Hi, I’m Colston.

I grew up in Los Angeles learning about vintage watches from my father. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s he was always finding interesting pieces on forums, Craigslist or eBay. When he brought one home, we’d go through the same ritual: break it down, clean it, and study every detail of the dial and case to figure out what made it special. We’d talk about who the previous owner was, or who we imagined they might have been, and how each scratch and mark had gotten there.

I’ve been buying and selling watches myself for about twenty years, ever since I was old enough to do it on my own. My favorite deals have always been person to person: buying from an original owner or a family member, and feeling like I’d found something out in the wild. Grey Market is my attempt to build a place that feels like that.

Today, collectors are stuck choosing between two bad options. The big marketplaces put themselves in the middle of every deal, commoditize the watches, and charge fees high enough that neither buyer nor seller walks away with the watch’s real value. Forums and message boards keep the collector spirit alive, but you’re still trusting a stranger on the internet and taking a leap every time you send a wire.

Others have tried to solve this, but they’ve built heavy operations that require heavy fees to support. I’m looking to use my background of building operations for start-ups, with my passion for watch collecting.

Grey Market is built to be as lightweight as possible, with the smallest fees we can offer, while still protecting both buyers and sellers. Think of it as the forum you already love, with payment protection and verification built in.

Every member goes through KYC (Know Your Customer) verification. That lets us remove bad actors for good and makes it much harder for anyone to come back under a new account.

My hope is that Grey Market becomes the place collectors come to buy, sell and trade with each other, and to share the stories behind the watches they love, the same way my dad and I did at the kitchen table.