In this episode of Watches & Politics, I’m joined by Geoffrey Kelly, retired FBI Special Agent and founding member of the FBI Art Crime Team, for a conversation about culture, value, law, and power.

Over his career, Geoffrey led investigations recovering more than $100 million in stolen artwork and cultural property. While his work focused on art and antiquities, the systems he describes — illicit trafficking, cross-border movement, private transactions, and contested ownership — increasingly apply to high-value watches.

We explore how cultural objects function inside illicit networks, how investigators read objects as evidence, and why restitution is never just legal — but deeply political. This conversation sheds light on how value is enforced, negotiated, reclaimed, and fought over when culture intersects with crime.

Rather than sensationalism, this episode offers a sober, institutional perspective on luxury objects as instruments of power — and the structures that police them.

In this episode of Watches & Politics, I’m joined by Christopher Daaboul, founder of EsperLuxe, to explore access, trust, and power in the modern private watch market, focusing on independent watchmaking.

As retail and brand authorization increasingly fail to meet demand, independent dealers and private networks have emerged as the real centers of gravity. Chris operates precisely at this intersection — where scarcity, discretion, legitimacy, and trust determine who gets access and who does not.

We discuss how watches move not just as objects, but as stores of value, social signals, and instruments of influence. Our conversation explores how legitimacy is constructed outside brand control, how trust replaces contracts, and how informal networks increasingly govern luxury markets across borders.

This episode offers a rare inside look at how power actually flows through contemporary watch culture — quietly, selectively, and behind closed doors. We talk about the most rare and sought after watches, from Rexhep Rexhepi to De Bethune, from Urwerk to MB&F, and all other watches.

In this episode of Watches & Politics, I’m joined by C’Quon “CQ” Gottlieb — Senior Client Advisor at The 1916 Company and co-founder of CP Time Collective — for a conversation about identity, access, and the shifting power dynamics of modern watch collecting.

CQ approaches watches not as transactional objects, but as cultural artifacts — tools for belonging, storytelling, and self-definition. From his global background and advisory work to building CP Time as a space for under-represented collectors, he offers a rare inside view into how taste, legitimacy, and influence are being redefined today.

We discuss how collector networks act as cultural nodes, how new geographies are reshaping what counts as “important,” and how heritage is being reinterpreted through new voices rather than inherited authority.

This episode captures a pivotal transition in horology: from centralized power and brand dominance to plural, community-driven narratives.