how you know, like is there anything that you feel like we need to do better? And like all the feedback. It just felt like they had like a huge like ear horn, like up to their ear, where they were just listening closely and carefully.

Blake Rea: 36:03

And I literally was thinking about myself the whole time and I don't know if Chris was. But you know, like, this is the way to do it. You know, like this is the way you build such a passionate following around your brand. You know, and some people just don't understand that there's a lot of brands out there like, oh like, how do we, you know, get communities like you, engage them, you support them, you listen to them and then, you know, just don't try and sell them watches all the time. You know, like you know, when you support them, they'll support you. It's just a two way street, you know.

Justin Summers: 36:38

And I think we're seeing that.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 36:41

Yeah, exactly Like any relationship. You're right, and we're starting to see it more Like, I think you know, speaking just about our community, but we're seeing it, you know, now, with brands that last year hadn't reached out to us or we hadn't spoken to and they're all about doing an event. They see that it really makes a difference, that, you know, not selling watches at an event is not a bad thing, you know, it's like I said, it's we're indifferent, but I think for me, you don't need to sell at an event. You make the event all about the community, educating them. And then, like I said earlier too, if you build it, they will come. They will come. The customers will come if you educate them, if you, if you show them that you care about the community and you want to, you know, learn more about the community, learn more about collectors.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 37:33

I mean, for years and years, you know, the brands didn't necessarily engage with the communities the way they are doing that, the way they're doing today and I'm not knocking them, it's just it was a different world several years ago. I think now these communities have really grown and you know what's a better, what better place to talk to, you know, collectors about watches that you're selling or the future of your company than you know these types of collector communities, right? Not just your retailer, right, who is inviting maybe some collectors but also inviting, inviting a lot of their jewelry customers who they want for them to buy their husband or wife some jewelry as well, right, no, focus on your watch brand, you know. Focus on your watch communities, right, your retailer. If it's just an exclusive watch retailer, that's different.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 38:25

But there's not a lot of those. A lot of them have jewelry, right, and I think you know I've been to some events that are run by retailers and it's sad because you know you have this incredible brand there, you know who's represented and 90% of the people there don't have a clue about the brand or the watches or really care. They're just there to have the food and and and maybe, maybe, maybe, learn a little bit about a watch, right, but not really right. So that's why you know it's better, in my opinion, to work directly with communities like ours, right, and we'll bring the people, the people, the real collectors who want to learn and want to engage.

Blake Rea: 39:05

Listen up, take notes.

Justin Summers: 39:08

Yeah, I completely agree. My next question for you, john Karla how do you ensure inclusivity for each member?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 39:14

It's a great question. Inclusivity is an enormous part of what our community is all about. Right, we are all about, you know, inclusivity from all different types of angles, right? So, from your collecting angle, from diversity of people, from all different walks of life, all different cultures, communities, right? So, we, you know we, I mean it's we. We embrace everybody and it's an open door to everyone who wants to join. Like I said, no matter the type of collector you are or you know what's, what's your background. You know, we, we don't judge on that and we want everybody to be, you know, a member of our community and feel welcome. So I mean just, really just making people, people feel comfortable from the beginning and having them feel that this is a place that they want to be a part of.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 40:04

We had a member we had. We just had our end of year party and we had a. We had a member Tick. Tick Love is his name. His real name is Naheem, but we, his nickname is Tick and we, we, you know, we've had him in our group for for several months and you know, he got up at the end of the night and said thank you to everybody for, you know, embracing me and and allowing me to be a part of this community.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 40:28

And what he meant by that is, you know, he only has a few secos and some Invictus, so he felt, maybe that he wasn't in the right place, because he's seeing people with all different types of watches posting, some people with 30, 40, 50 watches I know Blake has like 80, right, you know he doesn't have this massive collection and he's. You know, his collection is some incredible secos, right, and some Invictus that are really cool Invictus the diver, invictus, not the 55 millimeter ones, right, and he, I think he thought that, being part of a community like ours, it was going to be looked down upon his collection and it never was right. If anything, we encouraged it. And then I post a picture of my Invictus, my diver, and then my secos and it just encouraged him and he was. It just made him feel so good and you know he got up there and you know, honestly, I got a little emotional because it was. It made me feel proud of what we've built.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 41:21

And it's because of people like Tick that you know I do what I do. I want people like him who feel that, you know, they're just starting off or their collections are just you know their collections forever and they're going to stay like that forever to aspire to. Maybe possibly, you know, in the future you'll have something different than the seco, but there's nothing wrong with your collection right now and just know that. And you know that's something that we really want to always make sure people feel is part of our DNA. And you know that was a really nice thing that he said and, and and you know we're we're lucky to have somebody like him in our group and several other members. He's not the only one, there's several like that.

Blake Rea: 42:00

I wonder, and I've always thought about it, he keeps talking like that, I know right, I'm starting to tear up a little.

Blake Rea: 42:08

I wonder where that sense. So, obviously, right, as a collector, I look at my collection and I I see tons of gaps. You know, I see a lot of pieces that I want to get. You know that I see other people have and you know they're crazy pieces right, you know, I mean a Royal Oak, or you know an Aqua Knot or a Vacheron, two to two, you know. Or just some off the top of the top of the head.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 42:30

That's my grail right. That's my grail right there.

Blake Rea: 42:32

Yeah, exactly.

Blake Rea: 42:33

Like but, but it's so weird because, even as I've grown as a collector and I look down on my collection and this has been the challenge, right, this has been the challenge where I talked about in 2.0, right, like, everybody looks at their collection and looks down on their collection, like I'm sure you probably noticed that, like, like you know, I was talking to my baseball player. He's like, oh, I'm not ready. You know cause? I was like dude, come on, if you want to talk about your collection. I've talked to Chris and he's like dude, I don't think, I don't think I'm going to do that. You know, like seems like everybody is always looking down their collection. So whenever you look at your collection, you always feel this weird sense of inadequacy or something like imposter syndrome man.

Blake Rea: 43:17

I started thinking about this, like where does this sense come from? You know? Like trying to get to the core of why I look at my collection and I feel like my collection shitty.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 43:28

Yeah, you have 80 watches. You have an incredible collection, I know, but it's not about the quantities, about the quality. I know right.

Blake Rea: 43:34

I mean. So I bought a lot of watches and, if anything, I'm a good kind of case study as to you know, as to thinking about your watch.

Justin Summers: 43:42

Person purchases like you're in your good case study, but I don't know about just for the watches.

Blake Rea: 43:48

I mean maybe, but but jokingly, like and I've talked about this in some of my other content but like I started to fall victim to opportunity, like purchasing opportunities. Like when you come in and somebody is like, hey, I've got this watch. You know a lot of dealers will say, oh, this just came in, like I don't know when I'm going to get this again. Or like this is the only one I've seen. Or like you know, we're not expecting another one of these for six months.

Blake Rea: 44:14

Insert some excuse here, right. And and then you know, of course it's like, hey, look, if you buy it now, like I'll give you whatever person offer, whatever you write, you know like. And then once I started stepping to the other side and seeing that because now I'm back on your side, like I am here as an advocate for the buyer, not the sales professionals, like. But I started to see that you know I talked about that and you're going to hear some more of the content that's coming out soon, where I've talked about ways that people get you to buy watches you don't want, like, and I'll probably end up, you know, tied up and gagged and in the bottom of the river somewhere. But it's for you, right? And Blake, blake Rear did not kill himself.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 44:56

I know I said that.

Blake Rea: 44:57

I publicly said that. I publicly said that If, if you Google and I was joking, if you Google one of my friends actually sent me this. He was like what are the luxury watch brand margins or something you know? The lonely wrist pops up first article and I was like. I was like if I die, you know why. But this is, this has been public information for a while. Like people know this, like people knew this before Before, yeah, like people talked about this on like watch forms and so you know, obviously I've tried really hard not to use any of the, the information that I acquired while I was on the inside to to spread that.

Blake Rea: 45:39

So, I feel like that's a conflict, but but just to take information that was out there already and to and to present it differently was was my approach. But but no, I mean you always fall victim to the deal, and something that I've talked about is is you'll always get a great watch right, like there's always going to be a great watch out there and there's always going to be a good deal to be had.

Blake Rea: 46:01

Like, if you pass up on X watch, like something else is going to come up and you may have the opportunity and not to fall victim to that, that urgent sense that they put on you to buy a watch right Because they want you to walk out of the watch Like. But if you walk out and say, hey, let me think about it, you sleep on it for a week or two or three or four or five and you dream about that watch. You wake up with cold sweats thinking like, why the hell did I not buy that watch? Maybe that's a sign you should buy it right, should keyword not buy it, but think about it right. And so I'm the case study right when where I fall victim to that right and I ended up with so many watches. And, of course, I've progressed as a collector and I have a hard time getting rid of things because I buy watches in for reasons beyond just buying a watch, like, hey, I was in Turkey.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 46:52

Yeah for a memory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like about this about this.

Blake Rea: 46:56

Watch in Turkey right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 46:58

Mean something, yeah, yeah.

Blake Rea: 46:59

I bought this PRX in Georgia, like to Blesi Georgia, and now my dad wears the PRX every single day. But but, yeah, I mean it becomes that right, and then so I have a hard time getting rid of them, which then I'm kind of like I'm kind of like screwed on double sides because I purchased it for a reason, so it's got some sort of middle value, and then, yeah, so we're going to talk about more content like that later. But but yeah, yeah, so, and again, it's always this weird sense of inadequacy where you feel like your collection is never going to live up because you always see other people out there and hype culture is coming full circle, right, right, where you see people with a collection of all RMS or all of like the, you know, the tour beyond APs or the skeletons or whatever, and you always be like, well, shit, like that is the collection. That if I had that collection, then I would talk about my collection, right. But what I looked back and I try to come, you know, and frame this in my mind is and this is a super long way, I'm so sorry, but it's not the community that's created that.

Blake Rea: 48:07

I feel like it's the brands that I've created that and their sales strategies and the sales professionals that have created that sense of inadequacy when you come in and you buy a watch and you're like, hey, like this will get you in, this will get you into to whatever next you want to buy. You know what I mean. And then you're like, well, wait, I just spent $10,000 on this watch. Or, in the case of this baseball player, like $40,000, you know $45,000. And you know, just to get the next thing, you know, and then it creates that sense of inadequacy where you're like this is a bridge, just a stepping stone. This isn't a real watch for me, you know. Yeah.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 48:50

So I know what you mean.

Blake Rea: 48:52

It's weird, so don't be scared of the watches you own. Like you know, we all appreciate watches, like we appreciate the. It's more about the, the, the shared enjoyment of wearing a watch and having a watch that you're proud of and and bringing meaning to it and in all those things, and it is about Having the newest Patek or that, the newest Vacheron or the newest long or Rolex or I mean so so yeah, sorry I had to get that out of there.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 49:23

I've been waiting to say that for a long time. That's a good. It's a good, it's a good topic to talk about, I think for me, you know, when it comes to my collection, you know I've Funny how the other day somebody asked me how many watches I have and I misspoke just because I haven't counted them in a long time. I said 23 or 24. I have more than that. I have like about 30, but a lot of them are quartz pieces. A lot of them are, you know, watches that I don't wear as much as I used to, but their watches that you know they mean some things. So I'm never gonna part ways with them, right, and Everything else in my collection, you know that's either, you know, on a mid-range or higher end I'm very happy with right now and it's honestly it's the first time I feel that I actually can say that now Don't get me wrong there's watches that I want right now they're out there that I can't afford right now, or just it's not the right time to purchase them. But I I'm learning to be patient and I'm learning to embrace my collection in a way. This year this is what I really want to do this year is Really focus on wearing the watches that I have more so I'm not looking for that dopamine high of getting a new watch Every every other week or every month. You know people joke around and, blake, I'm sure you're the same. You know new watch alerts. You know, ah, gc, like you know, every other week I had like last year I had quite a few right was as an epic year in purchases, just how it worked out right this year. I don't anticipate that, but people are probably laughing when they listen to this, thinking that I'm Crazy and I'm bs-ing. But I really want to embrace what I have like. For example, I got a Daytona at retail from an AD right. That's a watch that I wanted for a long time. Right. I Looked at my Instagram, for example, just because you know sometimes you forget when you had a watch on and if you document your watches by taking pictures, you'll know when you were at last and hey, I hadn't posted it or at least hadn't worn it in a long time.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 51:18

I'm like I worked hard to get this watch. What's wrong? Yeah, of course, right. Why am I looking at other watches? Let me wear this. Let me live in this moment. Let me capture this moment in time with this piece of equipment that I Wanted so long, instead of looking for the next dopamine hit in like an aquanaut or a Vacheron patrimony or 2 to 2 that I can't even dream about right now. Right, let me focus on what I have right now. So, again, I'm sounding like I'm not gonna have any NWA's this year and people are laughing, like I said, at me right now, but I think this year is gonna be a little bit different. I'm sure I'll buy another few watches this year, but they'll have some sort of significance behind them and they have to really make a lot of sense. I think I'm at the point where the next watch that I want is more of a dress watch. I don't really have a dress watch other than my grandfather's Constellation that I inherited, so I started thinking about that too.

Blake Rea: 52:10

Like you know it is real, like it's real, you get this adrenaline rush and the experience and you know you get endless chocolates or like water.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 52:19

You get weighted on Espresso, champagne or whatever like.

Blake Rea: 52:24

So there's definitely that dopamine factor, yeah, but something that I I've started to kind of figure out in my mind. It's like whenever I feel like a watch is getting old, because it happens, I'll just put a new strap on it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 52:37

You know I.

Blake Rea: 52:39

I literally have a binder of all the lug straps and it's just 2020, 20, and I literally will buy watches that are all 20s.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 52:46

I need that binder.

Blake Rea: 52:47

So, yeah, I've got two of them.

Justin Summers: 52:49

It's pretty thick I was like what is this? Pokemon cards?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 52:54

I love the lug straps.

Blake Rea: 52:55

Delugs was the, was the second podcast Host, like in was the second podcast guest that we had, and I mean he's just an amazing, amazing guy. But yeah, I and so I'm like I've got literally all my watcher 20s, you know, and um, and they've been so good, and it gets you that same feeling like, hey, this is a brand new watch, right. And then I started thinking about the other side of the coin, like, like you know, you're always experiencing different things in life. Right, where, where, the, where you fall into that ritual habit is you wear the, the watch during the same situations when you're like, oh, I'm going to dinner with my wife, okay, I'm just gonna wear whatever, right, you do that all the time. Right, but during your life adventure, if you experience something new while wearing an old watch, it feels like a damn brand new watch.

Blake Rea: 53:45

No, I agree and that's something it took me a long time to figure out, and that is Priceless advice to see it'll save you tons of money.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 53:56

Or bring, do what I did bring, bring, bring your sons with you to, if you have kids, bring your kids with you to buy your watch, and, and, and you'll never sell it. Because the whole point of bringing like your son or your daughter with you is that's going to be their watch one day, right, so that'll also keep you from selling. So, like this Daytona I'll never sell because one of my kids was At the boutique and it was a special moment and it's one that I wanted to make sure I captured a core memory.

Justin Summers: 54:22

A core memory was created, correct, correct.

Blake Rea: 54:25

My role, my Rolex dealer, like they have a strategy like well, there, they will Sell it to me on there's. So we watch this on twice a year, which is usually pretty standard, one of them being my birthday and the other one being my wedding anniversary. So every time I get a call is almost two days and, of course, what do they do? They stamp the card Birthday anniversary and I'm like well, shit, okay, like you got me. You know I can't sell these and that's how I got my Daytona. I'm not my Daytona, um, my, my Wimbledon, and then my son Mariner.

Blake Rea: 55:03

So, Am, I was perpetual, which I never wear date sub or no date? I have the Starbucks Nice. I got it I got it a few months ago, so it's like brand new. It doesn't even have a scratch on it yet.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 55:16

That's like the unofficial watch of the Atlanta watch society. By the way, I think we have like we have like 10 members for that watch.

Blake Rea: 55:22

I think it's a future classic because, like, if you look, at the previous, the Hulk, and then you look at the, the Kermit, before those were all discontinued pretty quickly. So I think, if I'm not mistaken, this was made for the 70th anniversary of the sub or something. Yes, yeah, and it could be wrong there, but I think it's going to be a future collectible, maybe you know. So, yeah, yeah, I guess we'll see To Justin. Did you check out? Oh, he's back. Yeah, dude, sorry.

Justin Summers: 55:52

I had the pest guy like oh no, I thought we were making you.

Blake Rea: 55:57

He's crying over there.

Justin Summers: 55:59

Yeah, no, dude, I've had the pest guy walking around my house and I've got a chihuahua and he he freaks out at everything, so he's been barking for like 10 minutes. That's why I've had my mic on mute, because, like I can't, I can't keep it on. But yeah, no, I've been here, I've been listening. I've just, like I said, noise canceling headphones. I'm good, but no, my next question for you, john Carlow, from what advice would you give to someone who's looking to Start their own watch collection? For anybody out there who, of course, doesn't have any watches or is just starting, I mean just buy what you like.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 56:30

Do research, obviously, but really buy what you like, don't be influenced by somebody else and what they think is the right watch for you. I mean, obviously there's great places to go to get ideas, especially if you're starting off on, like, what type of companies are out there that have certain price points, you know. From that perspective, you know, I think, yes, do your research, but then within that scope, then you know by by, what you think is going to look good on your wrist. Um, if you have a local retailer, stop by that local retailer and try the watch on.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 57:01

I think that's one thing that you know in this day and age of ecommerce, you know is lost a bit is, you know, not being able to try on watches as much as you have been able to in the past. I mean, las Vegas is a unique place where you know there's so many boutiques Manhattan, miami, atlanta, we have a few too, but not as much as as Vegas does or other bigger cities right with large boutiques. So sometimes it's hard to you know, try on a watch before you buy it, right, but I think that it's important to be able to try on a piece if you can. So join the local community, joe, and join a like Atlanta watch society, a Vegas watch society or or other groups like red bar rally, who we talked about offline earlier, where you can go and meet with collectors and, you know, ask them kindly and respectfully if you could try on their watch. If you think that's a watch that you May want to purchase in the future or want to learn more about being part of communities.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 57:51

Is is really helpful in educating you for Future purchases. It's helped me immensely. It's gotten me to the point now that you know I'm a mr Dive watch sports watch kind of guy and now I'm kind of for the next phase. I'm mitching for, you know, a really nice dress watch, and that's because of the community. A few members have some beautiful dress watches and I've been, you know, looking at them and trying them on and learning more and you know, I think I'm at that moment in my Collecting journey where I really want to maybe invest in one in the future.

Justin Summers: 58:23

For sure. Now, taking that same concept and you know, giving advice to people Uh, let's say, somebody wants to start another watch club I know that we've talked about. You know some of the history and kind of how you got your roots and beginnings. What advice would you give people that are trying to start up their own clubs?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 58:41

Just, you know, come at it from a perspective of really just wanting to bring good people together, right, give people a, you know, a comfortable space, safe space is important to be able to Come together and talk about watches and get together. I think that's really what helped us immensely was when we transitioned from doing events when they weren't even events yet, they were really just meetups Meetups in the back of a bar or a brewery to your basement yeah, exactly, or a basement to like the clubhouse, right, and then events, yeah, or then like brands, paying for, like actual, you know, paying for actual, like spaces for us, right, I think you know, just giving people a place that's safe to be able to, you know, bring their collection and be able to feel comfortable in coming back every month. What do you feel?

Blake Rea: 59:35

like, or how do you see the future? Because obviously, in my eyes, you're this, you know, innovator, right Like you're, you're bringing a new perspective to collecting and to watch clubs. So, like I'm curious to know, like, how do you see watch clubs evolving in the future? That's a great question. We always try and stump some people. No, it's a great question, it's with a curve ball.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 59:59

I think more of what we're doing and you know I don't mean to say that in any way, you know I don't mean to sound arrogant at all or you know that we're doing something perfect, but I think what we're doing is simple, right, and it's really just making sure that there's a connection between the brand and the local watch community. Right, and Doing more of that and and showing brands that it really makes a lot of sense To do that, not necessarily having to work with the retailer in the middle To bring watches to that community, and nothing against. Retailers have great relationships with many retailers. But you know, I think that, like I described earlier, one thing that happens is, you know these retailers have a client list and it's not an independent list of watch collectors only. There's people all different types of people on their list that they want to invite to these, and then your local collector who hasn't spent any money yet won't get invited. But that person in five years may become your biggest spender and you don't even realize it. And you know I hate to put it in that kind of perspective, but it's true. If you think about it, you never know who you can inspire for the future.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:01:08

We have one person in our group and there's several others, but there's one guy that I'm thinking about who came to one of our events with no watches at all. I think you had just a swatch. The guy's gone down to the next one and he's gone down to the next one. The guy's gone down a rabbit hole and that is insane. And I think his you know his significant other wants to kill me Because he has so many watches now in within the two-year span, right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:01:31

But that's a person that would have never been invited by, like, let's say, some retailers or some other watch groups to some of these events Because they're not buying watches or they don't have a collection, right. But now this person, every opportunity he has, he's buying a new watch and he's keeping them. He's not selling them. You know, he has the means to keep the watches and he loves it and he wants to capture moments in time, like you, blake. That's why it's hard for him. He's similar to you in that he doesn't want to like, just let go of these pieces, because then they now mean something on his journey. So I think the future really is just making sure that the community Stays very close to the brands, going direct to brands to plan events and and really you know, giving a great comfortable space for both to really kind of engage.

Blake Rea: 1:02:18

Yeah, wow, Sorry. I'm just kind of like collecting all of the thoughts that that invoked. What do you feel like has been? I mean, it sounds like you already addressed it, but kind of want to hear it vocally from you again. Like, what do you feel like it's been the most rewarding part Of building a watch community and being a part of one Making so many?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:02:39

great friends, the people Honestly and I know that sounds cliche and corny, but it's not, it's the people. You know, honestly. I came to Atlanta from New York, you know, not knowing many people down here my wife and my kids obviously but you know I had some friends from work, obviously, because work moved me down here. But I've made lifelong friends forever. You know that I'll, I'll, I'll keep, you know, they'll be my friends forever and you know that's incredible and such a short period of time. You know I have, you know, this whole built-in community of people that I trust, that I care about, and it's just an incredible thing that's happened. And all because of watches, you know, and I know that sounds funny when you just say it like that, but it's true. The watches brought us together, but the people make us stick around. That's right. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.

Justin Summers: 1:03:30

And we'll go ahead and kind of wrap up with you. Jean-carlo, I've got one last question what's next for the Atlanta Watch Society?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:03:38

Another great question. Well, you know, expanding upon, you know the uh, what we've built here, and what I mean by that is, you know there's been several folks that we've been chatting with Blake. I don't know if you've shared this publicly have you already or not?

Blake Rea: 1:03:53

I mean I posted it on my Instagram, but go ahead. I mean, it's probably better to come from you than to come from me.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:03:58

No, I mean you're from you.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:04:00

You know Blake. You know Blake, you know, reached out to me through my friend, chris. Chris Hill shot out to Chris Hill who brought us all together, wonderful person, great collector and friend. You know about starting a chapter in Vegas and you know it's something that for me makes so much sense in so many ways, and getting to know Blake and how incredible of a person you are, blake, and how great of a collector you are to be able to have you be our first like chapter leader outside of Atlanta. You know it's just super exciting and you know there'll be other chapters possibly coming in the future, kind of all under an umbrella of something called the Watch Society and it's all you know, still kind of being built out.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:04:40

But you know what we did here in Atlanta really resonated. It's been something that's been special. And you know more and more folks have been reaching out to us around the country to see if we can help them start other groups like ours in their cities. And you know we're just. You know we're excited. We're trying to find a time to do it, but luckily we have people like Blake who are, you know, incredible and well connected, that are the perfect types of people to help start groups in their cities. And Vegas makes so many sense to be one of our chapters for so many reasons. I spoke about it earlier all the incredible Watch boutiques in Vegas, all the brands that go out there so many people going out there anyway, you know for vacation, for events, right, it's the city that does events. Nobody does events better than Vegas, right? So exciting times ahead.

Blake Rea: 1:05:32

I hope I can keep the hype, I hope I can look up to the hype. But I've taken the other approach to. I mean, obviously you've seen my community, you're in it, but I've taken the other door. Instead of getting collectors together, I got the industry people together and then we're going to go backwards into the collectors, you know, because we all like there's people in there and whenever I look at the community I'm like holy shit, there's so many amazing people in here already, but we're going backwards. Right, all of us have all of them know collectors. Everybody in the industry knows two or three or four or five or six collectors. So it just made more sense because we've kind of kicked off with the brand support, you know.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:06:21

So I guess we'll see if it turns out to be as successful as yours, of course, and I think it made sense to do it the way you did it in Vegas, right, because Vegas is a different type of place. I think one of our first conversations we spoke about that. I think I even joked with you. I said, man, I wish I could have started this in Vegas first, because Vegas, you know, with all the ability you have, with all the brands being there, you know it helps out immensely.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:06:44

And I think it makes perfect sense to start off the way you did, and every chapter should do it the way they feel is best. You know we're never going to tell anybody the way it has to be done. You know we'll give you the experiences we've had and what's been successful for us, and then you can, you know, obviously, cater it and mold it into your own way, but we're just, you know, the only thing we want is to make sure that we continue to promote positivity within the community. You know, no assholes is our only rule. Right, people that are not going to judge you and politics and no politics and nothing like that.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:07:20

Right, just come for the watches, stay for the people, and if you get to know people from this perspective, you know it's amazing how many people you'll become friends with because of it.

Blake Rea: 1:07:32

Yeah, and we're, you know, kind of segueing. We are trying to wrap up our date here, our first date, and I've been communicating a lot with you know, some of us, the local support, our support system here. So once we have a date, listeners, you know, you guys will probably hear about it or know about it, and we're working on getting some discounted hotel rooms. So I know we're trying to do it right.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:08:01

You know I'm coming right.

Blake Rea: 1:08:03

I know, I know, I know, and the property that we're going to have it at and the local venue that we're talking to and communicating with and we're just waiting for, essentially like a thumbs up from corporate because it is a corporate entity. But you know, you guys will be the first to know.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:08:22

Can't wait.

Blake Rea: 1:08:24

And, yeah, I mean the space that we've chosen or has been offered to us, I don't know whichever however it worked is an amazing place and it's the amenities and just the supportiveness of them and just their whole leadership team. I mean it's crazy to think like I mean, what's it been like two or three months that I mean officially, maybe maybe two or three months and just going in there just having that discussion, hey, we're a new watch community here in Vegas. Like here's what we want to do, you know. And they're like oh, how many people are coming? I don't know, I don't know, you would think like that would turn somebody off. Like here we are a new community with, you know, new supporters, you know, you know you think that would turn them off, but they were like, no, let's do it.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:09:19

And I'm like, because they get it, I'm telling you, they get it, they see it and more and more brands are understanding that they need to engage with communities like ours.

Blake Rea: 1:09:27

Yeah, and they've done small little events for other friends, like friends that have gotten together, like oh, we've got 10 friends and whatever. But but yeah, I mean the approach has been a lot different and I have so many friends that are in the sales roles at these boutiques and they're all throwing their cape around it and I mean it's just going to be a great place to get everybody together and I'm I can't even tell you how excited I am for to get the first date officially locked in and then just that, just to see how many people show up, it's going to be amazing. Justin, of course you're invited, I'm not coming.

Justin Summers: 1:10:04

if you're going to be there, I'm not going to do something I didn't.

Blake Rea: 1:10:09

I didn't expect you to be there, sadly to say, but I just know how hard it is for you, Like you just got a lot going on in your personal life, you know so.

Justin Summers: 1:10:17

I'll make it. Yeah, y'all let me know, I'll be there.

Blake Rea: 1:10:20

Okay, okay, yeah.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:10:22

Vegas, baby, vegas, baby yeah.

Blake Rea: 1:10:25

I mean, if you and some of the people from the watch society they don't watch society You're like, oh, like, how do I they've been? They've been texting me. Like how do I tell my wife that I'm coming to your watch event? I'm like, I don't know.

Justin Summers: 1:10:38

They're like you're going to strip clubs I don't know, I don't know how to.

Blake Rea: 1:10:43

I don't know how to tell you how to do that.

Justin Summers: 1:10:46

Like I can't even.

Blake Rea: 1:10:47

I can't even convince my own wife to let to let me have the watch society. So so yeah, here we are. So don't send those in those questions to me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't help you, but I'll figure out a way to lock the date in and I will figure out a way to be there without dying.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:11:04

I think somebody, people from Atlanta, are going to come to this. It's not even funny.

Blake Rea: 1:11:08

And that's the cool thing, like you know, like I literally have people that text, like literally text text to me. One of one of my you know friends that I've built a relationship with. His wife is on the senior. Well, she, she's like a high up for the Minnesota Vikings, so like she, she's in the, the corp, the C level for them. And he just texted me, he's like like yesterday, he's like, hey, I'm coming to Vegas, here's the time that I'm coming, we're taking you out to dinner, like we're going to do it up with you. And I get that text every week, right, like that's why it's such a great spot you're in. I know it's, it's weird because and this is weird but when I, obviously whenever I lived in Raleigh, like in Justin, was my neighbor, right, like I see Justin more now living in Vegas than I did when I lived across the street from him, that's crazy.

Justin Summers: 1:12:01

Right, justin, pretty much. In all honesty, that's crazy.

Blake Rea: 1:12:05

We're like that it's so weird because people are like, oh, going to Vegas, like who do I know in Vegas? Oh, blake, you know there's very few people that like they can attach them in Christmas, right. So you know, we obviously have a new, a new global Atlanta watch society member. You know who was invited over Christmas? And same thing, you know, he came here and he was picking up James Cameron and he was like hey, dude, you know, so I'm starting to be very fortunate enough that I can. I can live by, curiously, through my friends who buy watches while I just sit there. I don't have to spend my own money to get that experience. But same thing, you know, he came in and he was like hey, I'm picking up a deep sea and I want you to come with me. I'm like I'll be there.

Justin Summers: 1:12:46

That's awesome.

Blake Rea: 1:12:48

And he's a huge collector and he's always in Vegas and and you know, starting off with support like like from collectors, like that is is insane. I know some other collectors from Utah that are that are, hey, I'll fly in, just tell me when, yeah, I'm getting a lot of people are saying they're going to fly in and just bringing everybody together, like especially during formula one when it was like Chris and then some of the, the people I knew from some of the watch brands, and then we had Abington from Abington Co, like the watch brand, and then we had I mean, we just had so many unique people. There was Josephine. She's an amazing person, she's the, the territory, I think. I don't want to quote her wrong, but she's I think she's a territory director for Bucherer. You know we were at a Bucherer event and and, yeah, I mean just to get all those cool people in one space and just to see how they all like vibe is the reason why I'm fortunate enough to be to be able to do this.

Blake Rea: 1:13:49

So Right, Great Blake, it's exciting so all right, let's leave it on that note. Anything anything left that we didn't cover Like? Did you feel like we checked all the boxes?

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:13:59

I think we did. No, it's been a pleasure talking to both of you, looking forward to meeting both of you in person. We don't know each other in person, which is a crazy. Blake, you know we've been talking for a while but excited about, you know, obviously, getting together in Vegas and you know, just thanks for being a member of our community and you know, thank you for having me on the show today. It's been, it's been a real pleasure.

Blake Rea: 1:14:20

Thank you for coming. It has occurred to me that I have started off every show and I have wrapped up every show. So, justin, I want to give you the opportunity to finish off this show.

Justin Summers: 1:14:32

Well, see you guys later.

Blake Rea: 1:14:36

It's like check out.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:14:37

We didn't do a risk check. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm wearing a Daytona. My Daytona because Blake started a controversial topic in our group. That was fun. I'm about to send it and we won't get into it now, but it's a lot of fun, that's awesome.

Justin Summers: 1:14:52

This is a beautiful watch, by the way. Pueblo classic fusion come at me haters, come at me haters. I got a Zodiac on.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:15:00

I thought that was. I was looking at it and I had a feeling that's my, that's what it might have been Beautiful, Very nice yeah.

Blake Rea: 1:15:07

I got, I got a Zodiac, and then obviously he's been looking at Zodiac for a while and then just the stars aligned, you know, and sure enough. Next thing you know, Justin got a Zodiac and beautiful.

Justin Summers: 1:15:20

Yeah, now we got some Zodiacs. Keep your. Keep your eyes up too, because I'll probably be posting something about it pretty soon on our channel. Can we see it? Yeah, so.

Blake Rea: 1:15:29

Justin's going to be working on some YouTube videos and we're trying to get all these blog posts. We've got maybe 40 or 50 blog posts that have already been written that we're trying to get up. So I'm vocalizing it Keep your eyes and ears up. So if Justin doesn't get blog posts up, hit them up and annoy them people.

Justin Summers: 1:15:50

All right, they annoy me.

Blake Rea: 1:15:51

They annoy me about it. I'm transferring that responsibility to Justin.

Justin Summers: 1:15:58

Please be nice.

Giancarlo Rosselli: 1:16:00

We will be.

Justin Summers: 1:16:01

Can't wait to see each one Appreciate it, man. Well, nice to meet you again, john Carlo. Thanks for taking time. Appreciate everybody tuning in, watching us, listening to us. Thanks for keeping up with us and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye, guys, take care.