The heart of watch enthusiasm

Hairspring Started Late 2016 With One Purpose

to sift through the very best of the entire watch market to attract and bring closer together a community of thoughtful watch enthusiasts.

The watch marketplace is a highly-fragmented, unclear one. We began seeking to de-fragment and add some clarity by highlighting great watches for sale from other private collectors, retailers, and auction houses. Those features we called Finds, which we still do today. Finds shares the most interesting and relevant new watches in the market; nearly every day a new watch for sale from someone else is featured here and has been since 2016.

Then something started to happen. The audience we'd garnered started requesting watches from us, requesting we sell their watches, and asking us to source things. This is how Exclusives, now our flagship offering, came to be born in 2018.

The Exclusives concept

In the early years, we painstakingly reverse engineered the exact way we'd like to buy and sell watches in an ideal world.

First, everything here is exceptional is some regard. Whether by rarity, condition, provenance, mechanical exception, or beauty, we strive to have every watch on this platform be unyeildingly special in some way. We turn away 90% of the watches that we are offered. While sometimes not easy, that heavy filter means that, as you're browsing, every watch here is worth your attention and is the best of its kind. Or focus is toward the all-time greats. From a ref. 5970 to ref. 5512, that is our aim.

We strive to treat these masterpieces of art, engineering, design, emotion, and science with the respect they deserve. Our style of photography has been chosen in order to allow you to feel what it is like to live with the watch, to make you feel as though you're wearing it, louping it, and holding it in your hand. We spend days in photography and a full day on our Worth Reading sections. This effort results in a listing quality that simply does not exist elsewhere today.

But the watches are only part of the experience. We seek to provide the highest-touch, personal buying experience possible. We respond immediately ourselves, no AI robots, and know each offering intimately. We also know the watch buying world intimately, working with buyers to seamlessly navigate things others leave to chance like customs & import, insurance, service, and the things that matter after purchase. Many of our clients become friends, which is perhaps what we take the greatest pride in today.

How We Operate in Practice

The extreme rigor we apply to selecting both our Finds features and Exclusives has seen us grow immensely over the years, for which we are most grateful. We are extremely fortunate to have the attention and often support of many of the world's most learned collectors. There's always something new here every day, whether a Find or Exclusive. As such, our audience checks in daily. We tell the story of one watch per day, whether a find or Exclusive, and the full weight of our readership descends on that watch. This often results in widespread sharing, an active comments section, and getting the piece in front of the world's stage.

What we don't do is just as important. We don't feed into hype. We don't use words like investment, iconic, or even unpolished. We describe the details of every watch in specifics, not generalities. We do our absolute best to present our watches in Exclusives as fact alone, with opinion removed. We don't stage anything. If a watch is marked sold, it is sold. If a watch is live, it is on the market currently. There is no in-between. We'll let our best clients know what might be coming down the line, but every Exclusive that goes live can be bought, and every Exclusive that sells out has actually sold.

We are a very small, tight-knit team with high focus and low overheads. This allows us competitive advantages in how we spend our time. Physical retail is not our strong-suit by choice. The watches come first, our rigor and selectivity in what we offer is uncompromising. Most of our time is spent on this. On the selling side, we seek to offer fair up-to-the-moment market pricing accounting for recent sales across all platforms, overall market trends, condition, set, provenance, rarity, and all the rest. We have a proprietary algorithm which we are always tweaking to guide the most fair pricing possible. That said, we always consider the seller's goals as well, if consigned. The same high-touch process we offer to our buyers extends to clients on the selling side. We offer sellers both outright purchase and consignment for watches that fit our criteria. We discuss and select between the two as makes the most sense for any given client's goals. The aim is not to achieve the highest price, nor the lowest, but the fairest possible to bring the world's most exceptional pieces to the market.

Hairspring's Philosophy for the Future

Our aims have slowly expanded to include a podcast, accessories around watches such as straps, cases, trays, and tools (we call these Extras), and a newsletter detailing long-format in-depth reads that live under the Journal section longterm.

That said, we don't do anything if we can't be the best in the world at it. We are focused on slow, consistent, sustainable growth only in areas where we feel we can offer something world-class. We will always be heading toward our North Star of bringing enthusiasts closer together. Exclusives have shown us that careful planning and execution can create a successful business while preserving that philosophy. We will only take on challenges in areas where that holds true in future.

We optimize to develop expertise, trust, and professionalism first. This means up to date knowledge as applied to our shared obsession, integrity in all facets, and complete thoroughness in our operations.

Our Space

Though we are not high-street retail focused, we do have a beautiful space in Denver available by appointment only, in order for you to view our inventory and loupe our watches for yourself.

Our People

Erik Gustafson

Founder

Graham Dean

Managing Partner

Nabil Amdan

Editor, Journal & Newsletter

DON'T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT.

That's enough about us, see what it's all about

Exclusives

A Careful Selection of Exceptional Watches Retailed by Hairspring

SHOP WATCHES

Finds

Featured Watches, the Best on Offer From the Broader Market All in One Place

EXPLORE FINDS

Extras

Straps, Cases, and Other Accessories of Unrivaled Quality Developed by Hairspring

SHOP ACCESSORIES

Journal

Long Form Stories, Guides, and Interviews to Further Your Understanding of Horology

BROWSE READING