Watch Safe began in Miami in 2022.
I'd loved watches my whole life. Then the market went crazy, the horror stories piled up, and I couldn't understand why watches this valuable had no dependable record that stayed with them.
I was three when watches got me.
I come from a Syrian family of watchmakers. Watches were around me early, and I was obsessed by the time I was three. I learned to see them as things people keep, pass down, and remember other people by.
Then came pandemic-era Miami. Money was moving fast. A white-ceramic Richard Mille RM 055 “Bubba Watson” or a black-ceramic openworked Audemars Piguet seemed to be on every other wrist. Nearly every day brought another story about a six-figure watch that turned out to be fake, a robbery, or someone being drugged and waking up without theirs.
The reported average price of a Richard Mille RM 055 “Bubba Watson” in 2022. The systems around watches had not caught up with the money moving through them.
View the historical market estimateAt exactly the same time, Bored Ape NFTs were impossible to avoid. My first reaction was probably the same as everyone else's: why was anyone paying that much for a picture of a monkey? But the technology behind the picture stayed with me. It gave one specific object a public record that could be followed and checked.
My first thought was to attach one of those records to each watch. That was too simple. A token could prove that a certificate existed, but it could not tell a buyer who inspected the watch, whether it had been reported stolen, or what had happened to it since. The watch needed an actual history, not a digital receipt.
Welcome to Watch Safe.
One record that can follow the watch.
Watch Safe keeps the inspection and ownership record in one place. The expert, Watch Safe, and the owner each have a different job.
The authenticator
Examines the physical watch and signs their own findings.
Watch Safe
Keeps the certificate, theft status, and later updates tied to the watch.
The owner
Controls who can open the private inspection and ownership records.
Watch Safe does not buy or sell watches.
The registry has no inventory and no stake in whether a deal closes. Watch Safe does not authenticate watches. That work is performed by approved independent experts. Our role is to preserve each inspection as part of the watch's record.
All I wanted at the beginning was a better answer to the questions collectors were already asking: Who inspected it? Has it been reported stolen? What happened before it reached me? Can the next owner find the same record?
Those are still the questions I ask when we decide what belongs in Watch Safe. We started in Miami, and we're building from there.