Govberg’s OnTime App Lets You Keep A Virtual Watch Box On Your Phone

Watch collectors are weird. Sometimes they plan meetups where they get together with their entire watch collections and fondle each others’ timepieces, breathless with excitement. If you ever see a bunch of grown men looking at Seikos from the 1970s while hyperventilating… run.

For the rest of us – or, actually, for the true watch obsessive who doesn’t want to go to a meetup – Govberg Jewelers has created the OnTime app, a virtual watch box for iOS and Android.

This self-funded project is the brainchild of Danny Govberg, a Philadelphia-based jeweler who has been in the business of selling expensive watches for years. His app is aimed at collectors who want to keep track of their watches and, perhaps, make a connection by sharing their list of rare Panerais with other obsessives.

The app shows watch news from various sources, including ABlogToWatch and Hondinkee, and also allows you to enter details regarding your collection. For example, you can take a picture of your favorites and add a serial number and reference number. Govberg has also added links to sell and appraise the watch (which gives you some sense of the monetization strategy).

They’ve seen about 23,000 users since the iOS launch in April and they have just announced availability on Android.

“We didn’t build the app just as a means to sell more watches; we wanted to create a cohesive resource to support all aspects of a watch enthusiast’s life and to strengthen the collector community as a whole,” said Govberg. The goal is to add a number of new features, including a sales system to the app over time.

gove

Can this app beat incumbents like Watchville or, barring a an electronic solution, the simple act of dragging your watch box to a bar? Time will tell, but until then can I tell you a little bit about my tropical Rolex Submariner Ref. 6536? It’s got a very cool red depth rating that no one has ever seen in the wild. Buy me another beer and I’ll show it to you.