The Grey NATO – 345 – The Horological Hunt With Daniel Miller
Published on Thu, 18 Sep 2025 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode of The Greynado, hosts James Stacey and Jason Heaton discuss their upcoming appearance at the Toronto Timepiece Show and share updates on new merchandise. The main segment features an interview with Daniel Miller, a Los Angeles Times journalist, who shares the fascinating story of his investigation into a Chelsea Comet clock purchased on eBay that potentially belonged to JFK. Miller details his extensive research process, including tracking down an original photograph stored in an underground facility called Iron Mountain, ultimately revealing that the clock in the photo didn't show the "JFK" engraving present on the eBay purchase. Despite this finding, the story highlights the compelling nature of horological mysteries and the joy found in the pursuit of answers.
The hosts also discuss their current watches, with Jason wearing a Pollen Mara dive watch and James sporting a new Nomos Club Sport Neomatic World Timer. The episode concludes with final notes about an Artem watch strap and music from the Broody Brothers.
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Transcript
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| James Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Greynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 345, and it's proudly brought to you by the always-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegreynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacey, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, Jason Heaton. Jason, how are we doing? Monday evening recording this time. Lots going on with the Toronto Timepiece show this week. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's a weird week, short week for both of us. I'm traveling. As people listen to this, I will probably be sitting at the airport waiting to board my flight to come up to YYZ Airport there and meet you shortly after that. I feel like we've been talking about the Toronto Timepiece show for months. I mean, I think we talked about this back in the spring. It's crazy. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, it's been a while. I mean, it's a big cycle for that. We really like being a part of it. For those of you who didn't catch the news on the Slack or otherwise, if you'd like to see the live recording of the episode for the show from the Toronto Timepiece show, that'll be next week's episode if you're listening to this purely remotely. That will take place at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday at the show. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line at thegraynadoatgmail.com. Otherwise, we'll see you there, and it's going to be a great show. If you listened to last year's, we're basically looking to do something fairly similar, and I think it's going to be an absolute blast. And then the other thing we were saying since the last episode is just that if you're waiting on an opportunity for some merch... That should be coming in the next couple of weeks. We're just getting the last few of our samples in. I got a couple in that I'm really excited about. I even teased one on Instagram, which immediately kind of popped off on the Slack. So we're having fun with that. I wore one piece all through the weekend and found it quite comfy and cozy, so that'll be a good addition as well. Jason, how have you been? How was your weekend? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, good. I got some samples in here as well, one of which was far too warm for the weather we're having here. That's a bit of a hint to everybody, but... Yeah, summer kind of returned. I've actually got the air conditioner on today, which feels strange for mid-September, but that's not unheard of. I mean, summer does linger into September, but it does feel like this is kind of the swan song for it. So yeah, Christy and I got out yesterday and we did this sort of ceremonial farewell to the season. We kind of spontaneously decided you know Minneapolis is called the city of lakes and there's just this network of lakes with with beaches and some are connected by waterways that you can paddleboard through and a creek that connects others and so we decided let's go swimming in five different lakes in you know one afternoon and and rent some paddleboards and do some paddleboarding too so We kind of drove from lake to lake and literally just ran out of the car, jumped in the lake, splashed around, jumped back in the car, drove to the next lake. And then paddleboarded from one to the two others and jumped off the paddleboards and swam there as well. So it was... it was fun. It was a hot day and it felt really good to get in the water. And then we, we, after that, we stopped for some Jamaican food and looked out at the sunset. It was, it was really a kind of a nice farewell to summer because looking ahead, like I'll be in Toronto this weekend. And then the following we're, we're going way up North to do some camping. And then it's October with a strange to say that, but I will say that I'm pretty convinced that that summer, um, has reached its end for me at least. But, uh, Yeah, I'm looking forward to boarding my flight Thursday and getting up there. I'm planning on getting some early packing done and kind of assessing what I'm going to need to wear and bring a couple of watches and that sort of stuff and get to see you for some sushi on Thursday. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, we're going to go to the spot on Thursday and eat our fill. The schedule is extra busy this year. You know, the schedule is extra busy this year with the timepiece award show being the Saturday evening, which is normally when you and I would probably put a dent in a restaurant somewhere. And we might still just it just might be a little later in the evening. But I figured we last year we had such a nice lunch at this sushi spot, not super far from my house. So we'll probably grab you from the airport, drop your bags and go over there for for a proper meal. You know, we'll let the accountants worry about the damage. You know, it should be should be fun. Should be fun weekend. And then, yes, like starting Friday for me, Friday, most of the day. And then for both of us, Friday evening is like the creators event, like people who are involved with the show, whether you're a brand or media. And then we'll be there, I think, probably the full day Saturday. Like, why not? And then Saturday evening is the award show. And then Sunday is kind of up in the air. But I assume we'll be there for at least a couple of hours. And then we've got the marathon event. in the evening, which has reached capacity, which is just fantastic. It's a nice big number this year, thanks to Marathon. I just started to sort out the last final details for the beer order with Collective Arts, so I'm pretty excited about that as well. And yeah, everything's coming together nicely. And look, for today's episode, we actually have a really great guest as well, so we don't have to belabor that, but both of us are wearing relatively new, pretty fun watches. What have you got for wrist check? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I mean, yours is super exciting. And mine is one I've talked about in the past. And I was wearing kind of an early version of it back in May over in Scotland. But this week I got in the Pollen Mara dive watch. This is the one that I kind of helped them out with the launch campaign back in May when we were in the Outer Hebrides. We did a whole episode about that a couple of weeks ago. And then I was in New York just a couple of weeks ago for the launch event in... um in Brooklyn and I got the watch the watch arrived late last week and I've been wearing it ever since I did it on this little sort of summer excursion to you know swimming in all the lakes that was fun I put it on the rubber strap I had it on the recycled fishing net nylon strap before that and it's super comfy I'm excited to show it to you because you haven't seen this in person and yeah I'm really pumped you know a lot of people have kind of commented on it it wears You know, it kind of has that look. If you squint, it kind of looks like a docks, a shark hunter, but it's a little more kind of whimsical and playful and it's got a great rubber strap. And yeah, I'm thrilled to be wearing it. So I'll be rocking that pretty much the whole weekend up there in Toronto at the timepiece show. So people can. Pull me aside and take a look if you're interested in seeing it. And I know Paulin will actually be at the show, so I'm sure they'll have something to look at, including the blue one. I have the black one on. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, that's going to be great. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing that. And yeah, I'm already kind of thinking like, well, you know, what watches should I bring to the show? What's one of them? And, you know, we've talked about this watch to... some great extent over the last little while because it's a watch I purchased many months ago and then it's just arrived just in the last couple of days and that's the Nomos Club Sport Neomatic World Timer. I was fortunate enough to get my lucky mitts on one of the Glacier examples. So there's... seven or eight, I guess, limited edition colorways. There's two non-limited edition. And then in the limited edition ones, I think it's 170 pieces for each of the colorways. And there's a bunch of great colors. If you don't know this watch, it's worth a peek. One of my favorite watches of 2025. And I just kind of found myself in the zone of like, got a son coming, you know, maybe pick something nice to kind of commemorate that. And it could be his watch one day. I've also, I think if you listen to the show for a really long time, I've wanted a Nomos for a really long time, but could just never really decide what one. I came close on an earlier, actually an earlier club, you know, the club campus where you had sort of the Cali dial. I still think those look really cool. And for me, this is kind of like the ultimate expression of the club, which is with a really cool, travel complication that kind of blends elements of the sportier side of Nomos with like the Whitesight World Timer that they've had for several years. And I just really like it. It's not too big. It's nice and thin under just a hair under 10 millimeters. So it wears really, really well. And I think that's the part that kind of surprises me is... It's super thin and easy to wear, but at the same time, you know, I had only seen it at Watches and Wonders inside in very bright lights. You take it outside in sunlight, there's all this depth to the dial, despite its kind of lack of thickness. So you get a little shadow at the edge of the main dial that falls onto the city ring. And it's a really clever mechanism. So you basically could set both of the two hour displays, like your main hour hand and the small hour display with the crown. And then you use the button on the side to advance just the main hour hand for your local time. And then if it's out of coordination with your city, there's a little pusher on the side, like a corrector. And you just kind of correct it so they sync up. So if you're trying to adjust away from the two being synced together, then you just have to reset. So it's a little bit finicky or more finicky than like a standard GMT or even like a Explorer 2 or something like that. But once you have it set up, you can just kind of sit there and click around different times. Like I know I got to take this traveling. to kind of get that feeling of changing it. But yeah, I'm super happy with it. I really love the colors in person. I'm really enjoying kind of the thinness of the case, but the overall quality of the watch is simply higher than what I standardly wear. It's also more expensive than what I more or less standardly buy. and and I'm just absolutely loving it it's keeping incredible time out of the box I haven't even uh this came up on the on the slack when I posted that I got it I haven't even touched the bracelet like I got it it came out of the box and I immediately just removed the bracelet and put it on a leather strap that I had yeah at some point I'll go back and size the bracelet but it's it's not a what I would call a pressing concern at the moment the the high polish center link doesn't really speak to me. Um, I mean, it's a polished case so that I don't think there's like a problem with that. It just isn't really my style and I really like it on a leather. I wore it on like the tan watches of espionage NATO this weekend and it just works really well with the kind of tan markings on, on the dial as well. So yeah, I'm enjoying that. You can catch a photo of it on, uh, on my Instagram. And if you happen to have a question for me about it, feel free to drop me on the Slack and, uh, and I can answer any questions. I'm sure at some point in the coming, you know, weeks, months, we'll do a proper write-up as I get some time on the other side of the Toronto show and the UBS House of Craft and all that kind of stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | It's such a unique watch. It just has a look of no other watch and it has this sort of technical look, but also with the colorway that you got, it's just kind of playful, but not in an overly kind of annoying way. Like it has that, yeah, I think you got the best colorway and I'm looking at the website now, the Nomos website and It's a very rare watch. I mean, the one you got, 175 pieces. Odds are you're not going to see another person with that on except maybe at a watch show or something. Yeah. Another person that sprung for it. But that's great. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. The only other person I know that's got one is Jason Gallop. Oh, OK. So he's got the same color. And then Tantan Wang, who I work with, he's got the jungle. I saw the volcano one on Tony Trena's Instagram. Not sure if that was his or a loaner or whatever, but they are kind of getting around. And I think they had a bit of a splash. Um, I've, I've been waiting for this watch for so long that I got to say, like, I have looked at these colors for so long on their website. I'm not sure there's a, there's a couple that aren't really me. Yeah. But the longer you spend with any of them, there's, there's some really, really good colorways. I really liked the glacier cause it's very conventional. The light blue with a red accent kind of has a flight master feel to it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Um, you know, cross with that, but I, you know, I think the, the, even the standard kind of stock colors that I think the, the main red one's quite nice. So yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | It's a treat. It's still very fresh for me. And I also love, it's got pretty good lume. I was charging it up on the weekend. And, you know, it's not a Seiko dive watch, but it's pretty good. It glows like a bright blue. It's probably like a BGW-9 or similar. And yeah, it's nice and bright and it feels both sporty, but there's there's a solidity to its overall like build quality that I'm finding really quite pleasing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Gosh, it's funny. You know, we're both we both have watches on that are from brands that like to play with color and kind of design for sure. Very design forward brands. And I think I think that's really cool. Fun, fun way to do the week. And I can't wait to see it when I come up there in a couple of days. |
| James Stacey | And yeah, while we're speaking about things we can't wait to do, man, it's just an exciting week ahead. There's a lot going on. But I was thrilled because I had a fun opportunity to connect with an old buddy who's done stuff with us with Hodinkee before and then now gets to be on TGN. And that's Daniel Miller of the LA Times. He's written a bunch of great stories. Actually, I don't even have to repeat it. I did a whole intro with Daniel on the tape. I just spoke to him just before we recorded this. And we had a really great chat about a recent story that he wrote about the hunt. for information about a watch not just a watch but the history of the watch and i think it's a really fun chat i don't really know anyone else like daniel he is a consummate researcher you know investigative journalist and occasionally he points that kind of eye and attention towards something from the world of horology so let's get to that tape Okay, so today on The Graynado, we're joined by Daniel Miller, the Los Angeles Times staff writer whose work covers a variety of excellent topics, but we're perhaps most interested in his deep fascination with horology, watches, clocks, and everything in between. Whether he's retracing the trail of J.P. Morgan's million-dollar pocket watch, chatting with Hodinkee about restoring watches that he scored broken on eBay, or even investigating a possible Kennedy connection for a Chelsea Comet clock, Daniel brings the mechanical, emotional, and archival dimensions of time to light. He recently published a fascinating story about one man's hunt for a possible presidential history for a clock he found on eBay. We'll get into that and more, but for now, Daniel, welcome to the show, my friend. Hey, James. It's so nice to see you. Yeah, it's an absolute treat, dude. I was thinking back to the last time we hung out, and it was both a long time ago and feels like a long time ago. Sarah said to be sure to say hi. I hope you've been well. |
| Daniel Miller | Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tell her I say hi to I've been well. I had a great, great summer, a little bit of travel, a lot of barbecuing. You know, I tried to try my best to make it last as long as possible. It is like 85 outside here in Los Angeles. So still feels like summer. |
| James Stacey | Fantastic. Yeah, well, look, I appreciate you making some time. You're always very proactive in helping me find the great stories that you write on. You'll text me if something that you think resonates with me, whether it's a fantastic story about a daring robbery. or one about some more illustrious hunts for the history of watches and that sort of thing. And certainly, I figure for our audience, we might as well just kind of reset the clock a little bit, not to be too forceful of a pun there. What kind of first sparked your interest in the stories behind watches and clocks? Because you write about genuinely quite a wide variety of things, and this only kind of comes out to be sort of a piece of it, wouldn't you say? |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, that's fair to say. So it's not I don't have the horology beat at the L.A. Times. I'm an enterprise reporter, which means I work on investigations and features. At the moment, I'm focused on education and I have even managed to write a watch related education story. But over the years, I have had the opportunity to write about watches, clocks and horology. Often I'm looking for stories with an. L.A. angle, you know, which are they are out there, but you have to know where to dig. I think the reason I think the reason why I am drawn to watch stories, clock stories, is that I love a story, no matter the genre, that's about a hunt or about solving a mystery. I mean, who doesn't like sitting down with a few spare minutes to read, you know, a tale like that, whether it's in a newspaper or magazine. And I find that The world of horology is very well set up to have stories about hunts. There are so many lost watches and clocks waiting to be discovered. There are so many ones that have been there are so many watches and clocks that have mysteriously disappeared. And I think, you know, that just always piques my interest. |
| James Stacey | When I think of these sorts of hunts and these sorts of mysteries, your name does come to mind and certainly will include a handful of these past stories that you've penned for the L.A. Times in the show notes for this episode. Before we get into Bill Anderson's story and this Chelsea clock, this comet clock, let's do a quick wrist check. What do you have on? What are you wearing today? Because you have quite an eclectic collection and almost all of it, perhaps unsurprisingly, has a cool backstory. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, and my collection's changed a bit probably since we last got together. So I'm wearing a Breitling Superocean Reference 1004. This is a watch that they reissued, or rather, they did a modern version of this watch, but they made one in recent years that really was... I don't know if it's a one for one, but it's very close. Isn't that fair to say? Yeah, I think it is very close. |
| James Stacey | So deeply inspired by, I think, a slightly different size, if I remember correctly. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah. And so this watch was my grail watch, to use an overused term, right? I was really drawn to it many years ago because I thought that it was just sort of... quirky and kind of audacious in all the right ways. It's not a vintage sub, right? It's a dive watch from Breitling, best known for like... chronographs like the Navitimer and the Chronomat that, you know, pilots might have been using. And here they are in the 1950s releasing a dive watch with a concave bezel, which I always just love that design element. And it's my understanding that so few of these survived because of that bezel, which basically channeled water toward the crystal. And so, you know, that may be apocryphal, but that is what I've heard in terms of these not being so waterproof after all. They were made in the late 1950s. And I searched for one of these for years. Every eBay alert you could ever imagine. I had them all set and they just don't come up for sale very often. And at one point I had bought a dial and a movement and a handset and I was searching for cases and reaching out to dealers all around the globe for cases. People must have thought I was a nut job. I sold that off. I was like, you know. this isn't the way I want to do it. This obsession is sort of veered down a weird rabbit hole. And I sold those parts off and I tried to forget about this super ocean. And then one came up for auction at a small auction house in Florida. And I just kind of knew this was my chance to go for it. And I went for it. And the watch was in very good condition. The one thing it's probably hard to see without a close-up photograph is that it's... It's the hash marks are gilt on this one. And I've heard from Fred Mandelbaum, the Breitling scholar, that the ones with the gilt dials were reserved for the U.S. market and the non gilt dials, for whatever reason, were sold in Europe and elsewhere. So kind of nice buying one in Florida that, you know, you know, originally sent to this market. My one thing is like I don't wear this watch enough. I don't know if you can relate to that. This is thing I sought for so long. You know, it's it's rare. I see these bezels trade for thousands of dollars on eBay and I kind of worry about it. But so it stays in a safe. But I also kind of kick myself for that because it's like, what's the point of these things? They're meant to be worn. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, it's a give and take. And I think it all comes down to how you get the sort of quote unquote buzz from it. Is it from wearing it? Is it from the hunt? Is it from finally succeeding in the hunt? Is it a blending of all of that? Like, you know, I think there's definitely people out there. I'm not saying this is you necessarily, but there's people out there who it's getting it. And once you have it, it's kind of like, oh, my brain can either rest or my brain can shift to the next thing that I'm going to spend years trying to find at some obscure, you know, auction house or something like that. You know, for me, these Super Oceans are such a testament to kind of that last edge of, like, 50s mid-century design in watches. Like, if you took that dial and put it on a wall, you know, maybe with a bit of teak furniture or something like that, that's quite a thing. And I didn't know that about the coloring of the markers that went to the U.S. market, but certainly Fred would know for sure. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, yeah. I mean, like the handsets amazing and the markers and the dial are great. The use of loom is great. So it is still as beautiful as it was to me when I was seeking it, you know, for the better part of a decade. I do think I need to kind of interrogate a bit longer why I am so unwilling to wear it because I wear all my watches and I sell watches. You know, I'm not too dear. If I'm not wearing a watch, I let it go so somebody else can enjoy it. |
| James Stacey | It's tough with a grail, though. I definitely have had it. I'm fortunate enough where I think the grails that I've achieved to make them mine are relatively modern sport watches, at least made in the last 20 years. So you can still kind of just beat them up if you want to. And nothing so precious that like a bezel would be worth as much as some of the watches I'm thinking of. So, yeah, I can I can understand some trepidation. Maybe it's more of like a special occasion watch, that sort of thing. Or an around the I have a couple that I really only wear like around the office or around my house. Vintage stuff that comes up more commonly, like in winter when I'm just going to be like reading a book or something. And, you know, there's a low chance of damage. All right. Maybe I have to try that. I hadn't really considered that category. Yeah, like a kicking back by the fire, hang out at home sort of watch. All right. Probably not what Breitling intended for the Super Ocean, but you know what? It's had at least a couple of lives by this point. Well, look, speaking of, you know, having a couple of lives, I'd love to dig into the story because this was the impetus for having you on, which really we should have done some time ago. But you published a story about this guy, Bill Anderson, who 25 plus years ago or about 25 years ago, I guess, bought Chelsea Comet Clock on eBay. And then it kicked off this hunt. And you put a great story together for LA Times, unsurprisingly. But you also text me like there's more to this story that we didn't quite, you know, not everything got into the text on the site. Some more context, some more side stories, that sort of thing. So I don't want to tell your story. I'll let you tell it. But why don't you dig into the story of this comet clock and its possible connection to JFK? |
| Daniel Miller | To tell the story, I have to rewind just slightly. In December 2021, I wrote a story about JP Morgan's super complicated pocket watch. And I tried to figure out, you know, who owned it these days. And it was made by this company called J Player and Son in Coventry, England. And I wound up... connecting with the descendant of the watchmaker. And it was a great tale, really satisfying story. And we did confirm that the J.P. Morgan watch was in a collector's hands. And so it had not been lost. After I wrote that story, I started hearing from... Watch collectors, watchmakers who basically said, I know about this watch. Can you help me find it? Or I have this watch. I'm trying to prove that it was owned by so-and-so. And a lot of those stories didn't pass the smell test. But I wound up... on the phone with a watchmaker from Maine, a very nice guy. And we were talking about a watch of his and he was trying to confirm its provenance. So we talked for a while. And he said, listen, if you want a great story, you need to talk to my friend Bill Anderson. He's out on the West Coast in Oregon. And he has this clock that he believes was owned by John F. Kennedy. And, you know, obviously that that got my attention. And the watchmaker from Maine connected me with Bill Anderson and I called him and this is in January of 2022. And I was just. immediately taken by Bill. Bill is now 95. You know, he was in his he was maybe 92, 93 when we first connected. And he just is plain spoken and has a great sense of humor and really had a wonderful attitude about his hunt and his quest to prove this watch had been owned by JFK. And one thing I love, which I don't believe was in the story, is that. he wasn't really a fan of JFK. He told me that he was a Republican. And it was tidbits like that that really endeared him to me and made me think that, you know, this was a journey that I wanted to go on. You know, sometimes the story is a great story, but you have to think about whether you actually want to be involved with this source for months or years to come. And he was great. And so... We kind of began doing interviews and I began researching it. And the biggest I should probably say, like the biggest point or two early on that piqued my interest. Right. Because I think people hear somebody bought a watch on eBay, which is what Bill Anderson did back in 1999. And red flags immediately go up. Bill told me that he bought this clock on eBay in 1999. from an East Coast antiques dealer who had picked it up at an estate sale in Massachusetts. And Bill bought it for $280. And he told me he was not even interested in the fact that it had the JFK initials initially. He just liked the design and the craftsmanship and had a real soft spot for Chelsea clocks. And... As he began his research, he reached out to Chelsea and he basically requested something like a certificate of authenticity, right? And he provided them with a serial number. And there was a blank spot where it should have listed the name of the person who bought this clock. back in the early 1950s. And when he reached out to Chelsea about this, they couldn't really tell him why. And he continued to research this and came to learn that the Kennedy family had an association with Chelsea Clock and that JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, had at least on one occasion visited their headquarters around this time and had bought some clocks. And these details really made him wonder about what he had in his hands. And then before long, he comes across a photograph on the Internet of JFK and his wife, Jacqueline. at home in the early 1950s, and on the desk where JFK is sitting is a Chelsea Comet that looks identical to this one. Now, the resolution is poor, and you can't see whether there's an engraving on the base, but it is undeniably a Chelsea Comet, which is a pretty distinctive look. It's a ship's wheel clock. And these are the early details that... really made him curious, not just curious. He really believed that this was JFK's clock. And that's what he told me early on. And that's what piqued my interest, too. |
| James Stacey | And so you get on the phone call and you get connected with this guy, one watchmaker to another, and he's able to share this level of sort of a trail of evidence or possible evidence or at least like enough to get you to the first commercial break in a, you know, in an hour long TV special about this, you know. Where do you kind of step in as like the researcher turned historian turned sleuth, all kind of combined into one and like pick up the story? Is it something where you're kind of constantly in contact with him or do you kind of take those details and start to run with it? |
| Daniel Miller | I sort of took those details and began to run with it. And basically what I described to you is what he told me and that's the information he left with me. You know, he's in his 90s. I think Bill would be happy to say he's not necessarily Internet savvy. He does have an email address. But in terms of the the the the amazing research you can do with old archives and other sources online, I'm not sure, you know, that's his expertise. But that's something that I could immediately take the ball and run with. Sure. And there were a bunch of avenues to pursue. I mean, I think it's worth also just describing Chelsea clock because I had to learn about this company. This is like this old line American company been around for more than a century, um, based in Massachusetts. It does have a long history, which I learned of, of, of association with the U S government and with many presidents. So many 20th century presidents, uh, had Chelsea clocks, uh, in the white house, um, And, you know, that was the case for JFK. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. So the possibility here is not really that far flung, especially once you have you add in the photo of I mean, this is a fairly like from a from a research standpoint, fairly distinctive looking clock. It's you know, it's kind of like a ship's wheel in a yoke with the the clock face, quite a beautiful sort of traditional English style clock face in the center of the of the ship's wheel. |
| Daniel Miller | That's right. Yeah. And the ship's wheel design is something that Chelsea used over and over again in several different models. They had nautical ties. Their time pieces were on U.S. Navy ships, including during World War II. This was part of their heritage. You know, there were other uncanny details that, you know, made this kind of pass the smell test in some ways. JFK was a big collector of nautical art. It was not out of the question for him to have, you know, a ship's wheel clock. And of course, we had the photo to show that. So I connected with an executive at Chelsea, Tony LaChapelle, and we did an interview about Bill and his clock. And as our story indicates, you know, Chelsea clock and Tony were not making any grand pronouncement. This indeed was JFK's clock, but he was certainly open to the idea that it could have been. And he found it pretty far fetched, you know, sitting here in 2025 that somebody would have taken a random clock and gone to the trouble to engrave it using a technique of engraving that isn't really used anymore, but would have been used back in the 1950s. He found that far fetched. And so the company and Tony were certainly open to the idea that this was JFK's. Bill Anderson told me that years ago. when he initially contacted Chelsea, that the person he spoke to sort of asked him a leading question, something to the effect of like, hey, so what do you plan to do with that clock? And Bill came away with the impression that Chelsea was interested in buying it from him. So that was another little detail where, you know, it was not a smoking gun, but it suggested to Bill that this thing was legit. Right. So there was a big... open question in this story, in this hunt, and that was about the photograph. It seemed to me that a higher resolution version of the photograph of Kennedy and his wife with the clock could help solve this mystery, right? If you could blow up that image and home in on the place where the engraving would be, you could see if it said JFK. And obviously, if it matched, game over. This proved surprisingly difficult. The photo that Bill had was a tiny, tiny, super low resolution version, and he found it online years earlier, and he couldn't remember where he found it. And there are tens of thousands, if not more, photographs of John F. Kennedy on the Internet. And simple Google searches like JFK plus clock do not get you there. Although maybe now they will with our story being out in the world. And so this was a road that I went down that was largely, you know, me taking the ball and running with it that Bill wasn't involved in. And it was fascinating. So. I wound up doing a reverse image search with this picture that Bill had provided me. And I will spare all the various rabbit holes I went down. But suffice to say, what I wound up figuring out was that this image was used in a trading card set. in the 1960s once Kennedy became president. And it was issued just like baseball cards would be issued. And it was really it was a trading card set of JFK and his life spanning the years. So there'd be, you know, JFK giving a speech, JFK with his wife, with his family. And here we had JFK at home with his wife, with the clock on the desk. And this was one of the trading cards. And I think I have it here. So I wound up, well, I should say before I rummage around, I wound up finding the trading card for sale on eBay for just a few dollars. And I bought the trading card. And actually, it's right here. So this is the trading card. And you probably can't see it too well. But it says, study time. Looking like any young American college couple, the senator and his wife get down to an evening of study after dinner. And it's number 109 in this set, which was made by Rosanne Printing Corp. in Brooklyn, New York. And so this was issued in the early 1960s. And I found this card. I bought it on eBay. And it's undeniably the same image. Unfortunately, the clock has cropped out of this version of it. So didn't fit with their formatting. So once I figured out... Once I figured out that the card was in this set, I had to figure out who took these photographs because it seemed to me that the images in the set were licensed and I needed to know who the trading card company had licensed it from. I wound up figuring out that the photograph was taken by a really prominent... photographer named Orlando Suero. And Orlando Suero is probably best known for his Hollywood portraits during the golden age of Hollywood. |
| Unknown | Okay. |
| Daniel Miller | And he also is very well known for a multi-day shoot he did with the Kennedys in the early 1950s. And it was his first major assignment as a photographer, which is a pretty amazing gig to get right out of the gate. And it launched his career. And, you know, when he died just a few years ago, his obituary makes mention of this time with the Kennedys and how formative it was for him. And he had died before I could interview him, but I wound up speaking with his son. You know, none of this is in the story. This is a bit of how the sausage was made. His son told me more details about this shoot and a few other tidbits related to the photo agency at the time that had paid for him to do this assignment. And all of these details were really key because now I could, you know. get on Google and I had all sorts of information that I could kind of use to triangulate things. And armed with the name of the photo agency, armed with Orlando's name, information about the trading card set, I could, you know, I could really go to town on Google. And the Eureka moment was so bizarre because it was... punching in various search terms. And the top item in the Google results was a business insider story from 2023. It had nothing to do with the clock or Kennedy or anything like that. But it made mention of Kennedy and I clicked the link and there was the photo and it said courtesy of Getty Images. And once I knew Getty Images was the entity who owned these this picture like that opened the doors to sort of finishing the story off. |
| James Stacey | That's fascinating. And I think we can get to the next step because it takes you somewhere very interesting, you know, where this photo was living. But before we get there, I mean, let's let's take a little a little detour. Do you have like when you approach one of these stories because you've done so many of them and with so many different topics, like I figure if you only ever did this for clocks and watches once found on eBay that might have provenance, you would have sort of a playbook. But for the broader spectrum of going into this, you started this story years ago. Do you have sort of a playbook? Do you have moves? Or do you just kind of take every thread until it unravels all the way and then reset to whatever the next thread is? |
| Daniel Miller | Well, I think it's a great question. I think a move, if you want to call it a move, is having the luxury or the discipline to let the story kind of marinate. There was a version of the story that was on a much tighter timeline that probably didn't end up with me buying a trading card on eBay and connect and connecting with the son of this eminent photographer. And you could tell a pretty good yarn without all of that. Right. So I think it's, you know. Fate kind of leading me to put this on the shelf for months and months at a time and picking it up when I had a spark of an idea or a free moment. I think I think, you know, there's that element. And and I think that it's being open to following these strange avenues, even if you know it's going to elongate the process. I never would have thought that like I'd be buying a trading card on eBay, like I keep mentioning. But I mean, it's the sort of detail that I love and I love those as a reporter. And I'm sure you can relate. I love the like unexpected detour that actually is is is worth the effort. |
| James Stacey | I mean, sometimes it's not worth the effort, but but in this case, it was, you know. And when you hit one of these, when you get the when you figured out the trading card, found it on eBay. maybe even before buying it, are you going back to Bill and saying, Bill, I found this photo. I think I found another step in its ownership. It's the custodial rights of this image. Maybe we're a bit closer. Are you kind of filling him in or are you waiting until you have something more substantive to go back to him? |
| Daniel Miller | In this case, I waited before I had something more substantive, partly because I remember kind of cluing in Bill as to what had been going on. And, you know, Bill is not like an eBay user. And I think he what I had told him initially left him with more questions. So I thought, let me kind of tie this up a little more neatly before I bring it back to him. The people that I probably told about at first were my wife and kids who probably all rolled their eyes to varying degrees. But, you know, they know my my passion about this stuff is real. |
| James Stacey | So take us to the next kind of the next step in the story, tracking down this image somewhere with Getty, right? |
| Daniel Miller | That's right. So now I have this information. I know that Getty is the custodian of this image, owns this image. I work for a newspaper with a relationship with Getty Images. So I reached out to our own photo department and explained the situation. I think they were kind of amused by it. It's not the sort of request that they get from a reporter. The first thing we did was actually, you know, license the image from Getty. Sort of, we knew we were going to be using it in a story. And... A colleague connected me with the director of the Getty Images Archive. He's a guy named Bob Ahern. I hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly. Bob was great because he immediately got the story and immediately wanted to help. And again, probably a strange request, but I sort of knew then that I had people who... also wanted to come up with an answer for Bill, which was sort of, you know, our our North Star. Obviously, we wanted a great yarn for our readers, but we wanted to help Bill, you know, find out the truth about his clock. And so Bob told me. that the original photo negative was held at a secure underground facility in rural Pennsylvania called the Iron Mountain. That's cool. Yeah, so it's a... It's a former limestone mine that was converted into this ultra secure storage facility. It has private and government clients who use it to store all manner of archival material. You know, there are armed guards. There are refrigerated vaults. As I say these things, I'm picturing like a Bond villain lair, though I know it's not that sinister. It's a fascinating place. I did not get a chance to go there. I don't even know if the public is allowed. |
| James Stacey | OK, kind of in my mind, I had to I was forced to create a picture. And I was thinking of if you know the movie Tenet from a couple of years ago. Yeah. The Oslo Freeport they go to where you could suck all the air out of the room and no fire can possibly happen and all that kind of stuff. And that was kind of what I was imagining as I was reading that part of the story. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, I mean, that's a great image. I do know the movie. But it's a place, you know, where government secrets are stored and where photo negatives are stored. It's this vast cornucopia of archival material, both physical and digital. I was connected with an archivist who was physically going to track down this negative for me and use their, you know, scanning equipment to digitize it and blow it up at the highest possible resolution. And it wasn't going to happen immediately. It wasn't like the next day I woke up and I had an email with the image. But, you know, in a few days I was going to receive an email with this. So that's all it took was a few days. And I honestly think it was just a few days because it was like a weekend, you know, they and I should say this is a repository of millions and millions of photographs. Getty Getty Images basically manages. an entity called the Bettman Archive. And the Bettman Archive is what held this photo negative. The photo credit on the Business Insider website basically connected us to this underground vault, 10 stories or more below ground. And we get an image soon. I get this image. It's a massive file, 150 megabytes for one image. And obviously, you know, my heart's kind of beating. I hadn't told Bill about this yet because I really wanted to sort of get my ducks in a row and come to him with the complete story. But I see the email. I see this massive file. I click it and it's downloading. And my heart's kind of racing, you know, wondering if this quarter century mystery is going to be solved for Bill. And what would it mean? What would it mean for, you know? JFK's horological legacy. We know he has, there's several famous watches of his that have sold at auction for tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. And all these things are going through my mind as I'm opening this file and I open the file and I'm hitting, you know, command plus and zooming in as fast as I can and homing over the base of the clock and it's blank. So where there should have been a little plate engraved with JFK, it's blank. There's nothing there. And obviously my heart sunk, you know. I'm just a reporter. I'm just, you know, conveying the facts. But, you know, I thought, you know, I thought this would have been amazing for Bill. I knew either way I had a story and that this journey was interesting, especially when it came to involve the Iron Mountain and all these strange details. But, you know, I wanted to be able to bring this great news to Bill. And so... I was disappointed for him when when I saw that it was blank and I had to get on the phone with him and tell him. And, you know, I was nervous about that. I wasn't sure how he would react, whether he'd be despondent, whether he would not trust the findings. I really didn't know what he might say. |
| James Stacey | And yeah, I guess after all this time and all this planning and then, you know, making what I can and I'll ask this question in a moment, but like what I can only assume is kind of a careful explanation of your research and to say you have this photo somewhere in your mountain. Feel free to find it for me. I can't believe how quickly they're able to turn that around. But then, yeah, then you've got to call them and tell them, you know, it's not in the photo, which I guess in some ways isn't like a it's absolutely not. It wasn't engraved two days later or something like that. But we know as of the date of that photo, it wasn't it's unlikely to be the exact same clock. How did that conversation go? Bill was quiet at first. |
| Daniel Miller | He, you know, he wasn't cursing up a storm. He wasn't shouting. I think he just kind of sat with the information. I mean, I think it's fair to say he was disappointed, although he might quibble with that. He's told me since that he wasn't disappointed. And... The reason he says he wasn't disappointed is because for him, the journey has been invigorating and the chance to connect with me, but also to connect with all the people that he had connect with for many years doing his own research, including with, you know, the Kennedy Library and and and other people and other other entities. It was invigorating. And Bill lost his wife a couple of years ago. They were married for many decades and had a beautiful marriage, had five children. And I think it's fair to say that the last couple of years have been hard. And to have this kind of caper with this random reporter from the Los Angeles Times, I think was was really fun for him. And so he said, you know, ultimately, you know, that he wasn't disappointed. And maybe most notably, he's continuing his hunt. I spoke to him just a couple days ago, and he wanted to spin some new theories. As you might imagine, our story, we got a lot of reaction from readers, including from... photographers who had a lot of thoughts about the scanning equipment that might have been used in the Iron Mountain and how images might be distorted over time and things of that nature. And so clearly this is a tale that, you know, has captured some people's imagination. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's fascinating. I love to hear that about Bill. I also I do love the idea that obviously it's not like this clock was Bill's entire life, just like it's not your entire life, but it is this sort of like side quest. that gives you a little bit of a certain type of energy or a certain type of focus that you can shift in and out of. And I'm sure like you, there were times where he was investing time and effort into this, and there were times when he was investing his time and effort into other things. So to some extent, I could kind of understand not feeling disappointed, but feeling a sense of like, all right, we've got another chapter. Because this is a no of a certain type, but it's not JFK saying that's not my clock. You know what I mean? |
| Daniel Miller | Exactly. And you mentioned a few moments ago something that is worth pointing out, which is that the photo was taken in the early 1950s. JFK roughly lived for another decade, and it's certainly possible that it was engraved after the photo was taken. I did hear from one JFK scholar who said that there is a history of the Kennedy family bestowing items, personal effects of John Kennedy and his wife to, you know, people who were in their orbit, like, you know, a staff member that they really felt close to. And some of those personal items got engraved before they were given. to to staff members. You know, I mean, that makes sense. Totally makes sense. I also heard from, you know, at least one expert. He's quoted in the story. He's an author who wrote about the design of the White House during the Kennedy presidency, you know, who pointed out that, look, if this was a this was a special item to the Kennedys, it likely would have been inventoried at some point along the way. And it was not. Or perhaps it might have even been sold at a very famous Sotheby's auction in the 1990s after Jackie Kennedy died, in which lots of personal items from the couple were auctioned off. And so, you know, he was skeptical, let's say. But what I discovered was not conclusive proof, you know, saying that this was not the clock that Kennedy owned. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where you have to accept there's a possibility that the clock was put on his table for this photo shoot, for the staging for this photo shoot, and over the next week he decided he liked this clock and it was like that, or it could have been this gift thing, or there's another guy with these initials out there that's also a fan of Chelsea clocks, right? I mean, like, any of that's possible. The one thing I don't want to miss, I don't want to forget my curiosity on this, is... So you're dealing with Getty and they go, no problem, we'll go into our super secret facility and find your one photo from this archive. What information did they want to help narrow down the hunt? Because I'm sure it wasn't, or I guess maybe they just have it all in, like they were able to take the image and essentially do an internal image lookup with the, and maybe it's that easy. Did they need all of the other information you found, the photographer, the reason it was photographed, the playing card context, all of that? |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, do you want me to even just tell you what I told them? Oh yeah, please. I sent them an email in June 2024 and I shared with them the details of my reporting up to then and a link to the Getty Images URL where the photo existed. And I also explained that I'd spoken with the photographer's son who had told me a bit more of the backstory of the image and how it came to be. Bob Ahern, the the director of the Archive of Getty, basically replied. the same day and said he was on it. And as far as I recall, I don't think I needed to provide them with any other details. |
| James Stacey | I guess if it was on the Getty, like if it's on, if it has that like eight or nine or 10 digit reference number that they use, that you can use to kind of move through all of their properties, then maybe that's, maybe it's that easy. They're the archives that good. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you click on an image on... If you go to the sort of homepage of an image on the Getty Images website, there's all sorts of internal information pretty clearly that they can use to track stuff down. Yeah, I was really impressed that Getty Images was so on it, but also that they were game. You know, it did strike me that there are probably... hundreds of incredible stories buried in that archive, right? And I have hinted to them that I'd be so curious to hear about some of the ones that they're really scratching their heads about. But of course, this is a business. They're licensing photos all day, every day and doing other things. And so I'm sure they've got their hands full. Yeah, for sure. |
| James Stacey | Look, man, that's a great story, and I really appreciate having all the additional context. I don't want to keep you for too much longer than we had kind of said we would, but I am curious, do you have, at any given time, you don't have to give any hints onto what you're working on now, but how many of these sort of channels of stories do you have going at any one time? Are you always kind of chasing down, you know, you've got a fantastic map behind you there on the wall. Are you always hunting for some sort of treasure, but there might be multiple going at a time? |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, I always like to have a few of these out there in the ether. I remember hearing, and this is a famous example, but I think J.J. Abrams has talked about this mystery box that he had as a kid. I think maybe his father had given it to him. And and he didn't know what was in it. And he he may have not he might have not been allowed to open it. And just sort of the question of what was in it was like invigorating to him. And and I have a few stories that are similarly open ended, either because I don't have the time or it's not, you know, part of my day job at the moment that I they're sort of simmering out there. Some of them are related to horologies. Some of them are not. But I kind of think of it in a way as like putting a marker down, right? And I also, not to be morbid, know that, you know, people get old and people pass away. And when I... have the spark of an idea. I want to, you know, jump on it initially, do some of that legwork to see if it's viable and at least have that tucked away. And look, sure, Bill Anderson is 95 and he is about as spry and healthy of a 95 year old as you could ever want. But, you know, he's aware of his own mortality. He talked about giving away his clocks and other timepieces to his children. And it was important to me that we get the story done and that we get this one out there. |
| James Stacey | Well, look, Daniel, this has been fabulous. I'm sure we're going to have a great response to it on the TGN Slack. And if I could tempt you with an invite to the Slack, if you'd like to talk to people more about it, I think it could be a pretty good time, as I'm sure there'll be some questions. And I would be very surprised if you weren't offered a few more mysteries for your time. As you said, that's part of what comes with the territory. But man, it's just an absolute treat to have you on. And thanks so much for the story and for bringing it to me. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, thank you, James. I always appreciate your enthusiasm for stories like this. I know that it's something that you like personally, but also you spotlight tales like this at Hodin Key, and I love reading those. So it's a privilege to get to tell you the story here. |
| James Stacey | All right, so if anybody would like to follow along, what's the best way to do so? Obviously, the LA Times would be the first option, but you've got a solid Instagram as well. |
| Daniel Miller | Yeah, the LA Times, you know, is a place where you can see my other kind of journeys into the neurological realm, like the JP Morgan story. I have been using my work Instagram, which is just Daniel Noah Miller, to spotlight some of the work I'm doing, both watch-related and otherwise. And yeah, I'm always on the lookout for good tales. So for selfless reasons, I think I will happily join the Slack. |
| James Stacey | well fantastic look we'll put all of that in the show notes and again thank you so much daniel it's been an absolute treat thanks james |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well, that's great. You know, I mean, I would normally say that was a really great interview, but we're recording this just, you know, almost minutes after you finished with Daniel and you took this one on yourself. So I have yet to hear it. I will probably listen to it on Thursday and probably download it for my flight to Toronto. So it'll be fresh, like for everybody else. But I did read the story that was linked out, his story in the LA Times from Hodinkee a few days ago. Great topic. And I just love stories like this. So really cool. I'm excited to listen to it. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I think it was a great chat. A huge thank you to Daniel for being on and to the LA Times for giving Daniel the space to work on stories like this. I mean, I help run a fairly major watch publication. I don't know if we could invest multiple sort of years of time and attention. into somebody putting together stories like this. But I had a really good time with it, and it's always nice to catch up with Daniel. And a really cool watch, that Breitling that he had on his wrist for wrist check. So a big thanks to Daniel for that. And why don't we jump into a little bit of final notes? You've got an interesting one. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I do. It's a watch strap. So, you know, I've been doing a lot of article link outs and videos lately. This is actually a product and it's from the Australian strap purveyor Artem, A-R-T-E-M. And they reached out to me with a new strap that they've kind of come out with called the Loopless Hydroflex. Artem is a brand that we've talked about before, I think. that has kind of done a lot with sailcloth straps and really high quality sailcloth straps. And I've had one that I've swapped out sometimes onto my Blancpan 50 Fathoms. It's very akin to the one that comes on a Blancpan, but Artem offers different colors. They're far less expensive. They're definitely not cheap straps, but they're less expensive than the OEM straps. And you can get them with either a pin buckle or a fold-over deployant clasp. And so Artem was kind enough to send me two of these Loopless Hydroflex, which is this rubber, kind of a textured rubber. So it looks like sailcloth, but it's this really thin, pliable rubber material. And it has a deployant clasp that... I'm not usually a deployant fold-over guy on a rubber strap with a sports watch. But I just found when I put it on, he sent me a 23 millimeter in black that I put onto my 50 fathoms. And it just, when that is dialed in and adjusted just right, you know, you get the hole right in the clasp. The fold over, it's just really, it makes the watch really comfortable. It just, you can kind of really dial it in nice and snug without it feeling, you know. constrictive and the clasp feels good and secure. And I think of the Artem's I've tried, the sailcloths can be a little stiff at first. These rubber straps are just tremendously comfortable and very pliable. So thanks to Artem for sending that sample over and I'm looking forward to wearing that quite a bit. Yeah, check it out. Like I said, they're not inexpensive. I mean, these are $250 straps with a high-quality deployant. But again, if you're looking for something for one of your nicer watches that might match something you might get as an OEM strap, I think it's a nice option. |
| James Stacey | Nice. Yeah, very good. I like the range of colors. And I mean, just from first glance on the website, you would think it's leather. Yeah, right. Some of these kind of look like that old array of like the Braymont leather straps, which were, I think, even more costly than what Artem's asking. But I love the idea that they're both thin and something that's going to be quite long lasting. |
| Jason Heaton | So cool stuff. |
| James Stacey | All right. What do you have? Yeah, mine this week is actually a song that I've been kind of hooked on recently. So it's by a band called the Broody Brothers. And the Broody Brothers are actually three brothers. And I think a lot of you, if you spend a lot of time on social media, would probably know the Broody Brothers for a song that got quite popular. called Me More Cowboy Than You. And it's about a guy kind of comparing who's more cowboy from like a style standpoint. It's a great song. And I can include that in the show notes. But as I've gone deeper, I really enjoy the album. It's sort of a mix of bluegrass and blues and old school country. And I just absolutely love it. Incredible vocals, great performances. And then I've been getting deep enough to go into like live stuff from theirs on YouTube. And I was watching a bunch of it over the weekend. And I came across a cover that they do of one of my favorite songs of all time, which is House of the Rising Sun by The Animals. And I don't know how much of this can play. Worst case, we get kicked off of Spotify. And honestly, I hate Spotify. So that's fine. I'll play at least a little bit of their cover of House of the Rising Sun. So give it a listen. Maybe we won't get in too much trouble. |
| Unknown | Well, there he is. Say hi. |
| James Stacey | I think it's an absolute winner. I think the whole album's great. Check out the band if you have any interest in this. But if you just wanted an intro to sort of their style, their sound, the vocal quality, this is a live cover. And like I said, it's just one of my favorite songs. So that's the Broody Brothers covering House of the Rising Sun by The Animals. And I recommend and I will include in the show notes a few other links to what the band is up to. |
| Jason Heaton | Very cool. Well, great episode. Let me start that over. All right. Well, fun episode to fit in ahead of our big weekend ahead with the Toronto Timepiece Show. And, of course, next week for people that tune in that didn't come to Toronto and weren't able to sit in at our 2.30 p.m. Saturday live recording of TGN. Next week's episode will be that. It will be that episode that we record live at the Timepiece Show. And we'll have some fun guests and some fun things planned for that. So be sure to check that out. But in the meantime, enjoy the one with Daniel Miller. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Good times. And I will be seeing you soon. And for everybody else, as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| James Stacey | And we leave you with this quote from the great Ray Bradbury. Goodness sakes, James. Bradbury. And we leave you with this quote from Ray Bradbury who said, Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers. |