ASIA BUSINESS BREAKOUT

Dec 17, 2012
By Pauline Chiou

My cousin, Anson Chiou, in Boston has three passions: Movies, the New England Patriots and wristwatches. I saw him in the U.S. a few weeks ago for the Thanksgiving holiday and we got into a long conversation about two of those passions.

While watching Ben Affleck's new movie "Argo," he saw something odd in a one-second scene. Ben Affleck's character was putting on a Rolex in his hotel room. My cousin noticed the clasp on the Rolex was too modern for the movie’s 1979-1980 timeframe. "Ben Affleck is wearing a Rolex Submariner. It's been around since the early 50's and has had a few updates and upgrades. One of the major updates was on the clasp a few years ago. It's much more beefy looking -- solid and modern vs. the older, thin tiny clasp. "

My cousin wasn’t the only one who noticed. Immediately after the movie's premiere, there was a whole thread on watch chat forums about this minor movie mistake. Curious, I did a search and found some entertaining comments. One watch aficionado wrote, "They show a closeup in one scene of the back of his wrist and it is clearly the new style glide lock clasp, brushed finish, so it is either the newer ceramic sub or DSSD … it is definitely not a vintage Rolex model associated with the time period of the movie."  Another comment on the thread was more succinct: "My wife thinks you guys are nerds."

Watch aficionados notice everything. They will tell you that Arnold Schwarzenegger wore an Audemars Piguet in “Terminator 3.” And did you know Elvis Presley sported an Omega while Gandhi owned a Zenith pocket watch? Fascinated by this watch subculture, I reached out to watch expert Genki Sakamoto of Antiquorum, an auction house for luxury watches. He said Swiss watches (the best of the best) saw a record year in 2011 with a 19 percent increase in exports. Asia was the main growth driver with Chinese buyers capturing 49 percent of that growth.

"Fashion and status are the reasons collectors are so passionate,” Sakamoto says. “Watch collectors love and enjoy the story behind every watch."

There is often a story associated with a great watch. Tenzing Norgay wore the Rolex Explorer when he climbed Mount Everest. U.S. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin wore the Omega Speedmaster on his mission to the moon. If you ask my cousin, he says most watch geeks are men. Why are they so passionate? "Watches are an art form where guys get into the technology of the automatic watch --all those gears, wheels, levers and springs where you don't need a battery and the watch winds itself,” he says. “They are kind of cool living machines!"

Pauline Chiou is a CNN anchor/correspondent and the co-host of ‘World Business Today’ based in Hong Kong. Follow Pauline on Twitter @PaulineCNN. For more business coverage, go to www.cnn.com/business.