About WatchPassport
Every watch has a story. Now it can travel with it.
I built WatchPassport because so much of a watch's history is easily lost or scattered over time. Service receipts end up in drawers, photographs live on old phones, ownership changes are rarely documented, and the knowledge one owner has about a watch often disappears when it changes hands. WatchPassport is a place to keep that history together and let it continue with the watch.
The problem
Most watches have no continuous record of their life. Original paperwork might tell you when a watch was first sold, and a service receipt might document one moment years later, but everything in between is usually fragmented across different owners, documents and memories. When the watch changes hands, much of that context can disappear altogether. WatchPassport gives that information somewhere to live: a record tied to the watch itself, which can be built over time and carried forward from one owner to the next.
Who it's for
Owners and collectors
Keep track of a watch as you own it: its identity, services, changes, photographs, accessories and the details you want to remember. Some of that is practical, some of it is simply part of the enjoyment of collecting. If the watch eventually changes hands, its transferrable history can continue with it.
Sellers
Give a prospective buyer more than a few photos and a description. A documented passport can show the watch's identity, ownership history, services and other recorded events, giving the buyer more information to assess alongside the watch itself.
Buyers
Look up a watch by brand, reference and serial number before acquiring it. No account is required. The public lookup shows whether the watch is registered on WatchPassport and whether it is currently flagged as stolen in the platform.
Dealers
Use the same passport system for watches you handle professionally. A documented record gives buyers more context about a watch and lets that history continue when ownership changes, whether the seller is a dealer or a private individual.
What's in a passport
The information in a passport falls into two broad categories. Information about the watch itself, including its identity and transferrable timeline, belongs to the watch's ongoing record and can continue with it when ownership changes. Information about your own relationship with the watch, such as private notes, photographs and second-hand acquisition details, stays with you.
When the watch is transferred, the new owner continues its active passport. You keep your private information and a historical snapshot from the time you owned it. Past and current owner identities are not exposed to one another through the passport.
Ownership history
A record of previous ownership periods and transfers, without exposing the identities of past owners.
Photos over time
Photographs captured at registration and during ownership changes help document the watch at different points in its life.
Service and event history
Services, repairs, tests, battery changes and other events can be added to the watch's timeline with dates, details and supporting documents.
Stolen status
An owner can flag a registered watch as stolen, and the warning is shown to anyone who checks it through the public lookup.
Where it started
The idea behind WatchPassport goes back to 2018, when I bought a handful of small, passport-sized notebooks and planned to keep one with each of my watches. I wanted somewhere to record what the watch was, where it came from, its history, services and repairs, and the things it had been through while I owned it. If the watch eventually changed hands, I liked the idea that the notebook could go with it for the next owner to explore and continue.
I started one for my Omega Seamaster 300M Quartz, but physical notebooks turned out to be far more work to maintain than I had imagined. Over the years I tried different documents and spreadsheets instead. None really became the system I wanted, but the idea never went away.
At the same time, years of buying, owning and selling watches exposed another side of the same problem. Useful history is easily lost, and the second-hand market relies heavily on trust, scattered paperwork and whatever the current owner happens to know. Sometimes information simply disappears between owners; other times important details are withheld, uncomfortable parts of a watch's past are quietly rewritten, or bad-faith sellers misrepresent what they have. I had also seen the opposite: how much more interesting and reassuring it is to receive a watch with unusually good documentation and a history that has actually been preserved.
The more I thought about it, the more those felt like the same problem viewed from opposite ends. A better record would not only make owning and documenting a watch more interesting. If that record could stay with the watch, it could also make its history harder to lose, distort or rewrite when ownership changed.
WatchPassport grew out of those two ideas coming together.
Start a passport for your watch
Give its history somewhere to live.