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Precious time with Romain Réa
Culture

Precious time with Romain Réa

Monday, 13 November 2017
By Victoria Townsend
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Victoria Townsend

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7 min read

Busy with the final details for the Antiquorum sale that took place on November 12 in Geneva, Romain Réa found time to talk about his passion for watches, at his store on Rue du Bac in Paris.

The fast train between Paris and Geneva has become a familiar commute for Romain Réa ever since he accepted the position of CEO of Antiquorum in April this year. Speed is something Réa knows all about – he studied aeronautics before spending two years as a crew member with the French Air Force. It was there that his passion for watches developed. “I liked the spinning hands on the control panels,” he explains “and developed an interest in chronographs. My first watch was a Navitimer. It wasn’t long before I was buying, selling and trading other watches to increase my knowledge and collection.”

I created an interest.
Romain Réa

When this passion for watches overtook all others, Réa brought his collection to the Crédit du Nord with the project to open a store specializing in rare and vintage pieces. The bank, “still the same one today”, financed the opening of his first boutique at the St. Ouen Flea Market in the north of Paris, known during the 1990s for the quality of its antique furniture and artworks that were appreciated by French and international clients. “Back then there were no specialist stores for watch collectors in France. I created an interest. People queued up to see what I had.”

Business boomed, and in 1998 Réa took over a 12 square-metre space on Rue du Bac in the city’s chic 7th arrondissement. He moved across the street in 2005 to a larger store, at number 26, which remains one of his three boutiques in Paris today – the other two are the recently opened store on Rue Marbeuf and a space dedicated to watches and jewellery inside the Printemps Haussmann department store. Although not a jewellery expert himself, twenty years spent working with jewellery pieces and their auctioneers certainly gives Réa credibility, and he employs two gemmologists for expert appraisal and advice.

On buying and selling

Is there a conflict of interest between buying and selling on the one hand, and auctioneering on the other? “The ‘conflict’ has existed since the 1990s,” he confides, “when Drouot in Paris appointed me as an expert while I had my first shop. I took criticism from both sides for having a finger in each pie, so to speak. I always replied that to be good at both, you have to be both. When I buy and sell watches, I invest my own (company’s) money, so I look at them very, very closely. When you put your own money into an object you’re taking a risk, so of course you’re careful about what you do. I think the best auctioneers have, or have had, their own boutiques. At [French auction house] Artcurial, where I set up the Horology and Jewellery department in 2002 and organized themed auctions for 15 years, the outlook was more international than at Drouot, so I didn’t have this problem. The only stipulation, and it’s French law, was and is that I could not include my own objects in the auctions, which is understandable.”

Romain Réa avec catalogue Antiquorum
Romain Réa avec catalogue Antiquorum

Romain Réa is a recognized specialist and expert witness at the Court of Appeal in Paris. He provides expertise to Jaeger-LeCoultre, to Vacheron Constantin, has written a book for Tudor (commissioned by Rolex) that required three years to produce, and has organized the only auction of just Panerai watches. He also provides training to various institutions in France that need to be able to identify watches and their value. The subject of counterfeit pieces also arises. Is this a problem he encounters in his own stores? While “no-one deliberately brings a fake to a Romain Réa boutique because they know they will be caught,” he concedes that some Asian counterfeits are so “very qualitative” that they have to be opened to be 100% sure. As for the 2% to 3% of customers who unwittingly bring what he suspects to be fakes – “always an embarrassing moment, as they are sometimes gifts or purchases acquired in dubious places…” – he recommends they “check with the brand”. Asked what he looks for to determine whether a watch is genuine or not, he details some of the tell-tale signs on the visible components, but prefers to not divulge what may be of use to counterfeiters.

Advice for new collectors

What advice would he give to a budding collector? “Apart from coming to Romain Réa?” he smiles. “The most important thing is to like your first acquisition. Some buy as an investment, for patrimony, but above all it should be love at first sight. Then, and only then, can you develop a theme, but don’t put the cart before the horse. Once that first purchase is made, then you can develop your collection. It can be chronographs, watches from the 1930s, in steel, with black dials, whatever you like as long as it gives you pleasure to look at, to wear and to talk about. To start a vintage collection, an investment of €2,000 to €5,000 would be a good starting point today.” Romain Réa doesn’t sell online. “We have a site to show some of what we have in our stores, but recommend to personally see a watch and try it on before buying. Auctions are another story: 25% of sales are made via Internet.”

Given his auction house experience, what is his opinion on the recent sale of Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona for US$ 17,752,500? “The estimate had to be from US$ 5 to 10 million. Many could have bought it at $3 million, and it’s an iconic piece, so it had to be multiplied by two or three. The surprise came when one bidder immediately said $10 million, making for a relatively quick sale as there were only two bidders left to go over that amount. I hope that it was for Rolex. If it was, I think at Baselworld 2018, or perhaps 2019 to have enough time to develop it, the brand will introduce a new collection named the “PN” or another reference to the “116520 PN” model that was sold. Customer interest will reimburse the investment, and Rolex gets to keep the watch as part of its patrimony. Whoever it was – there was talk of an Asian buyer, who may have been buying it personally or on behalf of a company or group – will own the rights to use the reference on a new watch with a healthy return on investment. I think in 10 years it will be worth US$ 30 million.”

Antiquorum.Swiss
Geneva-based Antiquorum, now officially Antiquorum.Swiss (distinct from Antiquorum New York City), is currently the world’s third auction house after Phillips and Christie’s, ahead of Sotheby’s. Appointed CEO in April 2017, Romain Réa is living up to the challenge and has brought stimulating changes to the House in a very short time, starting with a watches and jewellery auction in Monaco last July that will be repeated in January next year. Hong Kong continues, and thematic sales – a Réa speciality – are being developed. The total 590 lots crossing the block in Geneva on Sunday November 12 ranged from the 1930s – including a 1935 Patek Philippe in platinum of which only 131 were made – to the 2010s. The sale also included a selection of 40 Patek Philippe Calatravas, personally researched and catalogued by Romain Réa and Arnaud Tellier, former Director and Conservator of the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva.

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