I was captivated by watches when I was 15.
A watch shop I visited with my grandfather.
I had been interested in wristwatches before then, but that day I encountered the world of “vintage watches” for the first time.
At the time, I was a high school student looking for my first mechanical watch with a budget of around 50,000 yen.
However, what captured my heart at that shop was not a wristwatch but a Waltham hunter-case pocket watch.
What a single pocket watch taught me
The shop owner carefully explained the structure of the hunter case, which was designed to protect the dial, as well as the historical context of the era in which the watch was created.
Until then, I had viewed watches only as “tools for telling time,” so what he told me was entirely new to me.
What captivated me even more was the delicate hand-engraved metalwork covering the entire case.
A dimensionality that cannot be expressed through modern mass production.
A character born from the fact that each watch was finished by hand by an artisan.
It had a warmth that no machine could ever reproduce.
As I gazed at the watch, I naturally began to wonder.
What era had this watch witnessed?
What kind of person had worn it, and what kind of life had they shared with it?
I felt that a single watch bore not only the skills of its artisan but also the time its owner had lived through.
A watch is not an “object,” but art and culture.
In that moment, a watch ceased to be merely an “object” to me.
A watch reflects its era, carries on culture, and serves to pass people’s feelings from one person to another.
For the first time, I understood that to me, a watch was not an industrial product but “art” and “culture.”
This perspective has not changed, even more than 20 years later.
My first vintage watch, acquired at 15
At the time, gold prices were not as high as they are today, and that Waltham pocket watch was displayed in the shop priced at 40,000 yen.
It may be difficult to imagine that price today.
Even so, as a high school student, 40,000 yen was by no means a small amount and was one of the biggest purchases of my life.
I had doubts.
Even so, my desire to “keep this watch for myself” won out.
If I had not encountered that watch on that day, I do not think I would be who I am today.
Looking back, that day was the origin of my life with watches.
After continuing to engage with watches for more than 20 years
From then on, I began collecting and studying watches and experiencing watches from around the world.
My criteria for evaluating watches gradually began to change as well.
Not just its brand name or price, but how it was made and in what condition it had been passed down.
I began to engage with each watch, including its background and story.
That experience led to the Ante of today.
Today, Ante mainly introduces vintage Cartier watches.
That is not simply because they are popular or rare.
Because they are watches with designs that will be loved for years, quality that has been passed down, and enduring value that I sincerely believe will allow them to be used for decades to come.
That is why we carefully assess the condition of each watch, never compromise on maintenance, and introduce only watches we can genuinely stand behind.
That day, when I was 15, was the origin of Ante.
On that day when I was 15, a single pocket watch taught me something.
A watch is not merely a tool for telling time.
It is the culture itself: inheriting the skills of artisans, the spirit of an era, and people’s feelings, then passing them on to the next generation.
The feelings I had at that time still guide my choices in watches today and are also the origin of Ante.
