The Grey NATO - Ep 119 - Gold And Broncos With James Lamdin

Published on Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:00:19 -0400

Synopsis

Jason Heaton describes a recent camping and scuba diving trip he took with his wife in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. James Stacey discusses snorkeling and attempting some DIY electronics repair. They are then joined by guest James Lambden of Analog/Shift to discuss his start in the watch world, his fascination with vintage Doxa watches, the changing watch market landscape, and his other interests like cars and films. Lambden also provides his take on why he participated in Sam Friedlander's charity Rolex auction for the Equal Justice Initiative.

Links

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Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton	Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a Hodinkee podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 119 and we thank you for listening. Well James, I think this week we might be able to actually cover travel, diving, driving, gear, and watches this time.
James Stacey	I think we probably do all of it. Yeah, you've had you've had a pretty fun trip that you just got back from. You know, normally we record this these episodes, you know, a couple of days in advance of of when they go up. But we're actually recording this about 12 hours before it's going to publish this segment. You know, obviously the main chunk of the show is an interview with our buddy James Lambden. But the this kind of front and then the bumper at the back, the the final notes was recorded very freshly as you've been, uh, you've been on the road.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And, um, you know, thanks for being patient here. I got home fairly late last night from kind of a long road trip that Kashani and I took up to, uh, the upper peninsula of Michigan. I had hinted about this trip last week when we recorded and, uh, funny, you know, even within the week between shows, uh, we've done this, uh, really, really fun adventure. We drove, gosh, it's about an eight hour drive from Minneapolis up to Munising, near Munising, Michigan, to what's called the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. And we got a National Park Service campground or campsite on an area called 12 Mile Beach, which is this beautiful, just very long, I don't know if it's 12 miles or if it's 12 miles from something, but this wonderful campsite. And so we car camped, we set up our big four-person REI dome tent, and then thankfully, We brought along a, this screen house, you know, so it's one of these kind of screen tents that you can set up. And we put that over our picnic table and, um, which was nice to be able to kind of cook and eat and stuff without the bugs getting us. And, uh, yeah, so we did three nights up there and it was, it was kind of a perfect trip. I think, you know, given what strange times we live in with not being able to do much in the way of travel or socializing or anything like that, it was about as good of a, an option as we could find, uh, you know, camping is, is a very socially distant sort of activity. So we felt comfortable about that. And other than three gas station stops in the whole trip, uh, we were kind of on our own and yeah, the, the weather was great. We did have one night that was a kind of a torrential thunderstorm that dropped a huge tree limb, very close to our car, which, uh, goodness, you know, I hope my mom who's listening as usual, doesn't get too freaked out by that, but, uh, It was a little disconcerting to wake up and find this very big limb sitting a few feet from our tent and a few feet from our car. We survived and we did some kind of short hikes along the shoreline there and got into a couple of books. One of the nice things about car camping, I used to be a bit snobby about it, I used to always think backpacking is the only kind of camping I'll ever do, but as I'm getting older I think car camping is very appealing because you can just take stuff that you wouldn't normally take when you're backpacking. Like, you know, we have this Primus stove that has kind of a grill on one side, a small burner on the other, and it just hooks up to a canister. And it's pretty compact, but it allowed us to, you know, cook some decent meals. The first night we were there, Ghoshani had pre-made like a, you know, like a roti. It's like an Indian or Sri Lankan flatbread. She had kind of made these balls of dough to take along. We flattened those out and put those on a griddle. And made those. And then she actually whipped up a little tuna curry. She brought all the seasonings and a couple packs of tuna and mixed that up. So we had those two together. And then we had brought some salmon along and we built a fire in the fire pit and used the grate to cook some salmon fillets. And did like a little beach picnic one day and brought, you know, gin and tonics. And so it was a proper civilized getaway. But, you know, to spend four days Living outside was, was really nice. So we hadn't done that in a long time and to sort of lie in the tent, listen to the wind and the trees and the birds and the waves pounding on the beach down below was, uh, was really, really nice. And, uh, sounds fantastic. Yeah. And then Monday, I guess we, we, uh, as I mentioned before, we had booked a spot on a dive boat. So Munising is about a 40 minute drive from where we were camping. It's back along the shore. And it's this little town that sits in a bay, a very sheltered bay with a big island called Grand Island just offshore. And there's a lot of shipwrecks. There's about a dozen good shallow shipwrecks in the area. And this company does shipwreck tours via Glass Bottom Boat, but they also run a little dive charter as well. And so I had called ahead a few weeks ago and said, hey, can we kind of do something that's not, you know, we're not going to be in proximity with other people and whatever. And he said, well, I'll, I'll drive the boat. If you guys want to sit at the back and, and dive, uh, we should be able to be pretty safe, um, pandemic, you know, pandemic safe. And for sure, that's what we did. And we, we went out on Monday and it was a pretty gusty day outside of the bay. So we were, uh, had fewer options for, for, for diving. But, um, the rec we did was a, 130 foot wooden schooner called the Bermuda that sank in I think the late 1800s and it was pretty well intact. It's sitting upright. The masts are long gone, but it even had like a barrel sitting on the foredeck that was like upright and intact and clearly like still had stuff in it. I don't know what would go in that barrel. Wow, whiskey. Yeah, that's what I want to believe. So we dove this wreck. I mean, it's 27 feet to the bottom. So very shallow. You're basically doing, you don't even have to do a safety stop after a dive like that. And the water was 63 degrees Fahrenheit. So not horribly cold. I wore a seven mil wetsuit. Gishani wore a dry suit. And you know, the wreck is 130 feet long. So we were able to spend close to an hour just doing slow laps around it. You could penetrate down inside and there was this cargo of leftover iron ore. that was left in the bottom that you could check out. And just a really neat picturesque wreck that was in very good shape for something that's that old. So to do this dive camping kind of weird mix was really novel and really added a fun element to it. And then we went back to the campground and all of our dive gear was strewn all over the campsite, layered on top of the car and heaped on the picnic table and everything. We got some strange looks from people, but, uh, it was, it was fantastic. And then we drove home. Just like I said, we got home late last night after the scenic drive, which took about nine hours. And, uh, here I am smelling like, uh, a little bit like a campfire still.
James Stacey	Yeah. I like where it gets stuck in your hair.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah. It's good. Yeah.
Jason Heaton	And I actually have hair now because I haven't cut it since March or something.
James Stacey	Mine is so long. I have to shoot some video in a couple of days and it's kind of like, do I, do I, do I, you know, put the dice in the air by trying to cut it?
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah.
James Stacey	Even just tidied up a bit. And then I was like, nah, no chance. It's just going to be long. Man bun.
Jason Heaton	Yeah.
James Stacey	Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's getting there for sure.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. So, so that was my travel, diving, driving gear. And, and well, we didn't talk about watches, but you, you also drove, drove somewhere and got in the water and.
James Stacey	Yeah, I went, I got a, I had a spare night. So I went up to the cottage for some, you know, distanced camping.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah.
James Stacey	Uh, threw up, uh, threw a tent up in the field and, and ate a meal outside and fell asleep under the stars. It's a, it's a treat to see the Milky way, uh, in a way that's so bright after, uh, you know, so many days, so, so long in the city. Um, and, uh, it was really nice. You know, I got absolutely destroyed by mosquitoes. You know, I don't, uh, I've had this, uh, soft, you know, West coast, sweet blood. I guess I came back to the east here and they just I've never been bit like that. It was absolutely insane. And the next day it was going to rain pretty badly in the in the afternoon on Sunday. And luckily it was nice and sunny in the morning and grabbed the mask and the snorkel and ended up actually just kind of sitting in about four feet of water on a slope, a sandy sort of slope that went down into, you know, weeds and seaweed and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Seagrass. And I sat still for a few minutes. I finned around for a little while and really couldn't find any fish to follow, which is kind of the fun thing to do in five feet of water. So I came back and just sat. It was very comfortable. The water was a beautiful temperature. It's really pretty warm up there at this lake, but I sat for a bit. And once I sat for just a couple of minutes, you know, all these fish started coming back and kind of swimming underneath my legs and around my hands and taking little bites at me. leg hair and that sort of thing. And it was, I don't know, it's hard to put to words how much I miss being able to be underwater with some interesting animals and the adventure. And this isn't the same, absolutely, but it does kind of like scratch the same itch.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. I mean, I think we tend to get, when the options are limitless and you're able to travel places, you forget about the simple pleasures of doing stuff like that at home. Fish are fish. And, uh, that's really cool that you're able to just, so you're actually able to sit up in the water with your snorkel out. So you could just sit there and breathe. Yep.
James Stacey	I mean, that's really cool. I kind of think with a little bit more planning and maybe a cinder block, I could actually sit in a chair.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Right.
James Stacey	Right. Um, and, uh, and, but it's nice cause yeah, you can sit there's, there's only a little bit of sand in this area, but it is this kind of like beachy sort of sand next to a boathouse.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah.
James Stacey	And you can just kind of sit there and you can see. You know, it's a lake. You see 10 feet, 15 feet maybe. When you get a really direct piece of sunlight come through the clouds, maybe you see a little bit further. But you know, it's not, you're not going to see like a muskie or a pike or like any sort of genuinely impressive fish, but it's 50 or 60 sunfish and rock bass and perch and those sorts of things in there. I don't know. I don't know. I've loved it. It's like sitting in an aquarium basically. You know, you see those really beautiful garden style aquariums.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah, right.
James Stacey	And it's like that just with, you know, a little bit more wabi-sabi as far as how, you know, maybe a little bit less aquaculture happening. Right. But it was a treat. It was a treat to get up and to sleep in a tent and all of that.
Jason Heaton	Well, and you were probably looking forward to doing it again. You're probably at a similar latitude to where we were. And boy, the sun stays up so late. I mean, it was 1030 before it was getting dark enough to like not be able to see out the tent. I mean, it was like That twilight just goes on and on when you're that far.
James Stacey	Yeah, for sure. It's super bright. And then as soon as it's actually dark, like I said, and I'm sure you had this where you were, too, especially with with such a large body of water. Yeah. You can see the sky in a really special way. And, you know, our buddy, Enrique Machon, with Machon Flashlights, he's been getting pretty deep into astrophotography. Oh, yeah. And I think I didn't really connect with it when he was telling me about it, because it's it's kind of sad, but it's been a long time since I've seen like you know, the sky without without some sort of light pollution from a city. Yeah. And and then I saw it the other night and you kind of like you lose yourself and how big it is and how impressive the Milky Way is and all of this. And now I kind of get it. He's he's cracked off some incredible shots. He is a system that can actually track. So it moves the camera in step with with the rotation of the earth and that sort of thing. So it's it's pretty cool.
Jason Heaton	Well, I was a little ashamed that we'd be, we'd be remiss not to mention the neowise comet that everybody's been talking about. And, and, uh, uh, it's this comet that, that has been able, you know, people have been able to see the past week or so. And people were saying, Oh, the South shore of Lake Superior, you know, dark, there's no obstructions. You should be able to see that. But they say the best time to see it's like 90 minutes after sunset. Well, I mean, like, That's like, I don't think the sky would have been totally dark enough to see a comment until about midnight. And we were long asleep by that time. I wasn't, I'm not the type to kind of set an alarm and go out at two in the morning. I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
James Stacey	So yeah, same missed it. I haven't seen it. Definitely. I've, I've, uh, I've gotten a couple of texts from Enrique, you know, suggesting that it's something to see as it's going to be 6,300 years or 6,800 years, something like that until we see it again. So maybe the next time, next time I'm out of the city, uh, beyond all of that, I, uh, I'm going to learn a new skill. I'm putting this out into the world as an impetus. I'm going to get really much better than I am currently with a soldering iron. Oh, wow. I dropped my Canon 580 EX2 flash, which I've had for, I don't know, 12, 15 years, a long time. Beautiful flash, was working perfectly, and I dropped it. I did not have a firm enough grip on it, and I was moving around and trying to do things in a hurry, prepping for the photos. for that Zen U50 review that went up last week. And I dropped it and it shattered the, I think it's Xeon or it's a fancy bulb anyways, it shattered the bulb in the head. The whole head assembly is quite expensive, like not super expensive, but more expensive than just buying a no-name flash, just to buy the internal head and reflector and power unit. or not even the power story, the flash unit, and and so I've looked into what's involved in actually just putting in just a new bulb and they're like twelve bucks, but they require some soldering and some very entry level starting. I'll make it clear because I know I guarantee there are people and I have friends like this who would normally do this sort of work for me and roll my eyes, roll their eyes at me when I can't do it on my own. Yeah, you know I have a buddy that can do capacitors and everything else just for fun. He'll find a friend will give him a broken television and it'll be working 30 minutes later because he finds the swollen capacitors on it. Anyways, I digress. I have a proper... I have ordered and have taken delivery of a proper sort of kit to approach this repair, so I'm looking forward to that. And then the other thing is, I know I've talked about in the past, I have this Vankyo projector that I really like.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah.
James Stacey	We're not really watching anything these days. The summer is summer. It's not really the time to spend a lot of time, more time in front of screens. The evenings here are so nice, you might as well be outside. But one of the reasons I'm watching less stuff is the headphone jack, which I used to connect to my better speakers or whatever. It just died one day. The projector sits right by a window, so it probably got rained on, if I'm honest. I'm a really good projector owner and flash owner. To make it clear, that flash was very old, and I loved it, and I'm really sad that it's broken. I will endeavor to repair it, and if I can't repair it, I'll probably take it to Downtown Camera and have them fix it. So I bought a Godox TT600. It's the second Godox flash I've ever used, but the one I bought previously was for my Sony platform. And of course, Sony uses a different type of hot shoe than you would find with Canon, Nikon, or almost everyone else. Yeah. Uh, so that, that flash unfortunately is non-transferable. So I bought this TT 600, which is like 80 bucks, Canadian, 90 bucks, Canadian, something like that. And I'll tell you if it's not exactly the same. Uh, like once, once you strip away all the things where the flash is making decisions for you, it's just a light that fires when you press the trigger and you choose how bright it is by taking multiple shots. Oh yeah. Um, you take one and it's too dark and you kind of adjust the angle It's a solid flash for this kind of money. If you're shooting in full manual, I don't think you need to be picky and go for the 580 or even the 430, or they make some now that have robotic heads that will actually turn the light to your adjustment level, like kind of a smart flash and that kind of stuff. And Canon splashes are amazing. And if you like using TTL on any platform, by all means, go for it. But one thing I did learn is that the Godox's will fire based on the signal easily, either mounted or on a slave, on a cable. And, you know, you can sit there and there's a big dial on the back for turning up the power.
Jason Heaton	It's a piece of cake. So you shot that with the Leica. I was under the impression you were using the Canon with that flash, but you're using a Canon flash with the Leica.
James Stacey	I use, I have, so I have the, when I shoot these reviews at home, I, about, you can actually see if you, if you actually scroll through the images. So the easiest ones to look at would be either the Zen, or the Tudor Black Bay 58 Navy Blue, the two cameras produce a very different image. So I'm using the Leica for most of the photos. And then when I want true macro, as in like more than one-to-one production, I use the Canon with a hundred millimeter. And that's on a tripod. And then I use a cable. So I put the flash one place in the room that kind of works. And typically it's firing into about a five foot packable reflector. so it makes the flash seem a lot bigger. And the room is mostly white. It's a nice room for doing this sort of work. If you go in and you see like, oh, well, this is a very large photo and it's very close. You can also just like the character of the lenses are much more different. I would say that they're both very sharp, of course, but there's a dynamic way that the light is treated in terms of shadow in how Leica processes its images. And then with the Canon, it's a little bit more neutral. Um, if you, if you want it to look a certain way, you have to put that in yourself. Um, but I think you can see it in, in the reviews, you know, for a long time, I was just using the, the Leica. So the kit whenever I would travel to New York or anywhere else was the cue, a couple of batteries, this cable and my five 80, um, which you can do just about anything with people watches cars. And the, the, the flash will fire. in the hot shoe for almost any camera that's not a Sony. Oh yeah. It's not looking at what settings you have on the camera. Sure. Yeah. So those who are listening and don't know, TTL is through the lens, which means that there's circuitry and a processor that actually looks at the settings, the focus length, the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO setting, and then sets the camera flash to help you. and it gets it within an area, and then typically you go up or down by stops. One third's up, third's down, that sort of thing. Eventually, if you shoot the same sorts of things again and again, you tend to give up on this. Because preserving TTL, especially off camera, means buying expensive triggers and mating yourself to one system. At this point, anything that mounts to any camera that's not a Sony, I could shoot manual. Like it's pretty straightforward. You could pull a Nikon flash out of your bag, a Canon flash, a Godox flash. There's even like, man, I was pretty tempted. There's one, there's like some $40 high power flashes on Amazon. Um, and I, I bought the Godox just because it came with the little, like it came with a couple more things, like a carrying case and a little stand and a big, you know, like a balance, a bounce reflector and that sort of thing. So I'm impressed with it. I guess there wasn't like a specific story to be told here. I'm the type of person that drops flashes, I guess. That's what I find out about myself. I can't tell you how disappointed I am.
Jason Heaton	Well, and now you'll be the person who can solder, who can solder broken flashes.
James Stacey	So I'll report back when I solder that, that camera flash together and it explodes.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe soldering will be up there with, sourdough bread as a pandemic activity. Yeah, for sure. There'll be a run on soldering irons.
James Stacey	I've learned to work on my car. I've learned to theoretically, you know, future James has learned to solder electronics. We'll see if this actually works out. I have, we'll call it low hopes. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I can probably figure it out.
Jason Heaton	So before we pass it over to your conversation with Mr. Lambden, tell us what's on your wrist.
James Stacey	Yeah, sure. I can make this one quick because we talked a lot about it last week. I'm still wearing the Seiko. Wow. I'm in the process. I'm really just absolutely adore it. It's on the bracelet currently because I'm in pre-production for a video segment about the watch. So we're doing some B-roll and that kind of stuff. So it needs to be on its correct mount. Yeah. And it's just, I absolutely love it. The one thing I will add, because I actually had a few very nice people. Our listeners are always nice, so it shouldn't be surprising, but it does still surprise me. Shortly after I spoke on the episode about how I was having that trouble with the date alignment, I actually just started using the quick adjust. And after I did that about two times, so over two days, it wouldn't kind of jump far enough or finish its travel. It was on its way. Like I said, I don't think there was necessarily a problem. I just kind of used the quick adjust and just barely turned the crown. to align the date and now it doesn't do it anymore. So I think it was just, uh, ever so slightly out of alignment and that could have been in shipping. It came all the way from Japan in a remarkably small box. So maybe that was it. And then it probably wasn't a day later. I had two other people write and say like, Hey, if you fiddle with the quick adjust, this seems to go away. And I had, I've had about five or six other people. If you're wondering, I've had no less than five other listeners write in and say, mine has no date problem. So figure yours out. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's more reflective of what we would expect. No problems at a thousand dollar price point for a Seiko. But I did want to offer that follow up because it was kind of my only criticism from that last episode. But yeah, I love this watch. I don't have anything more to add. I'm not going to stop wearing it. It's perfect.
Jason Heaton	Well, and you put it to good use already. Yeah. How about you? Well fitting with the interview with James Landon, who is a big vintage Doxa collector, expert, fan, etc. I put on my Shark Hunter T-Graph, which I've been wearing a lot this summer. Killer. And speaking of quick set dates, the interesting thing about this watch is when I had it serviced two years ago, I guess, by this local watchmaker, I was lamenting how This doesn't have a quick set and you have to like spin through, you know, the dates, et cetera, because I'm obsessed with having the right date showing. I can't wear a watch that doesn't have the date. Correct. And, um, and he said, well, you know, if you go between 1230, so just after midnight and then back to 530 PM, it's a quick set. And I was like, okay, I, 530 seemed far before what I'm used to.
James Stacey	Usually it's like, I guess that's when the lever engages.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. but 5 30 p.m. so now it does have a quick set so and what's interesting too is that I think he said when he had it apart so this is the movement in this watch is an Eberhard movement and in some iterations of watch probably from Eberhard that had this movement there was a little corrector in the side of the case the left side of the case where you could actually advance it with this little corrector and he said the ability to do that is still there but you'd you know you have to drill a hole in the case etc etc which I wasn't prepared to do, but I thought that was kind of an interesting tidbit. So if you have, if you're one of the, what was it? 900 people that have an old T graph, 530, 1230 is the, is the quick set. And if you feel so inclined, you can drill a hole in the side of the case and put a corrector. That's killer.
James Stacey	Yeah. Good, good tip. Yeah. All right. Pro tip from Rischek. Well, let's get into this with, with Mr. James Lambden then.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. You recorded this a couple of days ago and I'm sorry, I couldn't be part of it, but I was obviously gone and I'm looking forward to hearing it.
James Stacey	So for today's main topic, we have a special guest and it's James Lambden. Many of you probably know him and follow the site that he founded, Analog Shift. He's also a founding partner of Red Bar. And more recently, James stepped up and bought Sam's Rolex Oyster Perpetual from the Rolex for EJI auction after several other bidders flaked out, which we thought was a pretty solid move and thought it might be kind of fun to have James on. More so, I've known James for years. He's a car guy. He's a watch guy, a movie guy. He loves airships more than maybe anyone I know. Beyond that, we've shared many a long night from London to Miami to his hometown of NYC. And he once gave me a solid gold GMT master before even negotiating the conditions of its return. He's a good dude and I never get tired of chatting with him. James, how you doing?
James Lambden (guest)	Hey, man. Thanks so much for having me. I'm hanging in, bro. It's good to be here and catch up.
James Stacey	Yeah, we've got you kind of scrawled away in your New York apartment. I'm pretty, you know, I have high hopes for the general audio quality. I think it'll be fine.
James Lambden (guest)	I'm coming live from the highly air-conditioned bedroom in my one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
James Stacey	Well, that, you know what, that beats the level of air conditioning I'm currently working with, which is I'm wearing a hat to keep the sun off of my brow. But yeah, I'm glad I'm glad you're I'm glad you're here. It's nice to have you. We thought it'd be fun to have you on just because we're, you know, going to weekly episodes to be purely transparent, going to weekly episodes means occasionally we need some coverage. Yeah. And in this case, Heaton, while we're talking, is either like grilling some fantastic meal by a fire or he's currently scuba diving. It's one or the other.
James Lambden (guest)	I mean, either one sounds pretty good to me. And, you know, obviously I go way back with the both of you. It's love you both desperately love love the great NATO and It's my privilege and honor to be here, so.
James Stacey	No, it's a treat to have you on for sure. But I think what'll be fun, and we'll definitely get to the auction, but I would love to start with kind of some of your start in watches. Like how did... You are kind of a... Definitely through Analog Shift, you are a huge presence in the enthusiasm of watches. And I'm sure lots of people have either bought or sold watches through you. But even if they haven't, maybe they've seen the GQ videos, maybe they've seen your Instagrams, maybe they just met you at Red Bar. And I think like you're kind of a presence and one of note. And beyond that, I would love to just know where that fascination kind of where it started. How did it find you?
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. Thanks for saying so. I mean, watches for me, I think, came out, you know, interest in mechanical things and gadgets was there from the beginning, whether it was a Swiss Army knife or helping my dad tinker with the car. I think it was a natural progression towards watches, whether I knew it or not. I do remember most of my early Casio and Seiko digital watches from my childhood. I think I got my first real watch when I got my associate's degree. I dropped a not-so-subtle hint to my father that I would love to have a Luminox Navy Seals diving watch, which were all the rage back then. It was quartz. Uh, it was my first step towards something of some quality. And then, um, I was very close with my grandfather. I think this is a story that is prevalent in our collector community, but it was very close with my grandfather. And upon his passing, um, I really began to sort of study and explore his life through his possessions. And one of the things that he had many multiples of, uh, were mechanical watches and a strange twist of fate. I didn't actually get any of the good ones. Uh, but you know, My father did, my uncles and cousins. So I, and also to be fair, I got my more than my fair share of a lot of his other cool stuff. Um, so what I found myself doing was trying to learn about, uh, this wonderful man I admired so much through what he owned and having a sort of predisposition towards these things to begin with, uh, meant that I immediately went down these rabbit holes and started learning about the object and the history and time that they were made and why my grandfather, who was a man of taste and experience might've had these things. And before you knew it, I mean, you're, you're all the way down the hole and you start buying them for yourself at an age when it was wildly fiscally irresponsible.
James Stacey	So I get that.
James Lambden (guest)	And then I moved to New York and started making a little bit more money. I'm 14, almost 15 years ago. And, um, I started spending most of my money that wasn't going towards my, uh, beer and rent, uh, silo on, on watches and did that for a couple of years, bought some cool stuff and was working in cars, but was really fascinated by sort of the blossoming business of watches. Um, the forums were pretty much all you had in the digital space before that. And of course, brands like Hodinkee, And a blog to watch started popping up and talking to the enthusiasts in a totally new way, which was really inspirational. So my first attempt at working in the industry was, was trying to connect with brands or auction houses to try and just get in a fairly junior level, uh, to, to start, uh, doing it professionally. And unfortunately at that time it was, uh, it really, uh, you have to work in watches to, to work in watches sort of thing. Uh, so it didn't really work out. And fast forward a few more years, I really got sick of working in cars. I still love cars, but working in them was a was a sad timeframe for the most part. And, you know, really took some inspiration from people like Ben Clymer, of course, who sort of encouraged me to go and do it on my own. And so after a couple years, I ended up just sort of going all in and launching analog shift to really be a different type of watch dealer. One that focuses on storytelling and great photography and authenticity and transparency. And actually, we were one of the very, very first dealers, if not the first, to offer e-commerce, which seems bananas, but is mostly true, I think. I don't remember. But it was not prevalent at the time. And then at around the same time, I started by accident, uh, writing about watches and I'm a terrible writer. Uh, but somehow I got plugged in and started contributing to blogs and magazines. And that's where you and I first connected, uh, way back when. And then, uh, also had gotten hooked up with, with Adam Craniotis and was working on sort of the community side. And before you knew it, I was wearing all the hats from, the journalist side to the retail and commerce side to the community side. And that's it. That's my life now. All watches all the time.
James Stacey	Well, there you go. I mean, that's, well, you definitely, I'm, I have so many questions about analog shift and, and because it is, it is something where like you were definably either at the start of the wave or just before it, like you were, you had your feet on the board, whereas other people were still trying to paddle, which I think that there's some interesting, some interesting elements there. But I would love to know if, if you look back at those watches, from your grandfather or that element of taste that you described? Did that inform the direction you kind of went when it started to become a profession, a pro-level chase? Was his kind of vibe one that you carried forward?
James Lambden (guest)	I might be the only dealer in the entire world who doesn't live, eat, and breathe exclusively vintage Rolex and Patek Philippe. I mean, I certainly love these watches. wearing one right now, but, uh, and we sell plenty of them, but you know, the favorite watch of mine that, uh, you know, my father inherited from my, from my grandfather was a Zenith El Primero powered, uh, Movado Datron chronograph and a cushion case. And it was just so rad and totally weird. And, you know, my father had a 1675 GMT master still has it. And that was probably my first association with, you know, a nice Swiss watch and certainly has informed my own taste today as well. But I think I was more interested in exploring the sort of nooks and crannies of vintage horology. And of course there's not a real, I mean, it's more sort of rocks being overturned every day and more great stories being told. But, you know, 10 years ago there was, there, there was definitely no database of information. So a lot of this was, I mean, I was having just as much fun finding these things and then learning their story. It's probably more fun than turning around and selling them. But from a design standpoint, from an era standpoint, you know, my grandfather's collection, it includes some pocket watches as well, and some time-only dress watches from the 40s and 50s. But that Movado, you know, which dates to the early 70s with its cushion case and its, you know, blue silver panda dial. you know, the El Primero chronograph movement that definitely informed a lot of the tastes that I think were prevalent in analog shifts, early formation and still to this day.
James Stacey	Did the love of Doxa come from your grandfather? Okay. Because I think like, this is something where like, like when I think of guys that are maybe too into Doxa, it's, I really love the brand. I have yet to own any of the vintage stuff, the thin case stuff. Cause as you can attest, the price is like wisely, Yeah. As they should have. They expanded quite rapidly in the last five years. But I still adore the brand. I know you do. And at one point you owned a considerable portion of what was available on the market.
James Lambden (guest)	The Doxa thing was a direct correlation to my grandfather's passing. The next step after learning about his watches was trying to see if there could be a watch that i could use to define me i suppose and my interest in and keep in mind this is. Fifteen years ago and you know there was there were no there's no books published the docs a brand had just sort of recently been reborn and did e-commerce for new brand which was also industry first but if you type the docs into a ebay search field you be lucky to get. Nineteen or twenty results and none of them were subs.
James Stacey	Yeah. We're dive watches. Yeah. Yeah. Deco stuff from the earlier on. Yeah.
James Lambden (guest)	Which are cool in their own right, but not what I was into. Yeah. I mean, one of my earliest memories, uh, that pertain to watches was reading raise the Titanic, uh, sometime in late elementary school. So, you know, fourth or fifth grade. And I had a obsession with shipwrecks and, uh, with the Titanic and I had no idea what the book was, but it was on my, uh, father's bookshelf. And so I snagged it and read it when I was old enough. And those, you know, those words, the, you know, Dirk Pitt glanced at his orange face docks, a diving watch stuck with me. And, uh, you know, as I got into watches and was exploring them all and I thought, hi man, I should really get a watch. I said, it's something just sort of popped in my head, said you need to get an orange face stocks, a diving watch. I didn't even know what it looked like. And Googling these things in 2005 or four or whatever year this was, um, Oh my God, maybe it was even earlier. Anyway, it was, you know, haphazard at best. And I spent quite a while going around to different watch shops and retailers and just asking people if they knew about Doxa. And I got nothing but blank faces until I stepped into a little watch store of all places in Portland, Maine called Swiss time. And one of the, one of the watchmakers there, John Muse, who's become a very good friend and mentor to me over the years, knew exactly what I was talking about and had one that he was working on as a, actually as a restoration project, which later became mine and my first entry into the, the ownership of all the DOXAs. But yeah, DOXA was, um, it was a rabbit to chase and, uh, you know, I maybe got the best compliment of my life when one of my, uh, client cum friends, uh, said to me, you know, you can't Google vintage DOXA without your name coming up.
James Stacey	Yeah, I don't think that's untrue.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, I love them. They're not for everyone and that makes them even more appealing to me. They're not all created equal from a quality standpoint, from a design standpoint, or from a wearability standpoint. So all of these variations, you know, they're variations on a theme and that's what being a collector is all about and exploring it. So not for nothing, you know, frankly, starting Analog Shift was actually a great way to justify buying every watch I wanted.
James Stacey	Yeah, it's a business, right?
James Lambden (guest)	Sure. Eventually they'll sell. Actually, the one that I really took a swing on was the Ploprof. I always wanted a Ploprof, but man, I could never... I love them. They're so cool. And I couldn't really justify spending the money on one then. No, really can't even now, but they're so wildly cool that I had to see what it was all about. And I think one of the very first inventory purchases I made when I cashed out my 401k to start analog shift was a pro profit. I'm sure I sat on it for six months and sold it, you know, probably break even or a small loss, but I got to experience what that was all about.
Filler word/pause	For sure.
James Lambden (guest)	Uh, yeah. Docs is great. And, uh, I still love them very, very much. I did, uh, finally, uh, let a lot of my collection go, um, partially because the interest had gotten to the point where people were, you know, banging down my door for them. And, uh, also they helped pay for my wedding and honeymoon. So that was good.
James Stacey	And on that point, how do you think the market has changed since you founded Analog Shift? Oh, God. Is it just... Do you think it's... Not to make it too much of a simplification, but do you think it's more that tastes actually change or more that there was a popularization of a standardized taste of the Italian collector, of the well-heeled American collector, the vintage Pateks, the steel Rolexes? And do you think we're entering a phase where that maybe has reached its zenith and we'll start to see fascination with other things?
James Lambden (guest)	I think it's a little bit of all of the above. The word I keep using to describe the era that we're living in from an interest in timekeeping is it's a dynamic. Going back 10, 15 years ago with those forums, which were impossible to use. If you didn't know HTML, you couldn't upload images. To be clear, I still can't, which is the analog part of analog shift is very real for me.
James Stacey	Your IMG tags for sure.
James Lambden (guest)	No, look, it's a combination of there being more information available. Um, more in, you know, in the old days, if there was one or two newsworthy things a month coming through the watch community, that was a big month, you know, now between Instagram and blogs and magazines and WhatsApp groups and everything else, um, there's three or four newsworthy things a day sometimes. And that's, that makes it exciting. Um, also the fact that the watch community is no longer insular and that the peripheral communities and cars and fashion and, whiskey and pens and everything else have begun bleeding into the Venn diagrams are crossing over, so to speak. And the, the, the number of people interested is much larger. Then you have things happening, uh, at all levels from, you know, big mainstream brands, micro brands, the auction houses, the vintage market in editorial, uh, and creative and social media. And the result is lots and lots of new people interested in watches. Um, whole areas of vintage horology that have been dormant or uninteresting to collectors over the last 30 or 40 years are, you know, new light is being, is, is being shed on them. Uh, brands are recognizing that you can play to your history and your heritage, um, authentically, or you can do it not so authentically and you're going to have different results. Um, so it's dynamic and it's an exciting time to be into that. I don't think we've reached any Zenith's yet. I think we're, Uh, really still in a, in a, in a big uphill and swelling. Yeah. Um, and some things, some things will also drop off. Um, there are there bubbles in horology and taste and value? The answer is yes. But is the entire thing a bubble? Not at all.
James Stacey	And speaking of, of, you know, considering your legacy and your roots and the rest of it, if you look back at, um, at the James that started analog shift, what would you like to tell him now? You know, 15 years on or whatever.
James Lambden (guest)	Oh, that's a good one. Um, keep at it. Just keep going.
James Stacey	Hard work pays off. Something like that.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. I mean, for sure. There's all kinds of, um, inspirational things. I would tell my younger self, get through some of the challenges of, of entrepreneurship and growing a brand sustainably and some of the challenges and disappointments that you, you, um, naturally come to in that path. But I would also say this, uh, to him, Anything you think you just don't like and have no interest in, just, just take a, take a beat because the longer you're in this game, the more nuanced your taste will become and the interests will be much broader than you would have ever thought. Um, namely finding out after years of sort of turning my nose up at gold watches that I actually love yellow gold watches or I have an interest in don't crucify me. I have an interest in, in uh, and gem set dials, not really ostentatious, blinged out, iced out wrapper watches, but a nice tasteful sort of fumé dial from the seventies or something like that with some diamond indices. It's really cool looking now. Or Cartier as a brand is something that I always had respect for, but never in a million years would have thought I would want to own. And I bought two or three Cartiers for myself in the last two years.
James Stacey	Man, the Cartier for me has had like, just like you described, but for me personally, like an absolute come up, like their brand that almost now for whatever reason, and it definitely came with my appreciation of gold watches. Yeah. But I started in the 1675s, the, you know, the, the dive watches, the, the Submariners, the just like tool watches that were then remade in gold or early Royal Oaks or something like that, where it's a little bit anachronistic because they were designed to be one thing. And then they made them in gold, which was the different thing. Right. But with Cartier, it's just like whatever they do has this like compressed sense of unity where it couldn't come from anyone else.
James Lambden (guest)	Would you agree with me that their current collection is just they're killing it?
James Stacey	Absolutely. I don't think there's a bad watch in the lot. Some of them are a little bit big, but it just depends on your taste. What would you pick personally?
James Lambden (guest)	You could have any, any one watch from the current collection.
James Stacey	I think the, the century. is pretty crazy. My problem is I don't think I'm... And you can see me, I'm wearing a baseball cap and straight pocket tee. I don't know if I'm a Cartier guy yet. I wanna be a Cartier guy. And I think if you put an American on my wrist, it won't look right. You put the new asymmetric, which I think is visually such a stunning thing that they've made. And I know that the hardcore Rolex boys And the rest of them are going to not notice it. But in three or four years or in five years, they're going to go back to those posts and say like, oh, that's a really like elevated take on a watch that doesn't look like anything that my friends are wearing, but comes from like a rock solid brand that's really never done anything bad. Yeah.
James Lambden (guest)	And nailed it. Exactly. Exactly.
James Stacey	I think I'll step into the waters with like a tank and see if I can be a tank guy.
James Lambden (guest)	Try the Santos. Try the Santos.
James Stacey	The Santos is rad for sure.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. I, I did end up trading my two-tone Santos towards a Santre and platinum, which was a very, very special watch. Um, and yeah, but you know what? The truth is I wasn't fancy enough for that watch. I wear a black tie maybe twice a year, maybe this is, this is the problem. And as much as I love that watch and miss it already, I actually only own that watch for maybe six or eight months. I realized that it was, taking up a very expensive hole or place in my watch box. And I miss it. I miss owning it. It was special. But the truth of the matter is the current Santos is a masterpiece.
James Stacey	I agree. I really like the Dumont as well. Yeah, it gives you a kind of a crossbreed between a tank, the kind of classic elements of the tank. I would love a kind of mid sized or larger tank that has like a simple strap that I could wear with jeans and a t-shirt as long as I was intentional about it. Yeah. I think that might be my route into the brand, but yeah, they make so many just really gorgeous, understated, elegant watches and I feel it.
James Lambden (guest)	And so much of these, you know, getting away with it, so to speak, is how you wear the watch. You know, I've told you before that you'll never catch me dead in a suit with a solid gold, you know, Rolex on. I think it's taking it too literally.
James Stacey	I think when you gave me a solid gold Rolex in Miami, we were both wearing... Well, I was wearing an Aloha shirt, a Hawaiian shirt from Amazon. Yeah.
James Lambden (guest)	Quite proudly.
James Stacey	I might have been wearing... With a green military jacket.
James Lambden (guest)	I might have been wearing the actual screen accurate Magnum PI It's quite possible.
James Stacey	We were at like Pharrell's party.
James Lambden (guest)	It's just something like that.
James Stacey	Someplace that you and I never should have been invited to.
General agreement/affirmation	That's right.
James Stacey	For even a moment. And then, yeah, I left that party with a Rolex. A gorgeous Rolex.
James Lambden (guest)	How else are you going to experience that? I mean, for sure. That's what
James Stacey	That's what makes you, you most people would let, you know, would, would offer it off their wrists. And you said like, oh, you'll be in New York in a few days. I already had it on my wrist at this point. You had my Boulevard or my Buren, uh, men's stop, which is a dope watching in and of itself, but a different caliber of dopeness. And, uh, uh, yeah, I, I wore that watch like a, like a complete bandit around Miami for another two days.
James Lambden (guest)	Well, you know, I think shorts and a loha shirt and flip flops on your Sunday morning bagel run, like that is when you're supposed to wear a gold Rolex. Uh, but you know, if you wear it with a suit and a tie, it's a, you're taking it too literally and you're doing it wrong. Which I'm sorry, which did you have my GMT or the sub?
James Stacey	I had the GMT. Nice. Yeah. Which is killer. I mean, it's a perfect watch.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah.
James Stacey	A beautiful thing on a great bracelet.
James Lambden (guest)	So that was a cool story too. I, um, quick, quick sidebar on this. When I, Started analog shift. I decided rather quickly that indeed the GMT master was my favorite Rolex But I mentioned earlier my father had a 1675. So I always had this thing in the back of my head saying you know, don't keep one for yourself because someday you'll inherit your father's and Anything you have is, you know worthless comparatively and so I didn't I didn't buy a steel Pepsi and then I I found the root beer and two-tone variant of the GMT and thought those were pretty killer. But then ended up buying a two-tone Thunderbird 1625, which I love, but also realized that if I was going to own two Rolexes, I couldn't have them both be two-tone. So I jokingly said to myself, oh, maybe I'll just buy a gold one. And then I did. And, uh, still wasn't fully prepared for it. I just sort of wanted to see what it was all about. I bought it head only. And then I found a correct president bracelet with the correct end links for the, for the era, uh, which I didn't actually know was completely accurate at the time and found out later it was a very rare option. Um, it, it's my favorite watch and, uh, you know, it's my Island, my, my desert Island watch. If I could only have one, that's, that's it. But I've actually come to find that, uh, you know, sort of, those anachronistic gold variants, like you mentioned are just, they're very special and totally weird.
James Stacey	I agree that they're super special. There's, there, there's nothing more fun than that in the world. I mean, there's something fun about obviously a new GMT master. I, you know, 16, seven tens will long be something that I, I, I think people should take, take, take notice of with a great case size, but the solid gold is, is it's an entirely a different level. Um, obviously they're, they're vastly more expensive typically, uh, simply because of the material, but I do think that they are also vastly more special and more fun.
James Lambden (guest)	Well, I, I would point out that proportionally they're actually currently, you know, that's sort of, you know, one, six, seven, five slash eight or five digit versions of, of subs and GMTs for the moment, uh, are disproportionately valued. Um, steel variants have gotten very expensive, you know, really high quality, um, examples. So while they are more expensive, they're not as much more expensive as they are going to be.
James Stacey	The Delta is closing.
James Lambden (guest)	It's well, the Delta is very short right now. It's closed. And I think that, uh, you know, if I'm going to give anybody any, any predictions or investment stock tips sort of thing, um, look at yellow gold Rolexes, four and five digit, uh, sport, including, uh, even yellow gold Daytonas from the Zenith era. uh, and Day-Dates. And these things are, yeah, they're expensive watches. I'm not going to tell you otherwise, but when you look at the Delta, it's actually surprisingly small. And if history is any teacher, that's not going to stay that way. So I would look at them sooner rather than later.
James Stacey	And, uh, it's worth mentioning, of course, given the, the medium, uh, yellow gold Rolex absolutely sings on a gray NATO.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah.
James Stacey	For sure. Moving on ever so slightly, because you mentioned predictions and such, and I'm not going to sit here and ask you for predictions because I'm sure that's what most people kind of ping you about. And I think it's a ridiculous thing to ask someone because it's just, you know, you're shouting into the void at a certain point.
James Lambden (guest)	It's not like I do that all day long.
James Stacey	What I would like to know is, is, you know, I had asked you what you might tell yourself when you started Analog Shift. What would you like to tell other people who maybe are just getting into watches? Like, what if this is one of the first times that someone sat down to listen to any watch media in earnest. What kind of mistakes would you like people to avoid or guidance might you have for folks?
James Lambden (guest)	Learn as much as you can, play with as many watches as you can. It's a very, very tactile hobby. Of course, the fact that so much of this is being conducted online these days is great and the access is greater than it's ever been. But You really want to try stuff on and learn, you know, that, uh, a later reference GMT is actually marginally thicker than an earlier one. And you, or Doc's a thin case really wears a whole lot differently than a later one. Or, you know, the fact that 34 or 35 millimeter watches might actually not be too small on your wrist in terms of the commercial side of the retail side, the buying part. Um, you gotta, you know, it's the same old story. You gotta, you have to buy the seller first. Um, you have to really learn what things like unpolished or fat font actually mean instead of just going down the, uh, you know, the digital rabbit hole of hearing that, uh, you know, a meter's first fat font, kissing for Bart Simpson, guilt, underline, exclamation point, unpolished box of papers, birth of your watch is what you, yeah, well, we should all want that. But you know, it's not really, uh, about that. Um, I'm, uh, birth year watches. I give me my soap box and I'll tell you why that doesn't really work. Um, batch manufacturing, uh, what unpolished actually means the sort of falsehoods around the word originality. Um, you know, I could go on and on for days and, uh, anybody who wants to talk to me at length, please pull up a stool and we'll pour some whiskey and we'll, we'll get academic. But, Um, I think it's important to remember to have fun with this and that we're not saving lives here and that while you are no longer just buying with your heart, you have to make intelligent decisions with your brain because the values of these things are, you know, nothing to scoff at. Um, find the good people and whether that's a friend who's also into watches who can help you learn, whether it's a, your favorite blogs or podcasts or, or magazines to read and just delve into all of the, incredible data points that are available now that weren't, you know, 15 or 20 years ago. And then, you know, don't take it so seriously. You know, as long as you're buying from somebody you can trust or, uh, you know, that somebody you can track down and, you know, take advantage of a return policy. It's, it's a really, really fun and wonderful hobby. And it's a great, great community.
James Stacey	Yeah. And I mean, it is one of those things where the values could be, it could be a $500 watch. It could be a $500,000 watch. but there's a few things that, you know, you don't have to deal with, uh, garaging it. It's not a car. Um, it doesn't need a full-time mechanic. It can go in a drawer or a simple safe or your safety deposit box. If it was worth a lot of money, um, insurance around watches is like a pain, but it's not a pain equal to really interesting cars.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. And actually there's some cool insurance things that are happening. I'm not involved in them, but I've been sort of made aware of them, uh, to, to help collectors. Um, I'm not plugging anything, but, just stay tuned. There's some really great stuff coming out to help collectors ensure their, their watch collections. But you know, my first love is cars and I'll be straight up about that. Uh, watches are easier to store and particularly doing a business based in Manhattan. It was a no brainer, but even the name analog shift and our, the first variation of our logo, I wasn't sure whether it was going to be cars or watches that I was going to work with. Um, so cars are my hobby and watches are my business.
James Stacey	On the topic of cars, how is the Lambda and Fleet doing these days? Are you getting a lot of summer miles in the E39? How's that 912?
James Lambden (guest)	Oh, God. Let's see. The M5 is just back from a fairly extensive sunroof repair. Okay. There's like four or five major components and all of them failed. So that was nice. From the actual... Did it fail open or closed? Open. Yeah.
James Stacey	My Oldsmobile Alero did that to me once.
James Lambden (guest)	I bet you could buy a whole brand new Alero for less than it cost me. You absolutely could.
James Stacey	I fixed it with a screwdriver, just like you define the little mechanism and just crank it until it closed. And then I was like, that's a summer problem. It was a Canadian winter at the time.
James Lambden (guest)	Well, you know, my service friends over at BMW Manhattan were like, you know, we could just get this closed for you and you don't have to use it. I'm like, nah, it's summertime. I've got to open it. So I, you know, made a squinchy face and gave them my credit card. I love that car. And you know, to be clear, that's 18 years old and that's my quote unquote practical modern daily driver that I drive, you know, maybe three or four times a month if I'm lucky. But yeah, that's a fun one. That was a dream car when I was a teenager and I was very fortunate to buy it sort of just before the market really began to explode on them three years ago.
James Stacey	The funny thing is, I would say that this is one of the few cars that I track really actively. I think that market is still really low.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, I mean, if you're appreciated, if you're okay with maybe one of the first two model years and not a fancy color, if you're cool with silver, basically, there are some ridiculous deals to be had. The moment you get into lower mileage cars from 02 or 03 with, you know, if they're Imola red or Le Mans blue, like my car, or Alpine white, which is unobtainium,
James Stacey	What a color. The blue is probably where I would land, but the white, if you could find it.
James Lambden (guest)	So I have my, I still have my first car, which was an Alpine white over Cardinal red, a E28 5 Series, a 535 IS. Yeah, it's a great car. It's a little, it's my favorite possession, you know, short of my childhood teddy bear. But it's a little worse for wear. It'll be done. I think that's next in queue for restoration after the Porsche is done. Status on that is it's still in pieces and across this literally across the country. It's the body and frame are out in Long Island and the powertrains in Southern California, along with my custom seats and everything else. And, you know, obviously COVID has provided yet another delay on that, but I'm still crossing my fingers that I might get to drive it before the end of the year. We'll see.
James Stacey	All right. Well, that's exciting. I mean, hey, a nicely restored 9-11 or 9-12 is a sweet thing for sure. What year?
James Lambden (guest)	That one's a 67. So it's a short wheelbase, Irish green, and it's going to have a bit of an outlaw motor to it. So it'll be pretty quick. That's great. But you know, I found myself yet in my third summer of restoration, really wishing I had something else to drive and with the M5 down with electrical gremlins or sunroofs or this thing. I actually, I did throw a deposit in on the new Bronco.
James Stacey	Okay. Let's get into the Bronco. All right.
James Lambden (guest)	How do you feel about it as a Jeep owner?
James Stacey	Yeah, so I have for those who, whatever reason, maybe this is your first episode. I have a 2011 JKU. So that's the slowest of the slow ones. I mean, they're all slow because they're Jeeps. But this is the 3.8. It's absolutely the one that was so slow they put a new engine in it like the next year. Right. I couldn't care about going faster than a Jeep. So these are kind of a sweet spot in terms of value. I don't need the extra whatever. It's not even that much. Forty horsepower or something for a five thousand pound vehicle. But mine is lovely. Primarily, like the whole thing that defines this vehicle for me is that it has a stick. Yeah. So the fact that you can get the new Bronco, albeit the two currently only the two point three liter and not the two seven with a stick. I applaud them. I also think that what they did was basically pay an intense level of attention to the people who would actually buy the vehicle in the first two years. Yeah. They made the vehicle for everyone who would go on a waiting list. People who will buy it because it's around because like the way people buy Jeeps now because they've been around for a long time. That's not who you need to make the vehicle before the first year has to blow people's socks off. I think that they'll eat market share from Jeep, they'll eat market share from Toyota. And that's what they need. I mean, Chevy had their chance with the Blazer and did a complete nothing with it, like a full on nothing. Blew it. Yeah. So now who knows? I mean, I'm excited to see what they do with a Bronco Raptor. You know, I think that there's huge. I mean, you look at the layout of that platform, there's huge advantages for an EV, which I think could be really interesting for people who really don't necessarily intend to do a lot of like advanced off-roading in their Bronco. You look at the two-door with the steelies and the stick. Oh, yeah, pretty sweet by me. It looks good. I like I don't have any like I exist outside of caring from one American brand to another. If it says Jeep on the front, that's awesome. If it says Ford Bronco on the front, that's also pretty awesome.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. Well, judging by the 15 plus friends that I have who all did exactly the same thing, I think and not all of them are real car guys, either. They just saw a product that I think has some heart, heart in it. Yeah. And I've been, I look, I'm not a huge new car fanatic and sure there's some, there's some special things, right? You got your, your super cars or your limited edition, this, that, or the other thing that will raise some eyebrows and get the pump, the pulse pounding. But categorically for sort of a consumer grade vehicle, I was struggling to remember the last time a new car release had this level of impact. And I think it was actually the new mini back in 2002 or three. that that sort of was a big deal. And I worked for that company from 06 to 2010. I think it was, it was a great time and a great product that just, you know, they just flew off the shelves. Cause that was a totally new concept. Which of course was a revival of a very old concept, which is exactly what we have here.
James Stacey	Yeah. Yeah. And I think for Ford, it's it's it's a, it's a return to 2005 when they launched the GT. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Every single person who had the cash and the knowledge to know what they would be buying with their money bought one immediately. Yeah. Long before one was ever seen in the metal. I mean, it's like they made a car for every Jay Leno type out there. Yeah. Like every guy who had the right mix of money and knowledge. And with the Bronco, I think they actually made something more accessible, not because of the price point, but because like a five year old could look at that car and get so excited about it. And a guy who's owned 15 SUVs in the last decade. could look at that car and go like, that thing looks rad. It doesn't look like anything else on the road. Um, it's very thoughtfully laid out in terms of the way that they do all the various off-roading elements and the, the, the customizable elements. And then Ford knows their market. They're going to go ham on the, on the, the, the add-ons like Mopar has learned to do in the last 10 years. And, uh, yeah, I think we're going to see some like really insane, uh, Baja trucks that come out of this. We'll see that we'll see these guys using the crawler gears and going up rocks next to Wranglers and And, you know, special tube frame stuff. And yeah, I think it'll be on every every kind of if you can do it off road, we'll see the Bronco there and to see it run. If you follow the whole Bronco trajectory, they ran last in the last Baja against the Baja boot from Glickenhaus, which was a return to the exact same race that kind of happened. Now I'm failing on how many years ago, but it's a fun story. I'll put it in the show notes. where you can kind of blend and contrast it. And, and obviously what Jim is up to with his company is vastly different than what Ford's attempting to do with the Bronco, which is to make something that everyone would like to buy for 30, between 30 and 50 grand.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, I think the price point, the price point is really brilliant, at least before the options get thrown in, I'm sure I'll find a way to spend 10 grand on.
James Stacey	Are you a two door or four door?
James Lambden (guest)	Um, I you know, I think the four door actually looks really great, particularly with a hard top on. But same as the Jeep. Two door, you know, for sure.
James Stacey	I mean, if you're doing doors, you're taking the top down or off, a two door is always more fun. I really like the flexibility of the four door in the Jeep. You get a huge amount of space when you don't put kids in it, but when you put kids in it, you still have some space. Oh yeah.
James Lambden (guest)	I rented an unlimited on every Island that I went to on my Hawaiian honeymoon in October. Uh, they didn't actually have one on kawaii. So they gave me the gladiator, which I just found to be immense Um, jt's are huge for sure huge but so long. Yeah, but uh, you know, look I need this thing like a hole in the head, but it It's just I saw it and I just I just started clicking refresh on the ford page which crashed Uh until it they took my credit card number, you know
James Stacey	And they were taking, they were taking reservations and probably still are for a hundred bucks or 500 bucks, something like that.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah. A hundred dollars. Um, and, uh, yeah. And then at some point we'll actually get the call. It says, um, you know, configure your vehicle and see how much a damn thing costs. And, uh, we'll see at that time if, if it still makes sense, but I think so. Why not?
James Stacey	I mean, like if you're going to door, I assume with a stick, maybe not, maybe you want, you want to crawl around town, but come on, come on. It's a seven speed. It's not that can be that tough to drive for certain. And you look at you look at what they did with the shifter in the like stuff like the Focus RS. You couldn't you couldn't. It was a great thing, even despite being pretty edgy. Yeah, I think that they'll do really well with it. I think that whole crawler gear, the first gear. It's cool. You're not going to use around town is super rad. Yeah, I think even if you come in at 10 or 20 percent over the the 30. Yeah, I think that's still a pretty sweet thing and right in line and what you pay for for Wrangler. And honestly, I think Ford might be making better vehicles on large than Chrysler and Jeep are these days.
James Lambden (guest)	It's hard to say. Also, I look, I've got a lot of love for Jeep, but me too. Some of the, you know, the higher end models, the Rubicons and so on. There's so much stuff they glue onto these cars to sort of make them look sportier, all these vents and and weird, I don't know, give me you know, give me a very simple Wrangler, give me some round headlights, removable doors, manual transmission. I'm a pretty happy guy.
James Stacey	The funny thing is, is in many ways, I feel like the Bronco is what people wanted the Defender 90, the new Defender 90 to be.
James Lambden (guest)	Well, you know, I, the thing, the only thing I need less than a new Bronco is an old Land Rover. Um, which Jason's not even here to defend it. I know. I know. I wish he was, I would love to get in on this, but, um, I've come very close to buying a, uh, an early two door Range Rover the last year or so. Uh, lots of history with, with owning Range Rovers and classic Range Rovers. And, um, you know, the best one you can get is anything that has enough, no power or anything. Uh, and then you're actually looking at a pretty good truck. Uh, however, I needed something that brought up the median age of my, uh, of my fleet and would always turn on, you know? Um, and so I think, I think the, the Bronco was just there waiting for me saying, Here you go. It's cool. It's, um, it's got style. It's got heritage. Uh, yeah, I'm actually not turned off by the 2.3 liter EcoBoost. I think that'll be reliable.
James Stacey	It'll be, it'll be slow, but also you've got other cars to go fast.
Filler word/pause	Like that.
James Stacey	I do. It's a Bronco.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, exactly. It doesn't have to be fast. And it'll start. And if I have to fix it, it'll be like 120 bucks a year. You know, I am thrilled.
James Stacey	Um, and it'll be modern car slow to be fair. Like it'll be, Oh, yeah, or 10 seconds to six years like it look totally serviceable and fun. Every gear will be great. Seven means you're close. You're going to be working all the time. It'll be good.
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, totally.
James Stacey	Absolutely. Moving back in some metric to watches as the chat moves, moves on, and we should probably find an end point at some point. I still have some questions left. Yeah, please. Some hypotheticals. If you had a day as the top boss of a watch company, what would you do and for what company?
James Lambden (guest)	Oh, my. Yeah. I mean, there's all sorts of things that I'd like to adjust about the Swiss. I would, honestly, I think I'd probably hop over to Breguet. Okay. And, and remind them that they make the best dials in the industry, and that their brand is arguably from a historical standpoint, one of the if not the most important brands, there are entire aspects and watch design, watch mechanics, elements of style that you cannot even talk about without using the brigade name. I think they're blowing it, because it's such an important brand, such a storied brand. And the stuff they're making today, it's not, it shouldn't be part of the conversation for folks who are interested in looking at a high level, even if it's a time only sort of dress watch or right on up to a perpetual calendar repeater, what have you, it should be part of the conversation when you're comparing things like Vacheron or paddock or AP and it's not. And it's, I think that the design language and also the marketing of that company are just totally out of focus and out of sync with what's happening in a really exciting marketplace that really puts story and design on a pedestal and look how well brands like Longine are doing with at a totally different price point just by focusing on those things. Um, Breguet has, so much to offer, such a great history, and they still make the best dials, even if they're dials that are totally unappealing to people like me. So I think they could go a long way to coming back into the vision of what people might be interested in collecting today if they just change their direction a little bit.
James Stacey	Do you just think they just need a little bit of hype, a little bit of understanding of those kind of core competencies and right the ship a little bit?
James Lambden (guest)	Yeah, I think so. I mean, I, I understand that they do very well in Asian markets and so on, but I mean, the, the people at Breguet are absolutely wonderful and without a doubt, and the products are built to an incredible level of quality. Um, but the design and the marketing is just not quite where it could be. That's, that's what I would do. Give me a day at Breguet. A day at Breguet sounds like a children's book.
James Stacey	A day at Breguet. I like it. All right. Let's say it's been a long day. You sit down with a proper drink of choice, I'm assuming a Lagavulin in your case, and your goal is to unwind. Is it a book, a movie, or music? And where do you go within there?
James Lambden (guest)	It's definitely a Petey Scotch. Lagavulin, it's a good choice. Laphroaig. In the summertime, maybe a Toki Highball, very refreshing. I think it depends on the kind of day I've had. It's definitely a movie or a book. Recently, it's been books, but Clearly with quarantine, there's been a lot of movies too. Depends, depends on the energy level for sure.
James Stacey	Uh, all right. So if you're going to recommend one book or one movie that, that kind of caught your attention recently. Sure. Um. That way we can throw them in the show.
James Lambden (guest)	I love it.
James Stacey	I love it.
James Lambden (guest)	James's final notes. Uh, just finished a great book by Eric Larson called The Splendid and the Vile. And it is a wonderful, um, factual, but sort of dramatized version of events that unfolded during the London Blitz. uh, involving the Churchill family. So Winston and co, um, really absolutely inspiring, um, and lightning. And I thought fairly pertinent during a time of challenge and strife. Um, it was a wonderful read. And, uh, while I do consider myself a little bit of a armchair world war two historian, I think that this would be a very appealing book to anyone who, uh, just has an interest in, in sort of the, the human struggle during, you know, times of uh really challenging times in this case you know the second world war um okay changing tax for the film i there's this great documentary i think i sent it to you or jason right after i watched it it's a it's a netflix documentary and i'm convinced that if it had been serialized and hyped the way tiger king was it would have gotten the same level of attention as Tiger King. It's bananas, bananas stuff. It is a documentary called Operation Odessa. And in short, it explores the life and challenges and crime of this Boston mob enforcer who in the early 80s moved to Southern Florida and began a really wonderful life of crime in all things, including prostitution and gun running and drug smuggling, but got tied up with the cartels and was facilitating the purchase of a Soviet submarine to haul Columbia's finest export into the United States during the early 80s. And this guy's name, by the way, just proves the level of absurdity. It's all first person interviews and the DEA agents involved and all of these really shady characters all being interviewed in person. The guy goes by the name Tarzan. I mean, you have to watch this. It's, I can't, I had my jaw on the floor the entire time. That's wild. I couldn't believe it. I've never heard of it. This is so, what a treat. It is so good. Go watch it. It's so good. I hope you, I hope you enjoy that.
James Stacey	All right. So those are some fantastic recommendations. I'm really excited to to watch that documentary along those lines. Before I let you go, I do want to talk a little bit about the Rolex for EJI auction. We've told this story in the past, but of course, we highlighted the auction because Sam brought it to our attention. He was, you know, auctioning off a pretty sweet little Rolex OP 36 millimeter, you know, steel dial OP in support of the Equal Justice Initiative. And the auction went on for a little while. You were one of the several people who made bids on the watch, considerable bids, to be honest. And as it turns out, when the auction ended, several of the top bidders just entirely flaked, didn't answer, didn't maybe get the message, didn't weren't actually intentional in their bidding. I don't know. And this is somewhat of a risk when you do a simple Internet auction is you're not actually talking to anyone who's been registered in any way with your hopes of bidding the auction. But Sam called us in an absolute bit of a fret about what do I do at this point? I haven't heard back from the top 10 bidders. Do I start over again or something? And I was like, well, yeah, you know, I think James was in the one that was in the top 10 or at least close. And I sent you a line. And instead of even just replying to me being the sweet guy that you are, you called me immediately to try and understand. And sure enough, you just missed the DM and and were able to kind of set things in motion to to get that watch. And, and let's face it, we, we know that you're not a guy that probably needs another watch in his life. Uh, but it is kind of a sweet cause and a sweet thing that Sam put out into the world. And I wanted to give you at least a chance to, uh, to speak to that. Certainly.
James Lambden (guest)	I mean, I think what, you know, what Sam did, uh, which was in response to what you and Jason had each done, um, is, is truly commendable. I think, uh, a lot of us have struggled to find, uh, ways to, to put some good into the world, uh, particularly during these latest Um, social upheavals and, um, especially as a small business owner, it's been hard to do something that, that felt, um, authentic. Uh, so we've done what we could with analog shift and I've tried to do what I can as an individual. Uh, so I love this. Yeah. And, uh, it's a cool little watch, but it was, it just, I love the energy behind it. So I threw in a bid and I was outbid by at least half a dozen people.
Filler word/pause	Um, for sure.
James Lambden (guest)	Which I was thrilled about. Cause I think I threw in, um, a bid that was pretty close to retail value. I wanted to make sure that at least happened. And I didn't really think much of it. And then, yeah, I got that note from you that not only had the top bidder flaked, but you know, the next few people down the line, which, you know, public announcement here, like if you're going to bid for charity, like don't be a jerk guys. Like, come on, come on. Just be a real person. And yeah, I mean, I, you know, I have, I'm no hero here. I just honored my bid and, I absolutely wanted to support the initiative. I did throw a little extra on top of there to help, you know, bring up the numbers a little bit and make sure the full match was achieved. And, yeah, I mean, I really kudos to you guys and Sam for doing a great thing. And, you know, buying the watch was truly the least I could do, but it was going to a wonderful cause. So, you know, happy to have done it.
James Stacey	And for anyone who's interested, and of course we can put it in the show notes, you can make a donation to any number of great social active charities, including the Equal Justice Initiative. That was just one that Sam had picked, and I think he picked really well. So James, an absolute treat to have you on. Of course, we talked about a great many things, but I'll be clear, we left a few things on the table. So we should do this again and talk airships and maybe a little bit deeper into interest in Magnum PI and other things that have clouded our evenings in many cities over the years.
James Lambden (guest)	It's true. It's been my pleasure. Always great speaking with you, my friend, and hopefully we can get you and he and I all together and do one of these in person one of these days.
James Stacey	sometime soon when it makes sense. I would absolutely love that. That would be a treat. And for anyone interested, you can of course find James's business at analogshift.com. You can find them on Instagram at analogshift. And you can find James himself. He's definitely worth a follow at James Lambden. If you struggle with the spelling of a very simple last name, I did the work for you. It will be in the show notes. So no stress there. And like I said, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. And we'll chat to you soon. All right. So that was my chat with Mr. James Lambden, uh, you know, friend of the show, analog shift.com for more information and be sure to follow him, him on Instagram. It'll be interesting to see how things play out with his, uh, Bronco or, uh, or future Bronco or, or that sort of thing. Uh, James, if you're listening, uh, you know, it was an absolute treat to have you on and it was a sweet of you to chat for that long. We appreciate it very much.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Thanks for, uh, thanks for subbing in for me this week. I wish I could have been there. That's great.
James Stacey	Yeah. So how about some final notes? Uh, you know, as I like to say, put a bow on the show.
Jason Heaton	Yeah, definitely. Uh, I can jump in here. So this is when I've had in my kind of notes, uh, for, for a couple of months for a final note and finally dug it out. This is a, a blog by, uh, an artist or a writer named, uh, I'm not sure how she pronounces her name, Sarah Arias or Aries. Um, And she has a blog about Antarctica. And it's not kind of your usual blog about the history of it or visiting it, but there's a little of both in it. Sarah is actually creating a graphic novel version of Apsley Cherry Girard's book, The Worst Journey in the World, which is one of the great works of polar literature from the early 1900s when Cherry Girard accompanied Captain Scott on his ill-fated trip to the South Pole. Obviously he didn't, he wasn't part of the final party that went to the pole and then perished on the way back. He was one of the guys that stayed in the hut back at kind of their base. And he wrote this amazing book. Well, this author Sarah Aries is writing this graphic novel version of it, which is really going to be quite interesting. And along the way she is doing her research, which required some trips to Antarctica to visit the hut that Captain Scott's team had at Cape Evans and some other things that she's looking into down there. And so her blog is kind of an interesting read because she has some very detailed and expository photos of the hut itself, which I found particularly fascinating. as well as some tidbits, some blog entries about how she's developing the book and some things about her travels to Antarctica this past spring. But these photos of the hut are just incredible in the preservation of this place. It's not like a museum where everything's, you know, plexiglassed over. I mean, this is like these guys left the hut and just walked away with, you know, boots under the bed and clothing folded on the shelves. you know, tins of dried milk on the shelves. And I mean, it's just, it's almost eerie. Uh, you know, we've, we've been, you and I've been talking a little bit offline about, you know, cottages and cabins and Dick Prenike and all this kind of stuff. This, this fits right in there. These, these visions, these, this view of this, um, kind of cozy place in a very bleak environment. And, uh, I'll be curious to, to follow Sarah's work as she builds this book. And I think she has a Patreon link as well to kind of, uh, underwrite her work on this book. So be sure to check it out. The website is twirlynoodle.com. And then if you go to the blog portion of it, you'll see these great photos and kind of her progress on the book. So check that out.
James Stacey	Yeah. Just scrolling through these now. What, what, yeah. What an impressive project and a really interesting treatment. Really, really cool. Definitely something worth following. So cool. A cool pick. Yeah. How about you? Mine comes from 99% Invisible. It actually covers a story that I've been just kind of loosely interested in for a little while, but I think they did the best job because obviously you can listen to the podcast itself, the audio. This is episode 282 of their show, and it falls under the category of infrastructure. But like they often do, it has a beautiful written kind of almost like a photo essay. It'll be a post and a sentence or two or a paragraph and then a post and a sentence or two. The long and the short of it is at one point in the early 1900s, New York was one of the oyster producing capitals of the States, just in the waters of the Hudson and by Staten Island. And I'm an absolutely massive oyster fan, they're probably my favorite food, especially when you get into the world of really good oysters. And I know that the, the, I had read previously some years ago that the loss of the oyster of the areas where the oysters live really changed the way water moves through and around the city. And they highlight this with very early in the story with, with an explanation of how bad hurricane Sandy was because there was a limited resource of natural breakers for the water coming in.
General agreement/affirmation	Yeah.
James Stacey	to the area. But it's a really long story. But I swear that when you start scrolling and you notice just how long, how just how tiny that little dot on the side is, it's a lot of photos and it's really nicely laid out and it's worth your time. But it deals with not only the idea of water and climate change in and around, you know, how that will affect New York, but also the ability to use some of the cleaner waters in New York. We're talking, of course, of the Hudson and the inlet from the ocean, not so much something like the East River, which is much more problematic with its effect from Gowanus and such, but there's some fantastic stories on that. I'm more than happy to talk about on a later episode. In this one, it's all about these companies that are working to reestablish these essential sort of reef structures that could support oysters and oyster populations, which could be not only for food, but also for kind of protecting and managing the way water moves around the city. It's a really, really fascinating look at what they call oyster texture.
Jason Heaton	I really enjoyed this quite a bit. Yeah, this is terrific. I'm just scrolling through it now. And I mean, the sheer number of photos and archival photos and these diagrams, I mean, it's just really, really excellent. I remember you and I were walking down in, I think it was in Soho or something or Tribeca where there's this I think they call it the oldest bar in, in Manhattan. And it's like, um, I can't remember what it's called, but, uh, people who listen will know. Um, but it's like near the old, you know, seaport where, you know, I suppose this kind of oyster trade was, was happening. I mean, just looking at these old photos reminds me of that, but, uh, it makes me sad to see how these, these, these incredible industries that used to be a part of, you know, one of these great, wonderful cities, uh, has disappeared. And I hope they do bring this back. That's a really ambitious project.
James Stacey	Yeah, I think it's fascinating because, you know, it kind of hits on, on multiple different levels that, you know, like I said, I, I, I mentioned, um, uh, you know, enjoying oysters, but also I just think like the idea that oysters could have an effect on rising waters and, and how that affects a city that's, you know, right at sea level and, and, you know, sits so is, is so like Manhattan, if you, and especially if you're listening, you haven't been there, Manhattan, you can be in the city and have no concept of just how close you are to water, but you're not far. Yeah. You know, you're never that far at all from water. It's a real part of the city. It's a part of the way the city organizes itself. Obviously, there's never going to be more or less of Manhattan. Sorry, there will definitely be less at some point, but there's not going to be more. You can't just, you know, they're not adding this. And there's a lot of shipping channels. And it's easy to assume that a lot of the water around Manhattan is not clean, but that's not true. You know, the Hudson is very clean. The water as it comes in from the ocean is as clean as the ocean is. You know, there's, like I said, the East River is a different sort of scene. And there's all sorts of great stories surrounding that. But I thought this was absolutely fascinating. And even if you don't feel like listening to the podcast, I think you're missing a slice of it. It's super interesting. But even just the written portion with the photos is incredible. So really nice work, as always, by 99% Invisible. And if you're not listening to their podcast, I highly recommend it. Really great production value, great stories, really interesting content.
Jason Heaton	Nice. Good one. I'm going to add that to my podcast list. That's a good one. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Thanks to James Lambden for sitting in on this episode. You can hit the show notes via Hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. And you can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write thegraynadoatgmail.com. And we have our Q&A episode coming up next week. So you can sneak in a last voice memo and send it to thegraynadoatgmail.com. We might get you in next week. And please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music Throughout is siestaed by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey	And we leave you with this quote from Frank Lloyd Wright, who said, less is only more where more is no good.