Hello team,
Welcome to 3-Watch Thursday #23. Every time I sit down to write this newsletter, I pinch myself that we’re this many editions in.
Thanks to each and every one of you who engages in this self-professed passion project as I look to understand the world of watches and share my weekly readings.
AI discussions return this week after some thinking out loud with Instagram friend @siemswatches.
Potential Uses For AI in Watches
Following last week’s newsletter, there was a bit of chatter around the use of AI in watches. Again similar to NFTs, AI's likely use in watches is a marketing tool.
But then @siemswatches dropped me a DM and we chatted about the training data used to generate the images I sent out last week.
This was interesting and I just assumed the model was trained on image searches from the likes of Google or Bing.
In all honesty, the watches generated weren’t great. Although they resembled watches and had key features such as a fluted bezel for a Rolex, there was a real lack of clarity over logos, numerals and hands.
@siemswatches suggests that a model could be trained to spot fakes/frankenwatches if given the right training network. While the model I used certainly can’t spot fakes, imagine if a watch company or group could train a model so well that it could flag fakes. I postulate that this would require a huge amount of input data and investment from the side of a company as they would require thousands of images in all sorts of lighting conditions and angles to train such a model.
But why would a watch company have any interest in spotting fakes?
They wouldn’t really.
The only people who really would are auction houses and other 3rd party sellers for whom their business is built upon getting things like authenticity right.
When we start to think about this problem it becomes apparent that it simply isn’t worth training this kind of model over using human specialists, especially when rare watches for which there are few to no images come to market. A model might flag this watch as fake, whereas an expert might correctly identify a rare watch as authentic.
I don’t think this is the end of the story though.
It doesn’t have to be so binary.
What if a model was trained for a 3rd party dealer, who might not come across as many rare/unique pieces, that gives a confidence score that a watch is authentic or fake based on the provided images? I could see this working for common watches such as Submariners, Speedmaster etc.
Say someone wanted a quote for a watch with a certain reference number, the model could determine with a certain confidence score whether it was authentic or not. If an image was given a certain percentage above a threshold, the dealer could move further with the process of purchasing/selling/authenticating. If not, the watch could be rejected as fake saving time.
2 final thoughts here.
Again, is this worth the time and money it would take to train such a model? Maybe to a big player such as Watchbox whom I assume receives many enquiries to sell daily.
Secondly, could anyone already be doing this? Again I’m sure a big 3rd party dealer is sat on thousands of enquiry images where they know whether the watch is authentic or not based on whether they wanted to sell it. This could provide excellent training data.
My instinct though is nobody is currently doing this, but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely, especially in the next few years from an up-and-coming ‘tech savvy dealer such as Subdial.
My apologies this was quite a long segment. I’m just sharing my thoughts from this discussion.
It’s quite interesting to postulate sometimes and speculate upon what might already be happening.
Patek Philippe Pocket Watches
This week, I discovered the Collectability blog.
I honestly don’t know why I hadn’t read it before. I think I’ve previously mentioned a Collectability video from YouTube in this newsletter, but never thought to check the website for a blog.
How wrong I was.
The Collectability blog is a goldmine for information and learning all things Patek Philippe. A quick browse and I was like a kid in a sweet shop.
Stunned from excitement.
The one piece I did sit down to read this week was on Patek Philippe pocket watches that you can find through this link.
John Reardon writes about the value that there is to be found in Patek pocket watches and compares them to high-end wrist watches.
I’d recommend giving it a read in a heartbeat.
It’s a must-visit for those willing to learn about Patek.
One To Watch Why This Dapper Englishman Left His Gig At Rolex To Relaunch His Family Business, Fears Watches
I don’t know how I missed this article over at Hodinkee the other week about Nick of Fears watches, but in case you missed it too here’s a link.
Two words spring to mind: Elegantly Understated
Go give it a quick read.
That’s all from me this week!
Hope you have a lovely weekend.
Owen