When director, writer, and producer Chris Gary was first shown a sizzle reel for a proposed television series about the vintage watch world in 2022, the concept left him deeply unsettled. Styled explicitly after Selling Sunset—the soap-opera-like reality television show that tracks the fabricated drama, high-stakes personality clashes, and luxury real estate dealings of a Southern California firm—the sizzle reel applied a familiar, highly sensationalized formula to the high-end watch market. For Gary, a longtime collector who views horology through a lens of history, personal narrative, and sentimentality, the framing felt entirely wrong.
Gary, who splits his time between Los Angeles and Colorado, where his family is based, recalls that the proposed show threatened to reduce a deeply meaningful pursuit into something trivial and cynical. He explains that the representation of dealers in that specific, hyper-dramatized light cheapened what he genuinely loved about watch collecting. For many enthusiasts, the objects that represent the past or tell the story of a life are effectively keepers of a soul, and there was something deeply concerning to him about removing that emotional and historical element from the story entirely.
In shows like Selling Sunset, the narrative engine relies on manufactured conflict that must be kept simple, accessible, and sensational. When that same reductive lens is applied to vintage watches, the underlying message quickly boils down to a cynical question of who is willing to undermine whom for financial gain. Because of the extreme scarcity and soaring monetary value of certain rare timepieces, it is easy to frame the market through a lens of cutthroat competition and massive amounts of money. However, Gary noted that this aggressive angle had nothing to do with why he originally entered the watch collecting hobby, nor did he believe it offered an honest reflection of the community.
Determined to offer an alternative perspective, Gary decided to produce his own documentary exploring the secondhand and vintage watch market. In an unexpected creative twist, he chose to center the narrative on one of the very dealers featured in the original sizzle reel that had rubbed him the wrong way: Adam Golden of Menta Watches in Miami. After three years of intensive production, the resulting 95-minute verité-style documentary, titled Chasing Time, premiered at the Austin Film Festival.
While Golden serves as the central character and emotional anchor of the film, keen-eyed watch enthusiasts will immediately recognize a host of prominent figures from across the industry who make appearances on screen. The documentary features renowned collector Auro Montanari, widely known by his pseudonym John Goldberger, alongside artist Wes Lang, Geoff Hess of Sotheby’s, Mike Nouveau—frequently celebrated as the "King of WatchTok"—collector and watchmaker Phil Toledano, and Hodinkee founder Ben Clymer.
Gary had previously been a client of Golden’s, but the two men had never actually met in person until 2023. That encounter took place in Los Angeles, where Golden was visiting for a vintage watch pop-up event alongside fellow prominent dealers Roy and Sacha Davidoff from Geneva. Gary stopped by the event, and as the men struck up a conversation, Golden asked for his candid opinion on the reality television sizzle reel that had been circulating.
Gary did not hesitate to share his reservations. He told Golden that it was not a production he wanted to be associated with, warning that participating in such a project would ultimately do more damage than good to his reputation. He pointed out that the absolute last thing a buyer wants to experience when they are about to wire $50,000 or $60,000 for a luxury watch is to see the dealer bickering with colleagues over money or status. Because an enormous amount of trust is fundamentally required to transact in the high-end vintage watch space, anything that actively erodes that trust creates severe harm.
When Golden pressed him on how he would approach portraying the industry if he had creative control, Gary made it clear that he would only tackle the subject through a limited series or, preferably, a feature-length documentary. Once the idea took root in his mind, Gary mapped out four distinct pillars upon which a comprehensive film about vintage watches could stand: collectors, dealers, auction houses, and independent watchmakers. The linchpin of the narrative, however, needed to be a dealer who possessed the unique ability to move seamlessly between all four of those pillars.
Gary readily admits that Golden was not his initial choice for the role, primarily because the two men did not yet know each other well. However, after shooting test footage in Miami, it became abundantly clear that the former lawyer was the ideal guide to the esoteric and frequently staggering world of vintage timepieces. The deciding factor was Golden’s remarkable willingness to be vulnerable on camera, offering viewers an unfiltered look behind the scenes.
Addressing the sheer absurdity of the market, Gary notes that when millions of dollars are trading hands based on items strapped to a wrist, an inherent element of theatricality and surrealism emerges. In order to bridge that vast distance for an audience that might not understand the hobby, a project like this requires an authentic access point. Gary found that in Golden, describing him as the most vulnerable dealer by a wide margin, noting that Golden allowed himself to be documented without overly worrying about maintaining a pristine, unblemished public image.
To properly support the film’s deeper emotional throughline—which grapples with the existential question of what people are actually doing with their time—Gary needed to build the story around someone who would not evade or cheapen that inquiry. In his view, many watch dealers are simply not interested in stepping back to evaluate whether their professional obsession is truly the right way to spend their lives.
Golden, meanwhile, was remarkably candid about the considerable strain that relentless work travel has placed on his family. Yet despite having zero prior experience in film production, he embraced the challenge. He acknowledges that he had never been involved with any kind of real media production before, making the documentary process an entirely new frontier. With a fifteen-person crew traveling across the globe, the team had to figure out their shooting priorities dynamically, operating without a script as they flew to various international destinations and simply let the cameras roll.
The production eventually took the crew to seven major cities: Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Tokyo, Geneva, and Athens. One of the primary storylines featured in the documentary follows Golden’s high-stakes hunt to secure a specific, highly coveted watch for an important client. During the course of filming, Golden successfully purchased a Rolex Datejust featuring an obsidian dial at a major auction. Shortly after the acquisition, however, commentators on Instagram began publicly disputing the authenticity of the material, claiming that the dial was actually onyx rather than obsidian.
The mix-up triggered an immediate crisis. Golden’s client called him demanding an explanation, prompting Golden to launch an immediate investigation to get to the bottom of the controversy. He enlisted a GIA-certified gemologist to scientifically determine whether the dial was crafted from onyx or obsidian, noting that a significant price difference separated the two materials. For Golden, the stressful encounter reinforced a fundamental truth about his profession: everyone in the vintage watch community is perpetually learning because historical information is rarely complete or definitive.
Beyond the financial stakes, Golden hopes that viewers walk away from the documentary understanding that vintage watch collecting is fundamentally accessible to anyone, despite common misconceptions. While the prevailing public perception often assumes that the hobby is exclusively reserved for the ultra-wealthy, Golden emphasizes that enthusiasts can engage and find genuine enjoyment at any level of the market. He stresses that lacking a massive budget does not mean an individual will be unwelcome within the community, reinforcing his belief that collectors are simply people trying to make the best of their time on earth and sharing things that bring them joy.
Throughout the project, neither Golden nor Gary shied away from the philosophical questions inevitably tied to a narrative centered on time and the mechanical objects designed to measure it. At one poignant juncture in the film, Golden pauses to reflect on whether his lifelong professional obsession with timepieces ultimately helps or hinders his ability to enjoy the time he actually has.
Describing the pursuit as a catch-22, he notes that while watches help people plan their days, improve efficiency, and understand how much time is left to accomplish their goals, the hidden cost of constantly tracking time is an acute, inescapable awareness of its strict limitations. By anchoring the documentary in these thoughtful, existential inquiries rather than manufactured reality-TV drama, Gary successfully delivered a feature that stands as a deliberate and reflective counter-narrative to the standard tropes of the genre.
