Well! Here we are! And by we, I mean me. It’s just me. Jason. And I guess you, watch enthusiast reading this blog post. This whole Rocinante Watches thing caught me by surprise. Not that it’s not something I want to be doing; I love this stuff! I love talking about watches. I love spec’ing them out. I love putting them together. I love regulating them perfectly for their owners (there will be another blog post about that soon, stay tuned!). It’s so much fun, and so rewarding. Every watch I’ve built has gone to an owner that has loved it. The feedback has been incredibly encouraging.

Like I said though, this wasn’t the plan. I wouldn’t say there was a plan really. I got into watches some 20 years ago, and dabbled in watchmaking for most of that time. I got really serious about it during the Pandemic, like many people did with many hobbies. I’m big into history, and most of what I did was service and restore watches from the 1950s through the 1970s. No real reason other than that’s what I liked. I would find a watch in need of some TLC, and fix it up. From there, it lived in a box, got gifted, or got sold to pay for more projects. I’m really good at it. I’m one of those people to whom machines speak. Cars, watches, antique woodworking tools, guitars (luthiery was my first exploit in this fashion), analog electronics… I love clever engineering!

“I know how. Machines just got workin’s and they talk to me.” – Kaywinnit Lee “Kaylee” Frye (Firefly)

Most watchmakers take photos as they go, or make sure they have the service sheet on hand. I make sure I can GET a service sheet, but the fun of it is the little mechanical puzzle. It only goes together one way, and there’s a language to it of sorts. I mostly work with Swiss movements, and I speak Swiss watchmaking most fluently.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: Rocinante Watches. I was doing some home repair on my century+ old house up in the canyons above Denver. My employee needed a ride somewhere. I offered to take him, but his friend was on his way for other things afterward. When the friend showed up, he wanted to see what we were up to. I immediately noticed the watch on his wrist. Green dial, slim, dressy. Couldn’t tell much beyond that at the conversational distance we were standing. He noticed mine as well, and asked me about it. I told him it was a watch I made, with such and such a movement, etc. He got really excited, and asked if I could make him one. Sure! Sounds like fun! He worked for a tree service, and I needed some trees cut down off the canyon wall. Beetle kill. Fresh. Fire hazard of the sort that rapidly begets more fire hazards, and we had been evacuated for nearly two weeks for a pretty nasty fire a year and change prior. I suggested I’d trade him a tree for a watch, and he was game!

So that was cool! We spec’d it out. He got everything he wanted exactly how he wanted it. He was stoked. He told his friends, and they were excited too. Could I make them watches? Sure!

Well, that was unexpected. I’d never given much thought to this corner of the watchmaking universe. Super fun. The watch turned out great. He loved it. On a lark one Thursday night, I threw an ad up on a popular marketplace website right before bed. Just kind of an idle, “let’s see what happens” sort of deal. Not expecting much, since usually that particular site is a quagmire of wasted time and time wasters.

Within 24 hours, I was completely inundated with questions and requests, and had completed my first sale! “Wow!”, I thought, “There might actually be something here!”

From there, it snowballed. I was catching multiple requests daily, and selling watches about as fast as I could make them. As time presented itself between my regular job, family, etc., I either made watches or worked on building this out as business. I couldn’t be happier, and can’t wait to see how far I can take it!