Grails did not start as a product. It began with a problem that only reveals itself after the anticipation is gone and ownership begins.
For Philip Ahn, that newly acquired object was a Rolex Air King. Two years of saving and an unexpected offer from his authorized dealer (AD), and suddenly it was his. “Not until you get the actual watch on the wrist can you connect,” Ahn told Crown & Caliber. The Datejust he originally had his eye on never quite landed, but the Bloodhound Air King (inspired by a bespoke pair of dash clocks design in 2014 by Rolex for the Bloodhound SSC, a supersonic missile on wheels that aimed to break the outright land speed record) had his pulse racing.
And then the dreaded moment happened. “I had no place to put the watch when I slept. One night I woke up to check the time, and I knocked the watch over,” he said.
It’s not that he hadn’t searched for an appropriate storage receptacle. This wasn’t for safekeeping or winding, but a dedicated place to admire and stow the daily driver, the grail, or whichever watch happens to be on the wrist. “I couldn’t find anything as special as the watch itself.” Everything felt like an afterthought, like something designed to fill space rather than hold meaning.
Ahn grew up in Copenhagen, where intentional design is serious business. “My mom was very into Danish design. She always told me, ‘buy the classics, tastes will evolve and change and if you want to get rid of a classic, from an investment perspective, you’ll always get your money back.’” That logic stayed with him.
Before Ahn’s grail, there were engines. An automotive career took him through Tesla and Petronas, and along the way he built a small, careful collection of classics: a 1975 911 Targa, a Morgan, a Triumph TR6. Watches and cars never felt separate. They spoke the same language.
His watch solution, it turns out, was in front of Ahn all along. “I was in my dad’s office one day, he had all these model cars, like a 288 GTO, on the shelf. It was right there, right in front me. I could put the watch in the car.” Ahn went to grab the model. “My dad saw me and went completely ballistic. So, I went to a local garbage shop and bought a block of foam, cut out a space for the watch.” That was the first proof of concept.
The result is Grails watch storage; a design-forward single piece watch holder that’s handmade in batches of 100 from aluminum poured into a mold and then painted alongside classics at a local auto paint shop. It’s a 12-week process from start to finish. His first (and, for now, only) model is the Berlin, an ode to his father, who passed in 2024, without whom that first 911 would have never been acquired. (The naming convention, which will be repeated, is also culled from the capital city in the country Porsche calls home.)
He’s currently considering other classic car shapes; the Aston Martin DB5, Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari Testarossa, as his expansion. “The greatest communities are the watch and car communities,” said Ahn, “and there’s so much overlap in materials and also passion.”
Our take: it’s one thing to opt for a watch-winder, another to store in a safe. But for those in-between moments, at the computer, pre-shower, or even for the night, a designated spot for today’s timepiece just makes sense.
Berlin custom watch holder, $425; grailswatchstorage.com
