"Someone invented them, one day, the rules, but I never trusted them more than that. Since I was a child, however, I have believed in other values: loyalty, for example, fairness, friendship. I was born in Rome, and like any self-respecting true Roman, I experience any departure from my city as an abuse of power. It is as if all the beauties and contradictions of this place full of history are necessary, indeed indispensable to arrive unscathed to the next day." Pucci Papaleo
"In the morning, every morning, I walk past the Colosseum. I feel I can't do without it, although in reality most of the time I don't even turn around to look at it. It's been happening for so many years, decades, that it seems like a given to me. I know I couldn't do without it, though; it's part of my day. The rest of Rome, or rather the center of this city of mine, I prefer to experience it at night, when there is less traffic, fewer crowds, fewer cars and the ponentino makes everything less hot and more bearable. It's a bit like what happens with watches: where the masses are, you can bet you won't find me."
Interviewing Pucci Papaleo is like taking a journey, tiptoeing through a Rome made up of extraordinary clocks and one-of-a-kind books. Let's start right from the "place" that has always characterized him: Via del Fagutale. What is it for you? A refuge? A graphic design studio?
"My friends call it The Tunnel. It is the space where I am comfortable to work. Actually, for a certain period of my life, I also lived there, but I have long since realized that the place fits perfectly to live my daily work activity with due calm and with the right spaces."
As a boy you collected and resold McIntosh amplifiers all over the world. Where did the adrenaline come from? From finding them in the most unthinkable places, making them as good as new or reselling them overseas?
"I took quite a scuff there, too: at the age of fifteen, I fell in love with music and soon decided to move from simple listening to high-quality listening, until I became hooked almost immediately on the pursuit of high-quality reproduction. In those years, transistor amplifiers were making their way overwhelmingly, and everyone was putting aside the old tube amplifiers. One day, however, I happened to 'hear' one and it was instant love: I had been sold an old McIntosh, screwed upright on a wooden panel, for two liras. I left it there, abandoned for a year, until one day, more out of boredom than curiosity, I hooked it up to some powerful speakers and a turntable. The result, immediately, changed my perception of quality music."
He did not change only that.
"No, I realized there was a market and tried to deal with it. I got hold of my father's telex (there wasn't even a fax machine then, let alone email) and started writing to dealers in Japan who were placing ads in trade magazines. I began to buy them: the best ones I kept, the others I resold, perhaps in the United States. This lasted a few years, then I got distracted and that was it. The tube collection, however, remains to this day."
Another passion of yours is cars. Many people remember you driving the Range Rover Classic: almost 2,000 kilograms of pure British iron, with which you juggle through Roman alleys as if it were a 500. Still an enduring love?
"When I was little more than a boy, from an institution of Sisters I purchased an old Mercedes off-road car. I got on so well with it that I never wanted to move away from this type of vehicle again. After all, there is always a red thread that binds all my choices, that of vintage: it was true for amplifiers, for cars, for watches."
How did your passion for watches come about?
"An attraction has always been there: ever since I was a child, whenever I saw an old watch, I was fascinated by it. Then it happened that one day in the mid-1990s, when I was older but still in my twenties, I was taken to Geneva and happened to be on one of those weekends during which auctions take place."
Randomly?
"Actually, I was accompanying my partner's father at the time, who was a big watch collector. I remember that I was not particularly happy to take the plane, but he was a nice person. I went there with zero expectations and zero knowledge."
It was a good time for vintage watchmaking.
"Yes, Antiquorum used to rule. I remember the choreography during the auction: it was definitely flashier and richer than today's auctions. In the covers of the catalogs you would find guns with little birds coming out... I remember that Osvaldo Patrizzi had set up a giant cinerama-type screen and when the top lots came in, the lights would go out and an incredible video would start presenting the piece for sale. Concentrated silence of the room, applause and immediately a challenge began, with hands going up from all over the room. For a guy like me it was something extraordinary: there were people who would spend as much or more for a watch than the value of a good apartment..."
Was the amazement short-lived?
"I began to have a curiosity about watches that I liked, and I focused on Patek Philippe watches, my pygmalion's own favorite."
What was the type that you liked best?
"Definitely the chronographs. In those years there was no Internet, you studied in auction catalogs. There were magazines and a few books.""
Let's virtually go back to the Pucci of the 1990s. If you had to rank five watches from that period that you were crazy about, which ones would you pick?
"For me, and not only for me, the watch with a capital O was the 1518 by Patek Philippe, though my myth was the round keys, especially the 1463. Then the complications, which I saw several times in Geneva or from the world's most famous dealers. I also loved like crazy the 533 also by Patek Philippe, the chronograph with the characteristic flat bezel, the 1526 moon phases. All models that are still at the top of collectibles today."
What makes you choose to buy a watch? Beauty, rarity, brand name or investment?
"I choose it for beauty. When I claimed to choose following the investment objective, I always did a lot of nonsense. Over the years, when I began to follow a very specific line that saw old Rolex chronographs as the center of my attention, I soon found myself in the situation of having to trade in very commercial timepieces, first and foremost the Daytona, which three decades ago could be bought for basically very little. Today the market has changed and the Daytonas taken then really give a lot of satisfaction even though, in my case, I still trade them in for very small Rolex chronographs of 28 mm or less, so small as to be practically unwearable, but full of meaning to me. I go crazy when I find them in the best condition."
Your first passion was Patek Philippe, then came Rolexes. How did this transition come about?
"I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but I think that anyone who is sensitive and loves design, looking at a Rolex dial from the 1940s or early 1950s, cannot help but reach heights of pleasure that one does not experience with any other watch. I don't know who their art director was, who chose how to combine the graphics and colors of the dials. I only know that when I discovered the first Rolex chrono, I started "swapping" the Patek Philippe chrono watches I had managed to put together up to that point. Another note: to fully enjoy the pleasure of these dials, you have to find a piece that is really intact, perfect. If there are tampering, polishing, it becomes impossible to tell."
Does this apply to all Rolexes?
"No, sportsmen don't have such 'rich' dials."
You gave a kind of "expiration" date: the 1950s. What happens after that?
"What happens is that Rolex gradually chooses to go down the path of essentiality, all the way to the first Daytonas where the dial is basically stripped bare, leaving only the contrasting subdials and minute track intact. Yet even in that simplicity there is an incredible design element."
In the world you are considered a kind of "Mr. Daytona."
"It all started in 2002, when we produced the first book "Rolex Chronographs: the Legend." We have so much fun doing it. You (ed. Paolo Gobbi) write the texts, I find the watches, the collectors are happy to have us photograph them. It all works so well, we immediately get the urge to do another one, but we can't find the right idea. We reasoned about whether to move to sportsmen, but none of us had the essential spring to do excellent work: passion. We decided to wait."
Then what happened?
"One day, talking with our mutual friend Auro Montanari, he said to me, "Why don't you do a book dedicated to special Daytonas ?" It seemed like a good idea. It was 2006, I still didn't particularly like this model, but I already owned six or seven of them, some of which fell into the specials type. So I began to write down a list of what could be considered "rare" variants: albino, pulsometric, swords, browns... out came a list of about forty models. That was the dawn of the project. Once we started the work, the idea became more and more important and full-bodied, really looking for all the then known models, especially of the hand-wound ones, and the team was joined by Pino Abbrescia and Fabio Santinelli with their extraordinary photos."
It was a long and complex work.
"Five years of continuous, non-stop work, during which I learned really in-depth knowledge of Daytonas with all the most interesting variants. I also participated in all the operations for opening the case backs, taking the movement out of the case, studying even the back of the dial. It was impossible not to learn about them."
On November 10, 2013, 50 Daytona watches went on sale at Christie's to ideally celebrate 50 years of this iconic chronograph. What do you remember about that auction known as Daytona Lesson One and which featured you?
"It was the most fun and exciting auction I have attended in all my years. I have never seen so much enthusiasm with no ulterior motive other than passion and the desire to take home some truly unique timepieces."
Its media and market impact was, arguably, greater than that of
"The Art of Patek Philippe" with Caliber 89 or "Winning Icons" with the most famous of Paul Newman. "There was a joyful atmosphere, it was healthy fun. Those who put the watches up for sale did not actually have high expectations, I remember it well because I helped bring it about. The end result enshrined the moment of total change in the Daytona market."
After that, the attitude toward this model also changed.
"As the value increased exponentially, it was necessary to move from joyfulness to full attention, as the figures involved became important, sometimes very important. I remember that when we did the auction, the market was not at a particularly bright moment, whereas Lesson One revived not only the Daytona market, repositioning it sharply at the top, but vintage watchmaking in general."
Some, in disbelief or mindful of past slips in this regard, wondered if those adjudications were all true...
"Yes, several people asked me. But it wasn't. If we look at the adjudications, we find a consistency in the results: there were no overestimates of ten times the estimate, but all of them had more or less doubled or tripled their initial value. That these were not doped adjudications is confirmed by the fact that in subsequent years and up to the present, the values have continued to rise and have never fallen."
What is the key to the success, even of the new models, of the Daytona?
"I think that's the strength of vintage: there are people who really held out for a long time before taking the plunge and buying a Daytona. Then those who started, often couldn't stop. It dragged the whole vintage market, even the one that many people considered more emblazoned."
Recently the discovery of John Lennon's 2499 was made public, and this watch will most likely be auctioned off," John Bonanno asks, "do you think it will potentially surpass Paul Newman's Paul Newman achievement?
"It's a lottery, which is virtually impossible to answer, although right now I feel like saying no, it's not going to have the same impact and it's not going to do the same thing. John Lennon is an incredible character, but to own Paul Newman's Paul Newman is really a whole other thing."
Would it be possible to repeat Lesson One today?
"We did it with Daytona Ultimatum, at a completely different time in the market than in 2013 and with models that were already at the top of their game. To repeat that experience today would take a lot of courage: the Daytona's growth cycle peaked between the two single-issue auctions; today the upward trend continues, but not at the levels it once was."
What do you think of the auction world today?
"After the lockdown, the world changed and the way of buying and selling watches also changed. In the auction world, some people stopped, while others reacted by strengthening the discourse of communication. The lack of contact definitely favored the market for the new, even in auctions. Today, three years later, we need to understand what is left of those who still sell in person and those who only use online. Today, the weights are unbalanced in favor of the auction houses, which maneuver the biggest money flows."
Is vintage watchmaking bought and sold at auction, or is it better to choose private negotiation?
"The vintage watch has its own path, which is different from that of moderns or independents. The auction houses are doing a great job, however, for vintage the role of the antique dealer, the specialized dealer will become primary again."
END OF PART ONE
