HORMÊ - ROY DAVIDOFF - Co-owner ROY & SACHA DAVIDOFF SA - Obsession, Expertise, Hunt

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Some passions begin in childhood. A watch received from a father, a fascination with a dial, a story hidden behind a serial number. Over time, what begins as curiosity can become a vocation, a craft, and ultimately a way of understanding the world.

For this episode of HORMÊ, I welcome Roy Davidoff, collector, dealer, historian, and co-founder of ROY & SACHA DAVIDOFF SA alongside his brother. His life has been deeply connected to watches, but this conversation goes far beyond collecting and horology. It is a story about family, obsession, expertise, trust, and the passage of time.

Roy grew up in Geneva in a family deeply rooted in jewelry and precious stones. At thirteen, his father gave him his first vintage watch: an Omega Speedmaster Mark II from 1970. Within minutes, the crystal was shattered. Years later, that same watch would become one of the pieces he could never imagine selling. For Roy, watches have always been more than objects. They trigger memories and reveal stories through the smallest details: a dial, a shade of lume, a case maker's signature, an archival document. His passion lies in looking closely enough to understand what others might overlook.

That obsession eventually became a business. Together with his brother Sasha, Roy built ROY & SACHA DAVIDOFF SA into one of the most recognized names in vintage watches. Their expertise was forged through decades of handling thousands of watches, studying their origins, meeting collectors, and hunting for rare pieces around the world. But behind the watches lies the story of two brothers. Roy speaks openly about the strength of their partnership, built on absolute trust and complementary personalities, as well as the challenges of working with family.

We also talk about the less visible side of success: scams, financial risks, mistakes, exhaustion, and the constant pressure of running a business. For Roy, learning to let go of mistakes is part of the journey, much like in tennis, where you have only a few seconds before moving on to the next point.

As a historian and collector, Roy reflects on five decades of watchmaking, the evolution of the industry, and the importance of archives, provenance, and knowledge in understanding a watch's true story. After decades of searching for extraordinary pieces, he still experiences the same feeling that brought him into this world in the first place: that moment when he looks at a watch and thinks, this is special. An episode about obsession, expertise, and the hunt for extraordinary watches, but also about family, memory, and the stories we choose to carry forward.

OST

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