The Premium Time Company – High-End Watches at a Not So Premium Price

Our look at a new model in watch competitions that have allowed a new wave of enthusiasts the opportunity to participate.

David Shuck

Together with

In the rarefied world of luxury watches, it’s often difficult to buy something even for its retail price, much less a discount. To pick up a Rolex or an Omega for the price of a nice meal you basically have to be inheriting it from a relative.

That was until 2023, when The Premium Time Company hosted its first competition for a Rolex Submariner Date. The list price for the watch was $9,100 but could be had for as little as 15 Euros for the lucky winner. They have since given away 63 Rolexes and several other high-end watches.

Read on to see how founders Gavin Matheson and Floortje Matheson-Selis came up with the novel idea and how you can get in on the next competition.

Locked Out but Dialed In

Timepieces aren’t the first business venture for Gavin and Floortje. Floortje is an artist and had worked as an art director for several magazines and large companies. Gavin had spent time in a variety of different industries before founding and selling a marketing agency. He had never been big into watches but had always aspired to own a Rolex Sea Dweller, the beefier big brother to the brand’s Submariner diving watch.

Flush from the recent sale, he went to his local Rolex dealer in Amsterdam with cash in hand only to learn the bitter reality of many aspirational watch enthusiasts—you can’t just buy the thing. In order to maintain the value and exclusivity of their brands, most high-end watch makers limit the number of models they produce and who is allowed to buy them.

He recalls, “I was told there was no way I could buy a watch and in Amsterdam, you can’t even get on a waiting list.” If Gavin wanted to buy his prized Sea Dweller for the list price of $13,250, he would likely have to travel to a different country’s dealer, wait several years, and purchase several other “lower-tier” models to earn his way into Rolex’s good graces. Or he could purchase one from a grey market reseller but pay a heavy premium for skipping the red tape.

He returned to his wife Floortje, frustrated and disillusioned from the experience. She was sure there were countless others who had run into the same roadblock as him. Floortje was also an accomplished artist and art director, and combined with Gavin’s marketing skills, together they came up with an idea to try and level the playing field.

How it Works

Every week, The Premium Time Company hosts a “skill-based competition” in which the prize is a luxury watch like a Rolex, Omega, or Tudor. Gavin and Floortje have two resellers they source the watches from, one in Europe and one in the US, so winners don’t have to pay import fees on their prizes.

Once the watch is set, they decided on a number of entry tickets and a ticket price. There are usually 650 tickets available in their weekly competitions with the only the monthly one running much higher at 1,500. Ticket price ranges from free for some lower end watches but generally between 15 to 70 pounds (~$20 to $90) for higher-end items.

If you do the math on the number of tickets and the ticket price, it will probably come up higher than the list price of the watch but they’re paying the reseller premium for their prizes plus all the associated costs of running the business.

A prospective entrant can buy one, two, or up to 50 tickets in one go, but everyone who enters will have to answer one watch trivia question. This isn’t a lottery or a raffle, it’s a “skill-based competition” in the eyes of the regulators, so in order to win you need to answer it correctly (opening up another tab to find the answer isn’t against the rules).

The competition closes on time regardless of how many tickets are sold (usually they run for a week), and then Gavin and Floortje gather all the correct answer entries and upload them to the independent service Random Draws, who, as the name would imply, randomly draws the winner. Then the watch is off to its new home.

Yes, it is a risk but it’s also the only place in the world you can have a shot at these rarefied timepieces for the price of a Netflix membership.

Premium Time at a Bargain

As of this writing, Gavin and Floortje have given away 70 high-end watches with a value of over a million dollars since their first competition in January of 2023. They’ve even had repeat winners and a community develop around the competitions.

They’re planning on soon expanding into other “exclusive” markets that have long locked out enthusiasts like Gavin and offering even higher-end makers like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet.

Have a look at their current competitions at The Premium Time Company and stay current with them on Instagram.

Like that? Read these:

White Horse Trading Co. Jeans – Artisan And American Ingenuity

Raw Hands Denim Repair Studio – Needle and Thread Patchwork