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A conversation with Chuck Maddox,
Part 1
Every time I read WatchTime or the Dutch magazine
'Horloges' for example, I think about the interviews in
those magazines. Why do they pick celebrities like actors,
footballers, self made businessmen? I would rather see some
interviews with people who really know their watches and can
inspire me to start a certain collection or to lean a bit on
their experiences. I don't care much for a movie star who
added the 20th Patek Philippe to his collection last month.
With this thought, I decided to add an interview section
to my weblog. Once in a while I'd like to add an interview
with someone who really cares about watches.
This first interview will be held with Chuck Maddox,
known for his valuable contributions on TimeZone, On the
Dash and other fora. He also hosts his own website on
watches, http://chronomaddox.com/watch.html,
which is definitely worth a visit (and bookmark)!
First of all thanks Chuck for cooperating with this
interview for the Fratello weblog. You had to think about it
at first, but decided to let me fire some questions at you,
why did you hesitate?
Before I answer, I'd like to thank you for your
kind words regarding me, my site and my efforts. I do
appreciate them regardless of the source, but they mean a
great deal when they come from another established member
of the information providing community.
As for why I hesitated... I try not to be a person who
"toot's my own horn", I prefer to let my posts/efforts
stand on their own merit(s). When one is as visible and
as involved at various places as I am, in addition to a
touch of modesty I also have to consider the reactions
and concerns of other people with whom I have regular
communications, interactions and committments (real or
felt) with. This is not to say that I probably come off
less than modestly in some instances, [laughs]
but I'm a big enough target already! I was also not
entirely certain how I'd feel about certain questions and
how I should answer them.
Like you RJ, I too don't especially have a great deal
of interest in which watches say a Martin Sheen or Cindy
Crawford wears. I'd much rather hear what Burt Rutan or
Dale Earnhardt Jr. or National Geographic correspondent
wears and why. I think many of the print magazines forget
the "Why?" part in their interviews.
I know you are from the mechanical watch era (I am
not) and you told me once that you had a nice watch in high
school but that it was stolen by someone. Did you care for
wristwatches at that time, or wasn't it until later when you
bumped into a used Speedmaster Mark 2?
I was born during the mechanical watch era, my
first watch was a wind up Timex Boy's model with a brown
dial (and luminous Arabic's and hands) that I was given
for my fifth birthday (which would have been in 1966). I
am confident I still have that watch in a desk drawer
somewhere buried underneath other stuff. The last time I
wore it, probably when I was 11 or 12 it still worked and
kept good time. But until the early 1970's with the
exception of Accutrons (which believe it or not I knew
about in the late 1960's - I read magazine ad's), there
were no Quartz watches. I remember when the first quartz
watches were appearing on the market, and those were
heady days. The minaturation of electronics to the point
where one could wear a watch that was accurate to a
second every 15-30 days was very impressive stuff.
My father was a hard-core car nut, so there were
always AutoWeek, HotRod, MotorTrend, Road & Track,
Car & Driver, etc. magazines around the house. And I
looked at the pictures of the cars, read some of the
stories and looked at the ad's for watches published
within them. I'd never be able to afford them but I
looked anyway. In the early 1970's I discovered a
company's advert in a Comic Book, and sent off for a
catalog from them. The company was the Johnson-Smith
Company, and is still in business. They always had an
interesting watch or two listed, I know I ordered a
Cimier
Chronograph from them at one point (I might still have it
tucked away somewhere) that I bought with money I made
mowing lawns and doing chores.
[Sigh] So I guess the short answer is I've
been into wristwatches for as long as I can remember.
Just didn't have the money to do much about it until
relatively recently.
Was the Speedmaster Mark 2 the start of your
Speedmaster interest, or did that already happen when you
was interested in the Moonlanding when you were a kid? If
not, did you knew about the Speedmaster at the time?
Being a child of the 1960's I was a BIG fan of
the Space program and Space Exploration. I had a bunch of
models, posters, books and other materials on the topic.
I was fortunate to visit the Cape in the Spring of 1969
while they were preparing for Apollo's 10 and 11 and
visited the Johnson Space Center (Houston) in February of
1970. I remember "borrowing" some loose portable B&W
TV set's when Apollo 13 had trouble, and setting them up
side by side tuned to a different channel so I could
watch for news of their fate. So I was pretty into the
Space program as a kid. I've often said I was born 10-20
years too late or 50 years too early. I don't know that I
have many personal heroes, but two of them are Jim
Lovell, and another is the late Ed White. Jim Lovell has
always been my favorite astronaut, Ed White was gone
before I knew any of the astronauts as individuals, had
he lived he could well have been my favorite. I think the
greatest disappointment in my life has been how we (the
U.S.) have largely turned away from the manned
exploration of Space in the 30+ years since the Apollo
missions.
I knew that the Speedmaster was used by the
Astronauts, but I really didn't know which specific
model, only that I couldn't afford one. Even at 1960's
and 1970's prices, a Speedmaster of any stripe would be
more than all of Christmas and Birthday combined. And by
the time I was in High
School, making money on my
own, there were other interests that I had (LP's,
Radio's/Stereo's, Girls, Car's, Car Insurance, etc.) that
competed for my wallet's attention.
So, I knew that Omega was a good brand. I'd seen
enough of them, and Heuers, and Rolex's, advertised in
car magazines that I knew they were good watches. I just
had to wait around until the time came when I could
afford them and my other vices. It was a happy
circumstance that I happened into that pawnshop that had
that Mark II that cold December day in the early 1980's.
Like I already mentioned in the introduction of
this interview, you have a quite successful website about
watches. A large list of dealers,
A lot of broken links I have to get around to
fixing...
websites of collectors, watchfora and besides that,
a great amount of articles you wrote on several watchrelated
subjects.
I do have that...
My whole website has been centered around the fact
that I had a problem in the middle 1990's and I decided a
website was the way to deal with it...
The problem I had was I had bookmarks and reference
material on my computer at work, another set on my
computer at home, and I also had a laptop computer that
also had a set. The problem was keeping those bookmarks
and reference material in a place where I could keep it
up-to-date, synchronized and accessible no matter where I
was. It dawned on me instead of trying to sync files and
materials between three machines, to put it on the web
where I could access it anywhere (even if it wasn't my
machine) anytime.
That my web pages have been useful to others is fine.
It's nice to be able to make posts like "I can't post a
link to that site here because of forum regulations, but
if you go to my page and clink on the link for watch
link" you'll get there, and most moderators appreciate
that I'm not contaminating their site with a direct link
to a commercial site. But if a link is broken and I
haven't fixed it, realize that the site is mainly there
to help me, and if something isn't 100% pretty or
working, it's because I've had other things higher up on
my list of things to address.
Your work is quite valuable, especially for
collectors of chronographs, can we ever expect a book from
your hands to replace the current 'standard' on chronographs
by Gerd R Lang?
I have been asked this one quite a bit and for
quite a while...
The situation is I personally consider myself a
student of the topic at hand. Maybe I'm a good student,
perhaps even a "gifted" student (your mileage will vary),
but a student nonetheless. When I crack open a book by
the likes of James Dowling, Mr. Imai, Marco Richon or a
number of others, I know that I personally would not be
satisfied putting ink to paper on anything that can't sit
on the same shelf as one of their books and not be
personally embarrassed about it being there. I know to
create such a calibre of book would require a great deal
of research, detailing, documenting, etc. that would
likely require me to spend a great deal of time, effort,
expense and travel to achieve. For example, a Speedmaster
book would probably require a week (or several) of
prowling around NASA files, the Smithsonian and other
museums, etc. a through examination of the Omega Museum
and associated "getting information out of Omega" that
would probably take weeks if not months, and so forth.
Thus far I haven't been especially keen on bankrolling
such an undertaking or disrupting my life to do so.
It's far easier for me to fire up my HTML editor, and
whip up a quick page than it would be for me to buckle
down and do all of that infrastructure research that a
print book the depth and breadth would require to get
that rightful place on the shelf with Messers Dowling,
Imai and Richon...
Bottom line... I won't say it won't ever happen, but I
wouldn't hold my breath. Print out copies of my stuff and
put them in a comb or 3-ring binder in stead. That's
perfectly acceptable for personal use, I said so!
Just don't sell it or claim it as your own
work/distribute it.
I guess I am one of the guys that have put some of
your work into a 3-ring binder, which I did so I could read
some of your articles when I was travelling by train.
At one time I did excactly the same thing so I
could proofread what I had written up to then and I could
take notes as to what needed revision... This is probably
something I should do again as things have been revised
and grown a lot since then...
You and I have been mailing a lot in the last 5
years, so I know you have a very broad interest. What
interests do you have besides watches? And are you as
accurate and detailed in those interests as well?
Well, I've already touched on cars. My interest
is not nearly as acute as my fathers, but I do have some
interest in the automotive industry. I'm a long time
Shortwave Radio Listener, I hold a No-Code Technician's
Ham Radio License. I've been strongly interested in
computers since the late 1970's, which is where my
college education is in, computer programing. I was in
the computer/information technology support industry for
15 years full time and I still do consulting in that
field. I also have a strong interest in modern history
(since the Victorian age) and military history. I do also
collect other things, firearms, vintage Shortwave radios,
among others... I'm also a Chicago Bear's fan and have
been known to enjoy other sporting events.
As for my accuracy and depth of interest in those
fields... Hmmm... I can probably pull out of the static a
hard to hear station with the best of them, pick out the
best equipment for which application (both radio and
electronics) if asked, and can likely bore anyone to
tears on 20th century and military history. Probably not
well enough to always make a good living at anything
other than the computer gig though.
The fairest and simplest description of my interests
would be I'm a "Gadget pfreak".
Did you ever consider to take the step to become a
watchseller for profession? Like James Dowling seems to be
the authority on Rolex watches, he also buys and sells them
via the internet. Is this something you would like to do? Or
would you become best customer of your own shop?
[Laughs]... Were I in that situation I
could see I'd be working to use my store credit or price
break. Have I considered it? Sure I've had thoughts about
that. However, for me, at this time, it's a hobby. Which
means I might sell a watch or a part that I have to
someone, but it would be because it was surplus to my
needs, the other person wanted or had a use for the item
and I wouldn't profit more than the cost of a fast food
meal. I do what I do for the love of the topic at hand,
not to make money off of friends. At least not yet.
On the topic of Rolex. I do look forward to the day
when I have enough money in my account, my other expenses
covered and all my other chronograph wishes satiated
enough that I can email James D. and say “James, we
all knew this day would come, I'd like to enlist your aid
in finding a nice condition all original Rolex
Daytona/Cosmograph of one (or hopefully more) of the
following types...”. It won't be 2004 or likely
2005, but I look forward to that day.
I've had several opportunities to become involved in
"sales" or "retail" in the past and I've always stuck
with the support side of things. Not because I wouldn't
be a decent sales person (I probably would do well), but
because I feel more comfortable about trying to help
people than trying to sell them something.
Besides owning lots of great watches (mostly
chronographs), do you also wear all of them?
I'd be lying if I said I wore all of them, but I
do try to cycle through them all so they do at the very
least get some wrist time, even it it's only while I'm
typing at my computer. With the number I own, such time
isn't nearly as frequent or as long as I'd like or it
should be. But I do try to run through them every couple
of months or so.
For example, I once helped you out getting a
digital LCD Speedmaster from the late 70s, did you ever wear
it? Or are those kind of timepieces just for fun?
Well a few watches because of their nature I'm
exceedingly careful about. I have a Tissot Sidereal
Chronograph with a Fiberglass case and a very unique
comform band that is impossible to source. So that one
doesn't get much wrist time. I have a minty 20th
Anniversary Moonwatch (1169/2000) that gets worn on
Apollo Anniversaries and that's about it. The LCD
Speedmaster had the same problem as many of my quartz
watches. I don't wear them very much so they run the risk
of he battery running flat. So I do wear it from time to
time, but not as often as I would like to.
On the topic of watches for fun. There are certain
watches I only wear when I'm in a "fun" or wacky mood. My
Bullhead chronographs are cases in point. Their design is
so "Funky" that I nearly have to be in an "Austin Powers"
type of mood to wear them.
I recall that you have been to Europe some time
ago. Ever considered to go back there and visit Omega and
meet Marco Richon and other European watchfriends you have?
Yes, I'd love to do that at some point and it
may well happen some day. There are wagon loads of people
whom I've never met face to face but feel I know thanks
to the Internet. The flip side of the coin is that Europe
is a long flight away (and a long flight back), I'm John
Candy sized so the thought of funneling my backside into
a coach class seat for 7-9 hours is a less than
comforting thought, plus the hassles of airport security,
in particular to a gadget freak like myself is another
draw back. Besides... Who's going to answer my email
while I'm off the grid?!?!?
I'd look forward to the day I'm in a position when I
can lock away the bulk of my collection, pick out a
couple of watches to travel with, pick up my ticket,
passport, digital camera and laptop; fly over to Europe
for a month or three, with a high-quality map, a list of
people and places, a rental car that's fun to drive and
an open-ended return date... Hopefully I'll be able to do
that although this isn't in the works for the near-term.
If that day comes, let me know.
You are on that list I mentioned, RJ, I'll phone
or email ahead.
A little closer to your home, how do you look at
watchmeetings and watchfairs in general?
It depends on the kind of meeting...
I've been to a TZ affair or two, and met with a number
of collectors I know for lunch/dinner a number of times,
and I always enjoy those sort of events.
More general watchmeetings are a bit problematic for
me... As I'm pretty narrowly focused on Chronographs,
it's tough for me to get as much out of them as most do.
Even though I've broadened my horizons as time has gone
on in terms of my interests, I've also narrowed them in
certain aspects as I'm not usually looking for items I've
already have in my collection. For rxample: I'm not
really looking to buy any more German Speedmasters. So I
can go to a modest sized local watch meeting say the
monthly one 10 miles away from my place, and I might find
one or two things that I'd look twice at, I can go to the
Chicagoland Chapter meetings (about once every 3-4 months
& about 40 miles away from me) and find maybe two or
three things that interest me, and might walk away with
one thing. Then I could go to a Annual NAWCC Regional
(like the Milwaukee show) which is about 120 miles away,
takes about three hours of driving each way, spend about
two to three hours visiting all of the tables and maybe
seeing 6 things of interest and having to decide between
three or maybe four things worth bringing home with me.
I guess I'd sum up, for me, there is a lot of chaff
that has to be separated from the wheat at these shows.
It's the same thing on an Internet Sales Corner or eBay,
but net sites are easier to comb through quickly.
I try to organize one every year, which have been
successful for three times now and soon I am going to attend
the P-Day (for Panerai lovers) in Frankfurt/Germany and
consider these meetings quite educative and fun. How about
you?
I find I enjoy myself at all of these meetings,
and sometimes they can be educational, but in retrospect
some of the local meetings are not the best use of my
time. But one never knows when they are going to find
that one thing that makes your collecting month or year.
So that keeps you goin' to them. On the other hand it's a
good social occasion, one tends to develop relationships
with people you meet/know at the meetings and it's always
good to sit down, touch base and get caught up with them
and their activities... So I do value the meetings, even
the ones where the pickings are slim.
You seem to use a lot of links and refers in your
forum posts and e-mails, which is a great thing to do
(optimal use of resources in my opinion).
I'm not always 100% certain my method is always
the best course of action. If people were to read the
post, click on the links and say "Geez! I have to book
mark this site and remember to check here first" it'd
be great. But I don't always remember to bookmark (or
where I've book marked) some interesting tidbit of
information. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing myself and
others any favors by serving up so much information to
them on demand...
Then on the other hand if I have any regret over the
past couple of years (other than bidder/buyer remorse) it
would be that I didn't create a diary or blog dealing
with the entire c.33xx affair. I really do wish I could
say, “I've tallied exactly xx number
of problems and hear is the specific breakdown with dates
and referenced links"
instead of I've seen between xx and yy problems and
you'll have to search through the archives to find them.
Another term that you used
above that I'm going to key on is
refers. One of the things I've seen
on the web, and have seen make print too, are people who
will grab something off the web, make a few cosmetic
changes and pass it off as their own work. The nice word
for these people are opportunists, the accurate one is
plagiarists. I can't really understand this much at
all... There is absolutely no shame in acknowledging a
source for your material and in fact it strengthens your
work because it is collaborated! Plus it brings a little
attention to the people you name as a source which
strengthens the information providing community. I'm
thrilled whenever I can cite Eric So's site or something
that Steve Waddington has developed, or a NASA website
that people might not otherwise know about, or some
pictures that someone emailed me about. It's no skin off
my nose and the benefits of giving someone who helped you
an "attaboy" pat of the back is Ginormous, Hugantic!
(Humongous, Gigantic... LOL!). People are typically
thrilled to be thanked publically on a webpage.
There are just so many good reasons to reference your
sources whenever you can and so few to steal them and
claim them for yourself that it boggles my mind the
people persist in doing this and risk the potential of
being found out.
I guess you get a great amount of emails, are you
never tired of answering them?
Just so people have an idea...
Since I went to bed last night, and not counting some
100 spam email's, I've received 23 watch related emails
this Monday morning, out of
30 non-spam email messages total, many requiring detailed
responses. I've posted a half a dozen forum posts, had an
IM session with Bill Sohne of TZ's Omega Forum (about how
best to ship a certain watch), and a phone conversation
with Jeff Stein about his latest purchase and the
potential purchase for a similar model. and it's only
noon. Today I'm squeezing in this interview, on other
days, I'd be working on more posts in forums, eBay
auctions, writing or documenting.
Thus I have to tell you... There are days... There are
days I get pretty frazzled. It's rare the days I say "I'm
going to have to wait a couple of hours or until morning
to attack that pile, because I just can't do it now" but
that does happen. I get tired in a physical sense, I get
fatigued in a mental sense, I get weary in a spiritual or
emotional sense when there's a flamewar or someone who's
had a cherished purchase break on them. But usually I
bounce back fairly well after a break or a good night's
sleep, and I think I bounce-back better than I did a
couple of years ago when I get frazzled.
You could make a fulltime job out of replying to
messages in fora, replying e-mails and maintaining a
watchrelated website.
And I do get some pretty "out of the pale"
questions too... Like I ‘have a watch it's called
a "no name I've ever heard of" where can I find
more information about it?’ I really have no
idea how people get of the mindset to email me or to
think I'd know about some of these things that are only
marginally related to what I write about, like they are
timekeeping devices.
Too bad it pays so badly.
Not that such doesn't have it's benefits though.
I remember the first Gallet Chronograph I bought off of
eBay a couple of years back... I won the auction, knew
the seller was associated with a watch dealer who's
website I had listed on my watch page. So I pulled up
their site, located their phone number after the auction
and called them, I figured it would be faster than typing
an email. When the phone was answered I had a
conversation that went something like this (about 3pm my
time, 4pm theirs):
"Hello, I'm Chuck Maddox and I just won the eBay
auction for the Gallet and was wondering what shipping
would be so I can go out to the Post Office to get a
Money Order out to you"
“[Long Silence] ¿The
Chuck Maddox who wrote the article on which watches
were worn on the moon??? I literally just printed out
a copy of that page to show to my boss (the owner of
the watch/site/etc.).”
“Well, for better or worse, that's me.”
Hold on a second... [about a 30 second
pause] Yeah, Chuck... Send us your address
straight away, we're going to express mail out your
watch right now, before the Post Office closes. Just
send us $10 more than your high bid and we'll get it
out to you insured so you'll have it tomorrow. Thanks
for that article, great stuff!"
So one does develop a bit of a reputation that can
proceed oneself and can sometimes have a benefit. Not
that I "name drop" but I'm sure if you called to order a
watch at a central European web dealer they might say
"the bloke who's over at Watch-U-Seek?" and get a little
better response than someone with less visability.
So I'd be lying if I said there aren't some benefits
every once in a while.
Do you use some sort of 'templates' for the
questions you get over and over again?
It depends on the method they come to me. For
the most part if people post a query in a forum, it's
pretty public what they get from me in reply. I do have
some very basic HTML templates for formatting a reply. I
have a basic TZ Omega Forum reply template (since my
default TZ post has a Omega theme .signature footer), I
have a separate one for Rolex topic posts (with a Tudor
Oyster date) to remind people that I do collect brands
other than Omega and Heuer. I have one with a Heuer .sig
for generic posts or for posting on OnTheDash. I also
have a couple of templates for iFrame posts, a basic one
that's just a bare bones iframe, and a second which has
my standard query and reply format along with a .sig.
These basic reply templates look exactly like this
(between the horizonal lines):
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