Ilja Rijs believes the best watches have already been made. He says it without irony. "It sounds very cliché, but I really believe in a certain quality which does not exist any more. What was made in the past is simply better made. That's the message I want to give my customers."
Most dealers say something like this to sell a watch. Rijs built his whole business on it.
Benjamin Marcello sits at Herengracht 420 in Amsterdam. Viewings by appointment. The watches sit in a bank vault. The inventory is small on purpose. Rijs made the name up himself, a nod to the Italian collectors who taught the market to take vintage watches seriously.
I sat down with him to find out how a young dealer makes old values pay.
