Auction houses – they loom large in the world of watch collecting. Their lots, eye-popping results and personalities are followed feverishly by watch media and enthusiasts. But how much do we really know about these seemingly august, vaunted and shadowy institutions? How exactly do auction houses work? And what are the implications for the watch community?

And today, we have the perfect guest to shine a light on the inner working of the auction houses: Marion Maneker, a longtime art world columnist and auction house insider. Marion Maneker, Special Correspondent for Art at Puck, the online news platform where insiders cover the worlds of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Marion was formerly the president of ARTnews, a publisher at HarperCollins, and features editor at New York magazine.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On February 7, 2025, Swiss media outlet Bilanz reported that Rolex is shutting down the Carl F. Bucherer watch brand, which it acquired in 2023 as part of its purchase of Bucherer – the global watch retailer. The decision to shutter any watch brand, particularly one dating back to 1888 with significant in-house watchmaking is major news. And it’s a story with broader implications for the watch industry at large. So with that in mind, on this special episode of Openwork we’re delving into the details and taking a look at what it all means.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Homages, replicas and clones, oh my! Today we’re digging into the business and ethics of what’s a perennial and now growing segment of the watch market. This is a complex topic, with important distinctions to be drawn between homages and replicas, clones or dupes. And more broadly, it’s one that sheds important light on technology and production gains across the industry globally.

Fortunately, we have the perfect guest to guide us through that landscape: Marc Frankel, who most of you probably know as Marc from Long Island Watch – both a retailer and manufacturer of a wide range of watches including homage watches. Marc is not only a living legend in this industry, but someone we genuinely admire and like. We are both proud and happy customers of Long Island Watch. And one of the great joys for us in participating in the Windup Watch Fairs over the years has been getting to know Marc.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode of the Openwork podcast, we look at luxury pricing. Of course, we’ve already done a deep dive on how watches are priced. (Check out our episode with Mike Margolis of Czapek and Singer Reimagined for that.) However, in the past, we’ve largely focused on how inputs like cost of labor, materials, inflation and currency exchange impact pricing. But there’s of course more that goes into pricing for watches and luxury goods more broadly. There are considerations like brand value, product positioning as well as consumer psychology that also impact pricing. And that’s what we explore today – those other more nebulous, but equally significant, inputs into pricing.

To help us with that we have the perfect guest: Katharine K. Zarrella is a writer, editor, and the Fashion Critic-at-Large at Document Journal. With a background as Fashion Director at the Wall Street Journal's Off Duty section and as a lecturer at Parsons School of Design and Central Saint Martins, she has contributed to numerous renowned publications, including Harper's Bazaar, The Business of Fashion, and most recently The New York Times, where she recently published the guest essay: Obscene Prices, Declining Quality: Luxury Is in a Death Spiral.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

It's that time of year: Predictions. On this episode we look at the year ahead, and make three calls each about the future of the watch industry. We discuss brand and retailer consolidation, market performance, business models for watch media, as well as enthusiast sentiment. We also take a look back at our 2024 predictions, and grade ourselves on their accuracy.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode we look back on the business of watches in 2024. In particular, we discuss where the watch market is as we close out the year. Is it growing, stalling, or as some would claim in retreat? To help us break it all down, we’re joined by returning guest Hamza Masood of WatchCharts – the world's most comprehensive, transparent and trusted source of watch market data. It’s a service we at Collective subscribe to for its valuable insight not just into the pre-owned watch market but what that data can tell us about the watch industry at large.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Today we’re going behind the scenes of watch design with Marco Borraccino the co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Singer Reimagined. In addition to starting one of the most design-driven watch brands, Marco was previously the Head of Design at Panerai. He’s got a deep educational and career background in design, both within the watch industry and beyond. And he’s among the most talented and distinctive watch designers out there. Finally, in full transparency, Collective is a Singer Reimagined authorized retailer.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Today we have a bonus episode of our podcast. It’s a discussion with Romain Marietta, the Chief Product Officer at Zenith. We sat down recently in Geneva to discuss not only our latest collaboration – the Zenith DEFY Skyline C.X – but also how he and Zenith approach product development more broadly.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.