Little shop of horology

Although he probably does not realise it, Danny Pizzigoni performs a valuable function. As proprietor of Watch Club in the Royal Arcade, just off London's Bond Street, he presides over a drop-in centre for horolophiles; a place where the vintage watch addict can feed his habit, talk timepieces and drool over everything from a tasty Jean-Claude Killy Ref 6236 or that favourite of the hedge funder, an orange-hand Steve McQueen Ref 1655. In case you didn't know, these are both very collectible Rolexes.

The market for vintage watches has changed almost immeasurably in the past decade or two. First, there is the price. When I started writing about watches in the late Eighties you could pick up a Paul Newman Daytona for a couple of grand, slightly more than the cost of a new one. Since then, a Rolex Daytona with a Paul Newman dial has become a trophy watch par excellence, the paradigm of the modern vintage sports watch (if that's not too much of an oxymoron). Stylish, desirable and valuable; you will not be left with much change from £70,000 for a decent example.
Vintage sports watches, in particular vintage Rolexes but also old Breitlings, Heuers and Omegas, have become very chic - you only have to look at the current, modern retreads of classic designs (such as the TAG Heuer Silverstone and Omega Ploprof) to see that. But the originals have a patina that only the passing years can bestow. They remain highly wearable - given that they were built robustly in the first place means they can withstand daily rigours. In short, they can be treated like a modern watch, and what Watch Club does is sell them in much the same way as one might sell a modern watch.
Until the early Eighties, vintage watches meant pocket watches, collected by old codgers who just didn't have the space to keep a collection of long-case chiming clocks. Even when vintage branded wristwatches became collectible they were, at first, sold in much the same way as pocket watches, on the premises of a vintage dealer looking a little like a cross between an antiques showroom and an undertaker, with individual pieces being offered up for appreciation reverentially on velvet-covered trays. At least that was the way when Watch Club first opened as Royal Arcade Watches in the mid-Nineties.
Even then it was clear to Danny Pizzigoni that the market had more potential; one of his first customers was Sir Paul McCartney who came in looking for a Rolex Bubbleback, and over the years a stream of celebs has come through the door of this horological Santa's grotto. Orlando Bloom, Daniel Day-Lewis, Eric Clapton and, more recently, such sporting stars as Roberto Mancini, Fabio Capello and Gianluca Vialli have all shopped here.
He also received a less agreeable form of validation on a quiet Monday in October 2003, when armed robbers made away with £300,000 worth of watches, including a 1973 black-dial 6263 Daytona, a Fifties enamel-dial Patek Philippe and a rose-gold triple calendar Vacheron Constantin from 1940. Still, at least he can console himself with the fact that he can hold his own with Laurence Graff when it comes to swapping armed-robbery stories. Moreover, since the robbery, steely-eyed Gurkhas patrol the arcade, making this stretch of chic shops, which includes perfumer Ormonde Jayne and shoemaker George Cleverley, arguably the safest strip in London.
And it was this increasing interest in vintage watches by stars of the sporting, financial, thespian - and criminal - worlds that prompted Pizzigoni to embark on a rebranding exercise that saw him expand into the neighbouring shop and replace the undertaker's interior with white walls, a wood floor and a new name: Watch Club.
As its name suggests, this is a place for those wanting to broaden their knowledge, maybe testing the water with a vintage Air-King or Speedmaster and then, having contracted the watch bug, returning for that vital Breitling Navitimer (with Aircraft Owners And Pilots Association logo), or that exquisite Rolex Submariner with the shaded dial and bezel; before moving onto the big stuff like the Fifties gold GMT with brown dial and café au lait Bakelite bezel.
On second thoughts, if you could stay away from that GMT, I would be grateful as I am trying to persuade Danny to let me have it... all I need to do is find a bank willing to offer me a mortgage on a watch. Still, if past performance is anything to go by, it is a better bet than derivatives.