Ashford.com began life in March 1998 as the NewWatch Company. Its founders in Houston thought people would buy a fine watch online, if the price was right and the box arrived safely. Fine watches were sold in hushed stores, through dealers the brands picked. Ashford sold them on the web, then added jewelry, fragrances and leather goods. It went public in September 1999, in the last fat months of the dot-com boom.

The NewWatch Company

J. Robert Shaw co-founded Ashford and became its chairman in April 1998. The company was incorporated in Texas that March as NewWatch and later took the Ashford.com name. Watches were a smart first product online. They were small, costly and easy to ship, and buyers knew the exact model they wanted. The hard part was supply. Many luxury brands did not want their watches sold at a discount on the internet.

Thirteen Dollars to GSI

Ashford priced its IPO at $13 a share in September 1999, selling 6.25 million shares and raising $81 million on Nasdaq. Like many online retailers, it spent heavily on marketing and lost money as it grew. The dot-com crash cut its stock price far below the offer. In 2002 GSI Commerce, which ran online stores for other retailers, bought Ashford. Ashford deregistered its public shares in March 2002.

Cover: Still Life with Ostrich Egg Cup and the Whitfield Heirlooms, Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a still life of heirlooms (luxury goods).