想認識鐘錶同好？你應該follow的錶迷社群！@the.horology.club
鐘錶社群是為了什麼而存在？除了在談笑之間，交流鐘錶知識與資訊，還有更多可能性，根基在香港的「The Horology Club」抱持這樣的期許運作著。這個約創立於2年前的鐘錶社群，從最初發起的3個人，到現在近500位錶友成員，它想做的不只是把鐘錶愛好者自在地聚集在一起，最有意思的一點是它積極與品牌合作開發屬於這個俱樂部自己的產品，而這也是THC之所以誕生的起源。
THC是由Johnathan Chan、Carlos Pang、Hebert Tsang這三位朋友攜手創辦，他們居住在香港，從事金融業，都是鐘錶迷。兩三年前，他們一班朋友為了紀念友誼，委由奧地利獨立製錶品牌Habring²製作10只錶，為了在錶背上刻字而出想「The Horology Club」，從來壓根沒想過要辦腕錶社團的他們忽然一個念頭：既然名字都有了，何不就來吧！香港鐘錶社團不多，而且私密封閉，THC想創造不一樣的鐘錶社團文化，歡迎各年齡層、不同經驗水平的人加入。
THC創辦人：Helbert Tsang（左起）、Johnathan Chan與Carlos Pang。
THC除了活躍於Instgram、在Youtube上分享影片，也不定期舉辦活動，創造讓藏家們可以面對面交流的情境，此外，還透過WhatsApp與社團成員保持活絡聯繫。就如同其發起人之一Johnathan所說的，他認為鐘錶社團最好玩的部分是可以交到新朋友，最受用的部分則是在與各路同好交流後逐漸切磋出屬於自己的收藏品味、親自發現真正能引起他們共鳴的事物，而這也是THC最希望帶給參與藏家的。
THC試著創造一個沒有封閉門檻的交流場域，象徵著一種開放的、新興的賞錶態度，不受限於當前市場主流價值，樂於探索各式製錶創意。儘管三位創始人都身處在精準務實、講究損益的金融行業，不過問到他們關於玩賞或收藏鐘錶的肺腑建議反倒是「自己喜歡才是最重要的」。
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以下可進一步直接從Horoguides總編輯Eric採訪THC創始人之一Johnathan Chan的內容中了解到，THC究竟是一個什麼樣的鐘錶社團，以及它如何透過多元的運作渠道，創造賞玩鐘錶的環境與樂趣。
Horoguides（以下簡稱「HG」）：請跟我們聊聊The Horology Club成立的由來。
THC：Around 2 years ago, us 3 together with a close group of friends decided to make a watch to commemorate our friendship. This watch would be our first ever collaboration watch with Habring² - the THC School Piece. At the time, we never intended to start a watch club. But when Habring² asked us what we want to engrave on the caseback, we came up with the name "The Horology Club". As we have already come up with a name, we thought we might as well start organising events for watch collectors in Hong Kong. Most of the collector communities in HK at the time were mainly closed groups that require an extensive vetting process to enter, so we wanted to start an open and inclusive watch community that welcomes collectors of all experience levels and focuses. Watch collecting is intimidating for some as it is, so we wanted to create an environment where collectors can feel safe to connect with each other and share their watches and experiences.
We organised our first event at a cigar bar and publicised it on Instagram. Originally we thought it was only going to be the 3 of us with maybe 1 other friend, but we kept getting messages from people who wanted to join so we had to keep expanding our booking, and eventually ended up with over 20 collectors at our first event. After that our community and events just kept growing quickly, to the extent that some of our events have over 100 collectors attending and now our community consists of close to 500 local collectors and counting.
大約兩年前，我們三個和一群好友決定製作一只錶來紀念我們的友誼。這只錶會是我們與Habring²合作的首款腕錶——THC School Piece。那時候，我們未有打算創辦一個腕錶俱樂部，但當Habring²問我們想在錶背上刻甚麼時，我們想到了「The Horology Club」這個名字。既然我們已經想好了名字，我們覺得也不妨開始為在香港的腕錶收藏家舉辦活動。當時香港大多數的收藏家社群主要都是私密的團體，需要經過全面審查程序才能進入，因此我們希望建立一個開放且包容的腕錶社群，歡迎各個經驗水平和各種目標的收藏家。腕錶收藏對某些人來說是令人望而卻步的，所以我們希望創造一個環境，讓收藏家可以感覺自在地相互聯繫並分享他們的腕錶和經驗。
我們在一家雪茄吧組織了第一次活動，並在Instagram上進行了宣傳。最初我們以為只會有我們三個人，大概再多一個朋友，但我們不斷收到人們想要加入的消息，所以我們不得不持續增加預訂人數，最終我們的第一個活動有了超過20名收藏家參與。後來，我們的社群和活動持續且迅速地發展，其中我們還有一些活動有超過100名收藏家參加，而現在我們的社群也有近500位本地收藏家成員，而且還在增加。
HG：THC的使命是什麼？THC與其他腕錶俱樂部有甚麼不同？
THC：We have a 3-pronged mission statement - "Gather. Educate. Create.", which in itself makes THC different from other watch clubs. "Gather" is our bread and butter as we organise events to connect collectors with one another. We have a variety of events ranging from large-scale GTGs with 100 collectors in the same room, to more intimate private dinners for around 10-20 collectors, and we've even done a go-kart racing night to celebrate chronographs.
"Educate" refers to our efforts in sharing our knowledge on watches and educating fellow collectors through our YouTube channel and events. We believe that nobody can know everything about all watches out there and collectors should be generous with one another in sharing what they have learned, so we just want to do our part and share our own knowledge and experiences through the platform that we have built, and we encourage our members to do the same through the sharing sessions that we organise.
"Create" represents something that we are extremely passionate about and is part of the origin of THC, which is to collaborate with brands that we love to execute our own designs and create interesting pieces for our community. We are very blessed to have been able to work with a number of brands on our own creations and we look forward to sharing more of them with the world in due time, and maybe even make some of them available to collectors outside of our community.
我們有三個主要的使命宣言——「聚集、教育、創造」，這就令到THC與其他腕錶俱樂部有所不同。「聚集」是我們的根本，我們組織活動來讓收藏家彼此聯繫起來。我們舉辦各種各樣的活動，從100名收藏家同聚一堂的大型GTG，到為10到20名收藏家舉辦的、更私密的私人晚宴，我們甚至還舉辦了小型賽車之夜來紀念計時碼錶。
「教育」是指我們致力透過YouTube頻道和活動分享腕錶的知識，並培育其他收藏家。我們相信沒有人能夠了解所有腕錶的一切，收藏家也應該慷慨地分享他們所學到的知識，所以我們只是想盡自己的一分力，通過我們建立的平台分享自己的知識和經驗，我們也鼓勵會員透過我們組織的分享會做同樣的事。
「創造」代表著我們非常熱衷的一件事，也是THC起源的一部分，即與我們喜歡的品牌合作，做出我們自己的設計，並為我們的社群創作有趣的作品。我們非常幸運能夠與許多品牌合作開發我們自己的作品，也期待在適當的時候與大家分享更多的作品，甚至可能將其中一些作品提供給我們社群之外的收藏家。
HG：選擇Habring²來製作THC School Piece的原因？ Habring²的腕錶有哪些特色符合THC的使命或價值觀？未來是否還會有THC 社群的腕錶項目？
THC：In a lot of ways, the Habring² Erwin is the quintessential watch geek's watch in its price range. The deadbeat second function makes the second hand tick like a quartz watch, which renders this quite a stealthy choice. Part of our design ethos is to take inspiration from vintage watches with an injection of modern design cues to achieve a slightly offbeat concoction. In this case, our inspiration is from a particular example of Patek Philippe 570 with applied Breguet numerals, with a sector ring that is aged to a slightly green-ish tint under certain lighting. We wanted to emphasise that aging with a painted olive sector ring. This would have never been seen in a watch from the 30s/40s as green is not a colour that is commonly applied on dials at the time.
The combination of an interesting complication with our own vintage-inspired design is something that we think watch geeks would appreciate, and it seems like it resonated with at least 10 proud owners of the series. Since then, we have had the pleasure of working with various brands and we have a healthy pipeline of projects for the next few years. We can't wait to tell the world about them so watch this space.
帶有橄欖綠色軌道環的Habring² THC School Piece，是THC與品牌合作打造的第一只腕錶，具備跳秒功能，外型復古。
從很多方面來說，Habring² Erwin都是同價位手錶中典型的「極客」腕錶。跳秒功能使秒針能像石英錶一樣滴答作響，讓這款錶成為比較低調的選擇。我們的設計理念之一是從古董腕錶中汲取靈感，並注入現代設計的元素，以實現稍為有些另類的融合。在這種情況下，我們特別以PATEK PHILIPPE 570為靈感，該款錶帶有寶璣數字，其軌道環在某些照明下會舊化成微綠的色調，我們想用印製的橄欖綠軌道環來強調這種舊化的效果。這在30或40年代的腕錶中從未見過，因為綠色並非當時在錶盤上常用的顏色。
我們認為腕錶極客會欣賞這種有趣複雜功能與我們自己復古風格設計的結合，而它大概也引起了該系列至少10位擁有者的關注。從那時起，我們就與各個品牌開始了很愉快的合作，在未來幾年也會有不少項目進行。我們迫不及待地想向全世界介紹它們，請拭目以待吧。
HG：你的金融業背景如何影響你的收藏和管理THC的方式？你認為收藏腕錶是一項投資嗎？
THC：All 3 of us work in the finance industry, and we have to say that the skill set that is required in our daily jobs is quite different from those that's needed for running THC. It's precisely because we work in the finance that we don't really want to view watches as investments. At the end of the day, watch collecting is a hobby and factoring in financial gain / loss would sometimes taint one's opinion on whether something is collection-worthy.
It might be a bit cliche but we always advise people to buy what they love and if there is any financial gain then that is just the cherry on top and shouldn't be the main consideration.
我們三個人都在金融業裡工作，不得不說，我們日常工作所需的技能與運作THC所需的有很大不同。正因我們從事金融工作，我們很不想將腕錶視為投資。說到底，腕錶收藏是一種愛好，而對經濟收益/損失的考慮有時會讓人們思考某件東西是否值得收藏有著負面影響。
這可能有點陳腔濫調，但我們總是建議人們購買他們喜歡的東西，如果有任何經濟收益，也只是令這件事錦上添花，而不該成為主要的考慮因素。
HG： THC未來的計劃是甚麼？是否有即將舉辦的活動或合作？
THC：We've explained our mission statement "Gather. Educate. Create." in Q2. We are looking to continue with the development of all 3 pillars of THC over the foreseeable future, and keep on stepping up our events, our content, and our collaboration projects.
我們在Q2解釋了我們的使命宣言「聚集、教育、創造」。我們期望在可見的將來繼續發展THC的三大支柱，並繼續增加我們的活動、內容和合作項目。
HG：目前THC會員的平均年齡多少？現任會員收藏腕錶有多長時間？他們鍾意什麼品牌？
THC：The average THC member would be in their 30s to 40s. However, the range is quite large as our youngest member is in their teens and our eldest member is perhaps in their 70s. We like to promote an open and inclusive environment within THC and we welcome people of all ages and experience levels. So naturally we have attracted a community of collectors with very diverse tastes, which we very much celebrate.
The experience levels of THC members also vary a lot from people who only started in this hobby during COVID to people who have collected for decades. We think this type of environment is great as one will always get to experience watches that they have never come across in person at one of our events.
THC成員的平均年齡介乎30到40多歲。但差距相當大，因為我們最年輕的成員只有十幾歲，而我們最年長的成員可能有70多歲。我們希望在THC內創造一個開放、包容的環境，並歡迎各個年齡層和各種經驗水平的人員。因此，我們很自然地吸引到一群具有不同品味的收藏家，對此我們感到非常高興。
THC成員的經驗水平也有很大差異，從新冠疫情期間才開始從事這項愛好的人到已經收藏了幾十年的人都有。我們認為這種環境非常好，因為人們總是能在我們的活動中欣賞到之前從未親眼見過的腕錶。
HG：隨著Instagram等平台上的腕錶社群興起，你有否注意到香港或全球年輕腕錶愛好者的趨勢或偏好？
THC：With the advent of social media and Instagram, there seems to be a convergence of watch preferences among enthusiasts which is also contributed by celebrities and their watch choices. This is particularly prevalent among novice collectors who haven't had the time to really understand their own tastes, so they may go for something that they perceive to have widespread acceptance. While the internet is great for sharing information and for discovering watches that one may not have seen before, we think it's also important for collectors to discover for themselves what really resonates with them and stay true to their own tastes.
隨著社群媒體和Instagram的出現，愛好者之間的腕錶偏好似乎漸趨一致，這也是由名人及他們的腕錶選擇所造成的。這種情況在新手收藏家中尤為普遍，他們沒有時間真正了解自己的品味，因此他們可能會選擇他們認為被廣泛接受的事物。雖然網路非常適合分享資訊和探索人們以前從未見過的腕錶，但我們認為，對於收藏家來說，親自發現真正能引起他們共鳴的事物，並忠於自己品味，也是很重要的。
HG：成立THC給你最大的收穫是什麼？未來最具挑戰性的是哪方面？
THC：The fact that the community has grown from the size of around 20 to close to 500 collectors within 2 years has surprised the 3 of us. It has been such a pleasure to see the THC community blossom into this active community of watch enthusiasts. We have a WhatsApp group for our members to keep the discussion going outside of our events, and usually that is one of the most active WhatsApp groups on our phones. It's not surprising to see over 100 unread messages after coming out of a meeting. It is also quite rewarding to see some of our members discover and hone in on their taste due to the exposure that they're getting in THC. One of our members have never collected independent watches before joining THC. They have subsequently discovered independent watchmaking in THC events and is now the proud owner of a collection full of avant-garde indie pieces such as MB&F and Urwerk. In terms of challenges, I think our biggest one is finding the time to manage it all. We all have full time jobs outside of THC and also families, so THC pretty much takes up most of our remaining personal time.
兩年內社群規模從20名左右發展到近500名的收藏家，這件事讓我們三個人都感到驚訝。很高興能看到THC社群發展成為如今這麼活躍的腕錶愛好者社群。我們有一個WhatsApp群組，供會員在活動之外進行討論，這也通常是我們手機上最活躍的WhatsApp群組之一，會議結束後看到超過100條未讀訊息也不奇怪。看到我們一些會員因為在接觸THC後發現並磨練出自己的品味，這也讓我們感到很值得。我們的部分會員在加入THC之前從未收藏過獨立製錶，他們隨後在THC的活動中探索到獨立製錶，現在已經擁有一系列MB&F和Urwerk等前衛獨立製錶的收藏。就挑戰而言，我認為我們最大的挑戰是找到時間來應對這一切。在THC和家庭之外，我們都有全職工作，所以THC幾乎佔據了我們剩餘的大部分個人時間。
精彩完整內容，敬請閱覽HOROGUIDES Vol.4
