It began, as these things do, with a spreadsheet.

A collection had outgrown its keeper’s reliable recall, and the spreadsheet accounted for roughly half of it.

Columns had been added over the years — reference, serial, what it cost, what it might fetch now — and, being a spreadsheet, it quietly went out of date whenever it was left alone, which was most of the time.

The questions it failed to answer were dull ones, which is precisely why they mattered. What is actually in the drawer. What did I pay for it. When did this one last see daylight. And the least comfortable of them: if it went missing tomorrow, could I describe it well enough for anyone to stand a chance of finding it.

So The Rotation was built to answer them

References, serials, photographsin the form a claim or a police report asks for.

What was on the wristso the pieces you never wear stop hiding behind the two you always do.

Paid against worthwithout pretending either number is gospel.

Never a saleat no point does it offer to sell your watch.

A collector’s rotation is the handful of watches worn in turn. The Rotation keeps its record.

For the collectors who have seen it, the absence of a sell button has been the feature they didn’t know they were missing.

A filing cabinet with good manners.