Our story didn't start in a boardroom, but in a classroom at the Polytechnic of Turin. While studying Management Engineering, my brother and I pooled our savings to buy our first vintage piece: a gold-plated Omega Constellation. It looked beautiful in our eyes, but the reality was a wake-up call. The plating was failing, the lume was gone, and the movement was unreliable. We managed to sell it and barely break even, but we earned our first and most important lesson: you must intimately know the product you buy. We learned that aesthetics are just as important as mechanical solidity, and that in the vintage world, finding the right people to trust is the only way to build a real collection.
Graduating as Management Engineers didn't cool our passion, it gave us a lens. We realized that while a vintage watch is a storytelling instrument, it is also a complex technical system. We started applying engineering-grade rigor to our collection: obsessing over serial numbers, movement health, and production data. We aren't looking for sterile perfection, a vintage watch should show its "honest life", but we are looking for the absolute technical truth. We decided to use our background to bring transparency to a market that was often too hidden and opaque.
After a year navigating the startup world under the Polytechnic of Turin’s patronage, I reached a crossroads. The startup didn't take off, but my drive to build something real did. I decided to turn my technical expertise and deep-rooted passion into a profession. This year marked a natural evolution in our journey: as my brother and I decided to follow different professional paths, I took the lead to turn our shared passion into a solo mission. I officially launched my first professional entity, focusing on a new standard of honesty and detail-oriented storytelling that I felt was missing in the industry.
The vision found its name: Ad Astra. While I remained at the helm, I realized that professional excellence requires more than a single set of hands. I began assembling our "hidden skeleton", a dedicated network of specialists who form the infrastructure of the brand. By collaborating with independent master watchmakers, cinematic storytellers, and technical researchers, Ad Astra evolved from a solo mission into a collective effort. This structure allows us to offer a 10 out of 10 standard of service, ensuring that every watch is backed by a robust professional ecosystem.
Today, we are challenging the idea that vintage watches belong in a safe. For too long, these pieces have been treated as fragile artifacts or static investments. We are here to demystify the vintage world and prove that these instruments were built to be lived in. With our 2026 rebranding, our mission is to provide you with mechanical companions for your daily life, robust, verified, and ready for the road ahead. Your watch has already survived decades of history, it’s time it starts telling yours!
