So if you're in watchmaking, you're in watch collecting. And if you're in watch collecting, you're surrounded by old white men. And you cannot go to any meeting, no matter how informative, without interacting with a "mart." Because watches take up very little room, and because "no one understands what it's truly worth", the "watch community' is basically an endless stream of miniature hobo hordes exploding and scattering like dandelion seeds to land in a slightly younger hobo horde where it will eventually explode and scatter like dandelion seeds. Why do I have a shoebox full of unworn ladies' watch bands? because (1) it was free (2) nobody does ladies' watches but me (3) everybody knows it.

But there's this guy.

I haven't seen him lately, but in among the useless Benrus and Gruen that everybody tries to convince each other to pay money for he's got swastikas. He's got iron crosses. He's got other shit that makes your fucking skin crawl. Nice enough guy? Actually, that's a lie. He's an extremely cranky clockmaker from the sticks. Watchmakers? No food anywhere near, put on your white lab coat. Clockmakers? Savages. I saw one mutherfucker lubing a mainspring with Pennzoil while eating a goddamn double cheeseburger.

The guy running things now is Jewish. I suspect he straight-up put the kibosh on the Nazi shit, and the asshole stays home now. Just as well. Except the last guy who ran things was also Jewish and he was fine with it.

Adam Curtis, by the way, did a substantially more insightful take on this subject back in 1995. I recommend starting at the 35 minute mark:

Curtis' point is that it's about context. And I think the reason we're having this "well ackshully" moment about Nazi memorabilia is as a culture, our individual contexts are not only no longer aligned but have become adversarial... and when one side uses logic and empathy to build coalition while the other uses tradition and familiarity, you're going to have "all Nazi memorabilia is bad therefore so is Harlan Crow QED" on one side and "Harlan Crow plays for my team therefore where can I get some of that Nazi memorabilia" on the other. This is why whataboutism is so effective in a free society - it shapes context.

My context of the asshole clockmaker and his swastikas is he's a redneck from the sticks who probably doesn't remember the Kennedy assassination, let alone VE day. The guys who have an active personal context for Nazi memorabilia are mostly dead now. But I also think that there remain possible contexts where owning the stuff is grayer. I agree - buying and selling is ooky AF but I can't argue it can't be done. I can argue it shouldn't? And I can totally see why eBay stays the hell out of everything controversial? But I can also see that eBay's refusal to participate in the market will cause it to dry up and blow away.