The Greatly Improbable, Highly Enjoyable, Increasingly Profitable Life of Michael Kobold

Tweet

Kobold pulls a blue crocodile band (retail price $330) from a cheap aluminum shelving unit and attaches it to a red-faced Spirit of America. Red is an unusual color for Kobold, whose signature look is solid and masculine, but with the blue band especially, this one really pops.

"This is so sexy," he says, moving the watch around on his wrist. "So beautiful!"

Dan Scioscia summons him to take a phone call and for several minutes Kobold and a customer chat about a watch. It sounds like a discussion between old friends. There is talk of food.

Kobold hangs up and moves to a computer. He clicks on an e-mail and reads it aloud. "Nicolas Cage wants to wear a Kobold in his next movie."

He smiles impishly. "I swear, it's not normally like this."

But it sort of is, even if Cage didn't end up wearing a Kobold. (At any rate, Kiefer Sutherland wore one last season in 24, and Gary Sinise wears one in CSI: New York.) In early December, I hear from Kobold again. He is back in New York to talk some business with Gandolfini, who is busy filming the last season of The Sopranos. When the final nine episodes begin to air in April, it will bring to a close one of the most popular and critically lauded programs in television history. It is sure to be a momentous pop cultural event. Anyway, Gandolfini summoned Kobold to talk shop; he had an idea. He was going to buy watches for the entire cast and crew--400 special edition Soarway Divers in titanium (retail price $3,850) for the crew, 40 of the same watch in gold (retail price $14,500 for the women's white gold; $10,500 for the men's red gold) for the cast. Even at a discounted rate, it's well over a million dollars in watches, and an almost priceless amount of publicity.

Meanwhile, the Spirit of America continued to fly out of Ed Cruz's watch safe. The first 300 for which Kobold had movements were long gone and soon the price would rise to $2,750. Land Rover had just signed for 150 custom watches to hand out at a charity event for dealers.

Kobold is celebrating as he often does--by eating. A TV producer told me that when he took Kobold to a steakhouse, Mike ordered a second cut of meat for dessert, and after I recommended a great bakery for croissants in New York, he called to tell me he'd eaten six. But on this morning, not even huge forkfuls of huevos rancheros at a Tribeca restaurant can cover up his smirk. "This is a monumental order," he says. "On top of our regular orders"--the week before he had shipped 120 watches, mostly Spirit of Americas--"we have to deliver 600 watches by March." I tell him that this all points to blowing past his annual sales cap of 2,500 watches in, like, six months. He extends his hand for a shake. "I tell you now that I will never sell more than 2,500 watches in a year." He says he will raise prices by 8 percent in April. "If I have to, I can stop advertising or put people on a waiting list."

Soon, men with sledgehammers will arrive to quadruple his office space, and none of this is the news that excites him the most. Quite recently, Gerd Lang had asked Kobold to meet him in Los Angeles for a chat. Lang had come into possession of what Kobold says is a 15-year supply of German movements from the 1960s. Kobold is giddy. He says that he can modify them as much as he needs to; each one will be disassembled, cleaned, polished, decorated, modified, and engraved, becoming, in essence, a Kobold movement--which is important not just for prestige but for the company's future. The world's largest maker of movements, ETA, has announced that it will soon produce only for brands owned by its parent company, Swatch.

"You need a couple million to make your own movements," he says. "We just saved a couple million."

Of course, I say, this means he'll have to take "Swiss Made" off the dials--nothing Swiss will remain.

"With the Spirit of America, we said that it's modified and assembled in America--and people loved it," he says. "I did that to commemorate America's resolve in the years after September 11, and also because we're based in America. Customers absolutely loved it."

By 2008, the new Kobolds will begin to appear.

"In the next five years, if predictions are right, several watch companies will go out of business because they can't get Swiss movements anymore. The fact that we have our own movements means that we're safe."

And with that he stands up.

"Let's go get croissants."

Josh Dean is a writer who lives in New York City. He last wrote for Inc. about snowboarding mogul Jake Burton.

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 

Read more:

Sign-up for our Leadership and Managing Newsletter

Email Address: