David Bui grew up in the watch business, so as a teenager he thought nothing of asking permission to wear the Rolexes and Patek Philippes that were a part of his father Linh Bui’s collection at Honolulu Time Co.
Request denied.
David said that time and again his father told him, "You wouldn’t know how to take care of it yet."
It was a lesson the elder Bui learned himself as the son of a watchmaker in Vietnam. He had grown up tinkering with watches, looking at them only as the sum of multiple small parts. He began appreciating the differences among watches only when he moved to Hawaii and opened up a shop repairing, buying, selling and trading watches, and becoming better acquainted with the inner workings of fine, luxury brands.
"The quality is better because the materials are better. With the Patek Philippes and Rolexes, the steel is harder," Linh said.
When David was about to turn 18, Linh took a gamble in hopes of steering his son toward the family business. "I thought I’d give him something to wear to get him interested in watches," he said.
The gambit worked. Today, at 32, David Bui is a connoisseur, buyer and seller of fine watches who still prizes his first watch, an Omega Speedmaster Schumacher, named after seven-time Formula One world champion driver Michael Schumacher.
"It had a red dial, and the reason he chose it was because I like cars and my own car was red," David Bui said. "It felt very special because it felt like a lot of thought went into it."
As a rite of passage from his teens to adulthood, Bui also realized a watch is more than a utilitarian or ornamental creation. It often becomes one of the treasured heirlooms that fathers pass on to their sons.
Around Father’s Day, David said, it’s usually women who come in to select a watch as a gift from the whole family, and Honolulu Time Co. carries a full range of timepieces that start at $300 for a Seiko or Swiss Army watch, $500 for a Hamilton and $2,500 for a Rolex, up to rare, collectible watches that cost as much as a new automobile.
"It’s not only about telling time. People are not going to spend $30,000 to tell time," David Bui said. "Whereas with jewelry, most of the value is in the raw materials, a watch is valuable because it’s hand-built and because of the innovation behind it.
"It’s very common here that people who are interested in cars also like watches. They like the idea of heritage, handwork and history."
The elder Bui simply calls it romance, something he never felt until he moved to Hawaii and became acquainted with luxury watches that were unavailable to him when he was growing up in Vietnam.
There was a time, with the debut of the first digital watches in the 1970s, that the day of the mechanical watch that requires near-daily winding appeared numbered. But, Linh said, "people didn’t like it. They’re surrounded by electronics, so they want to keep something in their life that’s mechanical."
Even the onslaught of cellphones as time counters didn’t slow the growth of the luxury watch market, which the Buis say has been going strong for 15 years, continuing unabated during the worst of the country’s economic slump during the late 2000s.
"Men don’t wear much jewelry, so they might have a few nice, valuable watches that are statement pieces," Linh Bui said.
David Bui added that the market has been helped by the Internet, which allows anyone to research, compare prices and read the stories behind various models.
"The brands are doing research all the time, trying to improve on the mechanics or outdo each other with longer power reserves or liquid time indicators," he said. "Men like machines, men like mechanical things, so they can appreciate the value of it."
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Honolulu Time Co. is at 1311 Kapiolani Blvd., No. 101 (corner of Piikoi Street). Call 591-2611.
