What makes Stu Gleich tick? This seems like a reasonable question to ask about a dedicated horologist—someone who studies and often buys, sells and collects wristwatches and other timepieces. So, I decided to find out more about the man and what motivates him in his personal and professional pursuits. Here’s what I learned.

Although Gleich makes his living in optical sales, horology is a consuming interest. However, he approaches both with a similar attitude. For Gleich, the search for that special watch, along with the transactions that are part of the experience, is not just about the thrill of the hunt and the pleasure of owning a beautiful object. It’s also about the relationships he forms along the way.

“For me, if you meet another watch enthusiast, that's it,” he told me recently. “It's a conversation that can continue for as long as you're together. Even people I meet who are not watch enthusiasts will ask me, ‘What’s that you’re wearing? Could you tell me a little bit about it?’ So it's an icebreaker.”

That desire to connect, communicate and share knowledge is what drives Gleich, the horologist. It’s also what makes him an effective salesperson who has been instrumental in the success of the many contact and spectacle lens companies he has represented throughout his nearly five-decade career. And it informs another of his interests, collecting bootleg music recordings, which I’ll get to shortly.

A Lifelong Fascination With Time and Technology

Gleich’s fascination with watches began early. “I was always interested in watches as a kid,” he recalled. “I remember having one of the first Seiko digital combination watches, which had both digital and regular watch faces. But I waited until I was about 40 years old before I really delved in and bought a Rolex, because everybody said you should own one.

"That’s when I really started investing some money in it. Tourneau [the now defunct but once-popular New York City watch store] had a special sale and I took advantage of it. It was a beautiful watch, but it kept horrible time. I ended up trading it for a Panerai, which is also a high-end manufacturer. That got the ball rolling. Now I have a nice, small collection, but I don't have watches that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Gleich appreciates precision technology and craft in both optics and watches. About the latter, he speaks admiringly of the inner workings that consist of “a tiny mechanism that sits on the wrist and does the most amazing things with incredible accuracy. It beats faster than the human heart, and it’s constantly entwined with its mechanism, which controls ‘complications’ such as keeping a perpetual date. 

“There are watches that follow the phases of the moon,” he continued. “There are watches that play a chime. They make a statement about the person wearing it.”




Gleich’s original 1965 Bulova Accutron Spaceview.
…and his Accutron 2020 Electrostatic.
    
Gleich favors watches with unusual shapes and designs, stellar craftmanship or ones that have a unique provenance. He points with pride to his original 1965 Bulova Accutron Spaceview. Introduced in 1962, the Accutron wristwatch was adopted by NASA’s Mercury 7 astronauts, U.S. Air Force and civilian test pilots, and by CIA pilots flying the A12 reconnaissance aircraft.

This rara avis is prized by collectors for the internal humming tuning fork that powers its workings. “I love to hold that baby up to my ear and listen to that tuning fork just hum its little heart out!” Gleich told me, excitedly. Gleich is such an Accutron fan that he also owns the 2020 Electrostatic edition.

Another beauty from Gleich’s collection is the Rondo Smile Day. It’s designed by Alain Silberstein, a Frenchman who originally was an architect and is known as “the architect of horology.” “He combines the science or discipline of architecture with the manufacture of high-end watches,” explained Gleich. “He embraces the primary colors. On the Rondo Smile Day, he uses red, blue and yellow.”

  
 Rondo Smile Day.
 A Hamilton Ventura Automatic like the one Elvis Presley wore in Blue Hawaii.
    
Silberstein’s timepiece is aptly named because of its complication—a tiny face that changes expression on certain days. One might see a frown for a day or two. Then a line might appear that makes the watch’s face seem undecided. The next few days the smile becomes more pronounced. “These watches have amazing intrinsic value and beauty,” said Gleich, adding that the Rondo Smile Day, which he bought in 2005, still keeps perfect time.

Many of Gleich’s watches come with a backstory. One that he likes to tell involves a Hamilton Ventura Automatic Limited Edition 50th Anniversary, a triangle-shaped gem inspired by the original Quartz Model worn by Elvis Presley in the film "Blue Hawaii."

“It’s an automatic watch. The motion of your body winds it,” Gleich explained, pointing out the difference between an automatic timepiece and a digital one. “I bought it at a store in Princeton, New Jersey. It was really cool. But being older, I couldn't see the markings easily, even with the best optical correction. So my son put it up on Craigslist where it was found by a man in Switzerland who is president of the Eric Clapton fan club there and is a music collector. I traded the watch for tickets to see Eric Clapton and his band, two nights in a row, from sixth row center seats in London’s Royal Albert Hall. My love of watches and music came together for an amazing eight-day trip.”


Ticket stubs for Eric Clapton concerts at Royal Albert Hall, London.

  
Like his infatuation with watches, Gleich’s love of music started when he was young. As a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, he often traveled to Manhattan to see bands perform at the legendary Fillmore East and other venues. As an adult, he discovered and then joined a thriving subculture of people who share bootleg recordings of live concerts. These unauthorized recordings are made by either audience members or taken directly from the audio engineer’s soundboard. Some studio recording sessions are also bootlegged.

 
 Stu Gleich.
  
“This all stems from a passion for Bruce Springsteen and his music and a discussion board called Luckytown.org for Bruce Springsteen enthusiasts,” Gleich told me. “I saw that people were trading shows. I'm talking about a Bruce Springsteen show that, two days later, somebody was already was offering a recording of. This was back in the day, around 1995, before Napster or YouTube. I would go on the internet and search for private collectors. Our sole purpose was the enjoyment and preservation of the music.”

Today, Gleich owns about 8,000 bootlegs of various artists’ performances that are recorded to DVD and other formats. He organizes the discs in binders and maintains a list of recordings that he shares with other enthusiasts who trade, but do not sell the music.


 
A few of Gleich’s bootleg recordings.
 
  



 
A bootleg recording of a 1973 White House performance by Frank Sinatra.

Gleich organizes his collection of more 300 discs in these binders.
 



 
“My motivation has always been my love of the music and sharing the music,” he said. “Over the years I’ve traded with people from every country on the planet. I've had friendships because of the music. We know a family from Switzerland who have stayed at our home in New Jersey twice, and it was all based upon a love of the music.”

Gleich applies the same energy to optical sales as he does to collecting watches and trading bootlegs. Throughout his 46-year career, he’s put his talents to work for an array of manufacturers and distributors, mostly in the contact lens segment, including American Optical, AoSoft/Softcon, National Patents, American Hydron, Target Industries and ABB Optical. He presently serves as regional director of sales for Blutech Lenses and also reps Dover Eye Lab, a wholesale start-up based in New Jersey that was recently profiled in Vision Monday.

Asked if he sees a thread connecting horology, music and optical, Gleich replied, “The precision and discipline that are applied to all three is the running theme that ties them together for me. Precision must be applied when music is played, when watches are designed and built, and achieving visual acuity is a precise science and discipline.

“I'm a very passionate person,” said Gleich. “I believe it's a much more fulfilling existence if you’re passionate about something. For me, it’s watches, music and the optical business.”

That’s what makes Stu Gleich tick.