Hodinkee Sells Used Watch Site Crown & Caliber to Boston Dealer

This content was published on October 10, 2024 - 06:01

2 minutes

(Bloomberg) — Hodinkee Inc. has sold Crown & Caliber, the online used watch retailer it bought in an ill-advised move less than four years ago, to one of the largest dealers in the US.

European Watch Company will buy the digital assets of Crown & Caliber — known for selling used Rolex watches and other brands such as Omega. No watches or inventory are included in the deal and products will no longer be sold through the Crown & Caliber website.

Based in Boston and family-owned, European Watch Company sells previously-owned watches from top brands including Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and A. Lange & Sohne. It sells as many as 600 watches per month, mostly online, according to Chief Executive Officer Joshua Ganjei.

“We’ve kind of mastered this online retail space over the past 30 years, being one of the oldest in the industry,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We specialize in hard to find, high quality watches and we have an expertise that we can bring to the Crown & Caliber client.”

The sale brings to an end Hodinkee’s troubled entry into online used watch sales. The New York-based enthusiast site, backed by private equity investors as well as LMVH and Tom Brady, bought Crown & Caliber for more than $20 million near the height of the luxury watch boom in 2021.

However, when demand fell in 2022, Hodinkee was stuck with a significant inventory of used watches declining in value. Losses generated by Crown & Caliber led Hodinkee to cut staff and restructure and last week Hodinkee itself was sold to Watches of Switzerland Group Plc. That deal didn’t include Crown & Caliber.

The sale price for Atlanta-based Crown & Caliber was in the six figures, according to people familiar with the deal terms.

“The Crown and Caliber name means a lot to so many, and that is why we were so excited to purchase it four years ago,” Hodinkee founder Benjamin Clymer said. He added that European Watch Company has been around for decades and “we couldn’t ask for a better home for the Crown & Caliber name.”

Ganjei said his family business will aim to move Crown & Caliber clients to its platform. It will also continue to produce watch-related content online and on social media with the Crown & Caliber brand to help drive sales. The brand has more than 100,000 followers on YouTube and Facebook and close to 200,000 on Instagram.