The Grey NATO - 134 - Our Favorite Watches Of 2020
Published on Thu, 17 Dec 2020 06:00:10 -0500
Synopsis
This episode discusses the hosts' favorite watches of 2020, including models from brands like Seiko, Aquastar, Tudor, Rolex, Longines, and Breitling. They provide commentary on these watches and share personal experiences with some of them. The episode also covers new gear like the Garmin Descent Mk2 dive computer and other miscellaneous topics.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Stacey | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 134, and it's proudly brought to you by Seiko and their award-winning Prospex LX dive watch. We thank you so much for listening. Hey, Jason, how you doing? |
| Jason Heaton | Pretty good. It's our last, uh, last episode of what's been a very interesting year. |
| Jason Stacey | Yep, a weird year. We did a lot of episodes this year. You know, some people remember we did weekly episodes for a while, and we've been down to about three episodes a month currently. I think 2021 is looking good. I think we'll certainly be able to continue on this format. And if we can make our way back to weekly episodes, I think we absolutely will. Yeah, it's been kind of a kind of a weird year. I'm not so not so sad to see the time move forward, to see us progress towards maybe some new phases. Um, and then, yeah, with that in mind, as far as the show schedule, uh, we're going to take some time off. So the next episode, episode 135, we have something really special planned. I'm looking forward to it, but that will be January 14th. Um, so we're not going to do one like on the 30th, I guess it would have been, um, or, or right there just because, you know, that that's time to relax and, and not be working. Uh, and I have a little bit of vacation that I've been waiting many, many months for. So yeah, we're going to take that time off. We'll be back on the 14th, probably do our next Q&A sometime early February. So if you have any questions for us, please get them sent in. We'll do like a super Q&A episode and kind of package all that together sometime either late January, early February to get back into the three-show flow. But yeah, January 14th, we really appreciate the flexibility to be able to take you know, some time off and, and, and kind of collect ourselves and get some plans together for the next year. And we thank you all very much for listening, uh, throughout this year. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I was just, I was thinking about how it's been such a strange year for, for everybody and how doing TGN weekly or every other week, you know, all, all year has been this little kind of slice of normality or, or constancy, I guess, you know, I mean, we, we've been doing it for several years. I've lost track where we're at four or five years now. And, um, yeah, it's just become such a, uh, you know, stake in the ground every week for me that, that I'm so used to doing. And, uh, it's, it's just kind of kept things on the even keel, uh, through what's been a very strange year with no travel and different, different types of work. And, um, yeah, you know, just a bit of stress here and there. So, um, yeah, it's been great. And I think our feedback from our listeners is, has reflected the same and we're certainly grateful for everybody to hang by us and give us all that great feedback. |
| Jason Stacey | Oh, I absolutely agree. Yeah, it's been it's been kind of a weird year for work in general. Probably for lots of people, but certainly for us, there's, you know, there's no trips, there's no travel, there's no anything. And the truth is, is this show has really become, yeah, like you said, kind of not only a grounding point, but like my favorite piece of work that I get to do. And if we can get back to weekly episodes, I absolutely would love to make that happen. I've been, yeah, I've been just, just loving it. It's been a, it's been definitely a high point of the year from a sort of professional and community standpoint. And it's always nice to hear from people who are appreciating the show and have been listening and leaving comments and sending in emails and voice memos and the rest of it. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, you know, as we're approaching the end of the year, this is, we're having kind of the, my least favorite sort of weather here. I know we've talked about weather a lot here, so I might as well just lean into it here. Here's the weather report. Yeah. Um, you know, I always, we had this, these snow storms in October, November here, and I was kind of hopeful for an interesting winter. And now we've slumped back into this neither here nor there stuff of kind of cold and gray, um, but without any snow to make it pretty or to ski on. So, um, I don't know, you know, I'm, I'm hoping for, I'm hoping for a more interesting January. I've been just binge watching a lot of shows. I finally, I finally got myself to, to watch the Disney plus write stuff series. So I'm obviously a big fan of the book and the movie. And so I was a little hesitant to check that out, but it turned out to be good in a different way than the movie. I think I had to suspend my expectations and just sort of watch it for what it was. And it was pretty good. And then there was this Belgian sort of courtroom drama series called the 12 that I highly recommend that was really intelligent and good. And I'm reading like a 900 page book called Shantaram. I don't know if, Anybody else has read that out there. It was a fairly popular book back in I think the early 2000s, but it's um, it's a semi autobiographical book written by this guy named Gregory David Roberts that Ghoshani and I actually saw him wandering around the property at Goldeneye down in Jamaica last fall and When we were driving back to the airport our driver We I don't know how he came up, but we mentioned him and she said oh, yeah, he's a famous author So we looked him up and sure enough. He'd written this book and we I finally picked it up. Ghoshani just finished it And he was, so he's Australian. Sorry to go off on this tangent here, but it's really interesting. He he's, he's Australian and he, um, he became a heroin addict and to support his habit, he became an armed robber and he robbed banks and he was put in prison, uh, in a fairly infamous prison in Australia. And he escaped by going right over the front wall of the prison and escaped and fled to India where he sort of found himself and started, um, He was living in the slums of Bombay and, uh, started a free medical clinic for people there and traveled all over India. And then, um, I, I'm, I'm not far enough into the book to know what happens next, but apparently he broke himself back into prison, um, to serve out the rest of his sentence. I mean, it's just this grand bizarre story and, and it's as rollicking novel. So I recommend, I recommend Shantaram and I think I'm guessing a lot of listeners have read it just because apparently it was quite, quite popular, but, uh, yeah, So that's been my last week hunkering down here. |
| Jason Stacey | Well, that sounds really good. Speaking of something that I've gotten into, but haven't finished, have I talked to you about Patriot, the TV show on Amazon Prime? |
| Jason Heaton | No. Is that the kind of the semi-comic spy sort of thing? No. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. So it is. It's about a guy who's essentially an agent Um, someone who, who, you know, infiltrates various things for the government to make other things happening. And he's essentially going to be facilitate the transfer of money in and out of Iran, which I guess, you know, they're, they're supposed to be, uh, you know, that's not allowed. Right. So this is being done, but he works as kind of a, a mostly disconnected agent from the U S government, like a safety net sort of thing with where he doesn't have that much safety. Um, but he's so, uh, the story is about this guy who's kind of like a spy or an agent or whatever you want to call it. but he's so bored and kind of depressed about his job that when he's not working, he writes really a beautiful like folk music about his classified missions. Wow. Wow. Has the guy who played John Locke on lost for those of you who would remember his name, it's escaping me right at the moment here. And I'm, I'm in a different computer setup, so I don't have as many monitors. I got, I got to keep things together today. But, uh, Yeah, the show's so far been really, really good. I've enjoyed it on maybe two or three episodes in, and it's not really like anything I've watched before. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and it's from several years ago, right? Or is it a current thing? I think it's from now. Okay, all right. Let's see. I just feel like I've seen the title of that for a while. |
| Jason Stacey | Oh, no, you know what? It premiered in 2015, so it is from a few years ago. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know what direction it went in. It's got a 91 on Rotten Tomatoes. It's weird that it's from five years ago and it only just hit my radar, thanks to my brother, Tim, actually, for recommending it several times throughout the summer. So yeah, the lead is Michael Dorman, who you might know from 2020's The Invisible Man with Elizabeth Moss, which is a pretty fun kind of thriller, campy thriller. Daybreakers, he was in as well. That's about 10 years old now. So he's been in a few things. He's been around a bit. I think you kind of right. He's one of those guys where you kind of recognize his face. Yeah, and and he's he's so far. He's been yeah great in it. I've it's it's just kind of a weird show. It's kind of fun fun to have something something else. I finished all of the venture four-wheel drive and I've now become part of the crew of people that wait for the weekly drop. Oh, yeah, which I you know, probably this wasn't the best time of year to finish all of it because now there won't be a drop until he's back from holiday. right. But yeah, I it's been good so far. I'm going to start digging into some books over over the vacation. So ship of gold is pretty high on my list one that you recommended on the show and to me some time ago, which I think I got for Christmas last year and it was just it's been sitting on the shelf just kind of eyeballing me every time I go in the room. So I'm going to break into a couple books as well. |
| Jason Heaton | I know what else you have to do this year. You have to build that Lego defender. I think you have. |
| Jason Stacey | Goodness. I do have to build that Lego defender, which is still in its box. It is. Yeah. If my brother Grant is listening, uh, my apologies for not building it. He got it for me. He and his, his, uh, lovely girlfriend got it for, for me last, uh, last Christmas. And there were so many times where I was like, all right, this is the week three, four nights this weekend. We're going to, we're going to build it. We'll sit down and build it. And then it's just daunting. You pull the thing out and it's like, Oh, eight thousand pieces or whatever. It's not that many, but it's a lot. It's a lot of pieces and complexity. And I look at it and I go like, ah, I don't know. But yes, I should absolutely do that. |
| Jason Heaton | You can't do it while you're like watching something I found. I mean, it's, it's all involving. And so, yeah, I mean, sorry to say, but it's, it's a genuine commitment and you gotta have space to, spread it out. |
| Jason Stacey | That's the other thing. It's going to take over the dining room table. I think, but yeah, no, I don't, I don't disagree. You are right. I should build that. And I know that once I get started, I will enjoy it and I can probably listen to a podcast while doing it. Oh, that's yeah. You could do that. But I don't, it just depends on how much communicating with a co-partner building scenario you need. If you know, cause I've watched other people online work through some of these huge ones and, and they always seem to, they have one person that's doing pick, uh, picking of the pieces that are going to be required for the next step. It's someone who's assembling that seems to be like the fast, but that's the fast. But like I've seen, I've seen people who seem really, really good at Lego take 16 hours to build, uh, the Bugatti Veyron or the Chiron or whatever, whatever one they are. Yeah. It would have been the Chiron. And, uh, and, and so I don't know, I don't, I think it'll, do you have any idea of how long it probably took you? Did you build it with Ghoshani? |
| Jason Heaton | Ghoshani and I built it and it probably took us four solid nights at about, I mean, I'd say three, four hours at a crack. So maybe we're slow. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn't sound slow. I think the key is to do with two people or buy a card table, set it up in a corner of my room and spend like the next month building it slowly. Like kind of the way that some people do with a jigsaw puzzles, they kind of walk into the room and they put a couple of pieces down and they move on. I don't know. I don't know how much I want it to be. Uh, uh, and then, and then I have to decide what to do with it once it's built. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's big. I mean, it's, it's like in our dining room now in a very strange place, but, uh, Gashani likes to use it for a photo prop, you know, speaking of Legos, um, and this just came to my mind, there's, there's a guy I follow on Instagram histo brick and he makes custom, I don't know if this is a thing, but he makes custom Lego models of things that he wants to make and then sells them and creates packages for people. And what's really very niche about what he's doing now is he's doing famous ships that have sunk in the great lakes, which, which is, you know, up my alley and several of my friends' alleys. But so, you know, the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald that sank in 1975 and there was a song about it, et cetera. He's doing, he's releasing his Edmund Fitzgerald Lego model and it's big and it's very authentic. And he even did an iron ore dock and he did a boiler, like a ship boiler, like, really niche stuff that he's selling. I think he's probably doing minimal units, like maybe limited run of a hundred because he's, he's buying Legos of certain colors and shapes and then assembling it into these ships and then creating directions for people. Um, which I'm excited about. And I think it's, it's really creative. I think it's really cool. |
| Jason Stacey | I worry that he'll infringe in some way. I don't like maybe that's not even how things work. I have no idea. |
| Jason Heaton | But histo brick, if anyone's, if anyone's keen on this, it's pretty cool. |
| Jason Stacey | We'll put it in the show notes. That sounds awesome. Yeah. Um, I know that people occasionally, anytime somebody builds a Jeep out of Lego, big, small, like a Wrangler, I get that people, everyone, people, there's a, there's four or five of you who are listening right now who go like, oh yeah, no, I DM every time I see a Jeep or something made out of Lego and, and, you know, bless your heart. It's great. I like, I like seeing them for sure. I've, I've tried my hand a few times at, at making sort of a speed champion sized Wrangler. Yeah, and because I always kind of wondered like why wouldn't they do this? It's all square line like it's all straight straight lines, right? And then I've tried a few times and it's way more difficult to try and engineer the floor plan so that you can still get two seats in it, but it doesn't look weird and yeah hats off to to the folks at the speed champions, you know wing of of Lego and although I saw all of the speed champion stuff was on sale like pretty deep sale for Christmas. So maybe they're not continuing that line. My guess is the licensing is a huge pain. Sure. Like Lego would have to work with the brands or the brands would have to kind of love Lego. And I don't understand anyone who doesn't love Lego, but I'm sure there's people out there who don't really want their car only sort of represented by square shapes. Yeah. You know, like, like people would like brands that are probably very conscious of old character lines and grills and textures and things that are on brand for them. Yeah. It could probably be kind of a difficult sell, but I would love to see more. I mean, if they kind of just put out even just, if they just said like, we're only going to do classic cars because then maybe brands wouldn't care or they'd care less or I'm not sure. But if they did one a month, I would just sign up like to a subscription. Yeah. Yeah. Just send me something. It could be a Baja boot one weekend. It could be a 250 GTO the next. It could be anything. It'd be fun, though. I do like them. And I like those because they're like 30 minutes to build one. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | I think I should move in that direction. I can't do another little multi-day one. |
| Jason Stacey | Desk ornament, really? Yeah. So those are good, though. I enjoy those quite a bit. They also make an incredible gif. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, our episode this week is our favorite watches of 2020, but before we dive into that, we haven't really talked about new watch releases in the past few weeks. So should we quickly kind of blitz through a list here of some recent releases that we like? |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, for sure. So I think we've, we've, yeah, like the last couple episodes, well, of course, one's a Q and a, the one before we kind of had a set show plan. So we didn't have time to chat about all the new watches and it's actually been a little bit of time since the stuff came out, but you know, bear with us. This is the, the, the fun of, of making a weekly ish, not really quite weekly show once every 10 days or whatever it is. Um, so the first one that, that I experienced because I got to go to there, I got to sit in my own home and watch their virtual presentation. is a series of new models from Zen, which is something I decline or don't respond to a lot of these Zoom invites and just wait for the press release. But when it comes to Zen, I want to know. I want to sit there and watch. And they always have a little story or a personality attached to the watch, not necessarily as an ambassador, but as someone who actually used the watch or has used Zen watches for work in the past. And so that's what they did. Tim and his crew in Frankfurt did a beautiful job with the presentation. And, you know, the end result is, you know, kind of four new watches would be the easy way of looking at it. But it's a 103 SAG chronograph in green, which is gorgeous. Like a really cool watch that they've done in other colors. And this is sort of in the same vein as like an Arctis, but in green. And then they replicate a sort of Not even sure how I would describe the color. It's less radiant and kind of textured than the dial, but it has this beautiful green bezel as well. Yeah. Uh, so that, that, that one's great. And then they, they made a pretty special looking chronograph called the R 500, which is a sort of bullhead style chronograph, almost Ichipod esque in terms of its case, very smooth, super modern, again, pushers up at the, uh, 11 and one crown at 12 has a power reserve indicator. It's a pretty cool looking thing. Let's see the first sizing. So it's 300 pieces is what they're going to make. And you have a power reserve and it's a titanium case. And then on top of that, you get it's a Valjoux 7750 that's in there. It's anti-magnetic to DIN 8309 because that's how Zen always does stuff. And yeah, it's 42 millimeters wide. It uses a 24 millimeter band that connects kind of recessed into the case. for a kind of a lower profile. So there's no, uh, there's no lug horn, if you will. And then you have a 16 millimeter case thickness, which really isn't that uncommon at, um, uh, for this movement. But the fun thing is, is the whole case is tilted towards the reader towards the user. So there's two thicknesses at 12 o'clock at 16 millimeters. So at the K the part of the case that would be away from your body while it's on your wrist, but it's 13 millimeters at six o'clock. So my guess is it actually wears in kind of a unique way. |
| Jason Heaton | Can you imagine what fun they had designing this watch? I mean, it's, it feels both very Zen, but also very un-Zen, you know, it's, it's just so automotive. It's so out there. It's, it's like, you know, very few brands can pull this sort of thing off. Um, unless you're kind of a small brand that is just sort of, you know, always does strange watches and, and to, to fit this into their collection of fairly austere tool watches. It's just fun to see. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. And when I was sitting there in the presentation, I, we won't have to take too long with this, but I think this is the most fun part of the presentation for me sitting there watching it. They have, um, they have a famous, and I don't remember the gentleman's name, but they have a, a well-known successful rally co-driver. So the guy who's reading the pace notes. Um, but then he also is a, a race car driver behind the wheel of his own right. Um, and he drives up to like, they play a little video before doing a little interview with him, but he, the video is him driving up to Zen's headquarters, I guess, in like a vintage nine 11 race car. Oh, well, uh, you know, with like yellow wings and a fantastic livery and the rest of it. So yeah, I think they wanted to make kind of an automotive style chronograph, but at a more custom sort of level. So you get that kind of slanted case. It's all titanium. Uh, I think it's really cool. It's probably not something I would buy or wear. And certainly not before I bought something like some of the 910 chronograph, limited edition chronographs they've made previously, which is, Jason, I know also one of your favorites from the brand. Yeah. But I do really like this and I think it's pretty cool. And the last one is four watches, ostensibly the new 105 series, which comes in a Day-Date model with the Day-Date at six, which I rather like. And that's either a black or a white dial with a 12-hour bezel. That thing looks awesome. And then they make a 105 STSA UTC, which is the same 105, but with a GMT movement. And hey, I mean, who doesn't like another GMT? It's 41 millimeters. It's about 12 millimeters, a little under 12 millimeters thick. It uses a Salida base movement. So it's a independent 24-hour hand set sort of function, but it has a 24-hour bezel. I think they look awesome, very clean, you know, super clean, super clean, very modern, big orange hand. I think they should have loomed the arrow in the hand. Oh yeah, that that the GMT hand is not luminous in any way, and I think it would have been cool to have had had some loom on there for you know late nights or whatever. Yeah, but yeah, I think that that sins kind of update for me. It's it's definitely this GMT is is is a looks like a complete winner. But really what we're seeing is it's a kind of like a very diverse edition of three new models, essentially three new ranges at least. And, uh, and I think in many ways that are 500 kind of stole the show, you know, being limited edition, being super quirky, uh, from a brand where you, you generally kind of know what you're going to get when, when there's a news in coming out. And then every now and then they kind of pivot hard and they do something like that are 500 or they go green on this one Oh three. It's good. I think they did well. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I'll toss one out here. Um, another new one that came out, I think just this past week was the, um, the unimatic Modelo Quattro, or I guess they're calling it four. And, uh, you know, unimatic is, is one of those brands that, um, they can take kind of, uh, a bread and butter design, something that's both familiar, but also fresh in the way that they've managed to really pull off well, and just keep spinning off these iterations of it that, that look new and make you want one. even though you already have one, two, three, whatever of them. And, uh, and the U four is basically their dive watch. I guess it was called the U one, the Uno. Um, but they've, they've put a fixed brushed steel bezel on it. Um, so it gives it like a Panerai vibe. It does. Um, and it's almost, you know, a little bit sort of black Bay 41 ish looking, it's got a big crown and they've, they've drilled out the lugs. which they hadn't done in the past on the U1 and you know but it has that classic sort of unimatic you know diver dial with the minute track and the big chunky ladder hands and I love the look of it. I mean I'm a huge unimatic fan and it looks like they're sold out. I think it was about you know these are like you know four or five hundred dollar watches. I mean they're so affordable that they're like candy, you know, people just kind of go for them because they're so fun to collect and wear. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. And, you know, and the nice thing is, is that they've, they, they are kind of sticking to a general format as far as sizing. So it's a 40 millimeter case. It's, it's under it's 49 millimeters, lug to lug uses 22 millimeter straps. So you get a lot of strap for the case, which is kind of a defining element for the way they operate. And then it's about 14 millimeters thick, which is kind of my only thing with the unimatic is I kind of, I don't think that the watch is too thick. But I would, I would personally go in for a slim version. Yeah. Whatever that meant. If that meant a little bit less water resistance, that'd be fine. Like something like this, but at 12 millimeters or even something like this, where the lugs were actually just a little bit lower on the case. Right. It's a slightly different case shape because the lug, the lug design for their case is very much in the middle between the bezel and then the case back. It wears very flat across your wrist. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Um, but I think it's an absolutely gorgeous thing. Uh, you know, they also did a blue one recent, a blue model of their dive watch with, uh, Messina labs, which was another gorgeous looking watch. They're really doing a lot of, uh, a lot of great stuff. And at the price point, it's just, it's a, it's, it's kind of, it has that sort of psycho element to it. It's, it's a lot of charm for your money. And, and I think it's, it is one of these watches and you, and this is where you get a hugely successful collector like William Messina partnering with the brand. There is something kind of like, collectible about them. Yeah. Right. Right. And it's not just that they don't make that many. Cause I think they make as many, they make a reasonable amount when you hear about them. And it's not like you, you're going to have to wait years or pay more, uh, you know, at the secondary retail. I think this is cool. And as much as I like having a bezel and as much as I really enjoyed the ones that have the, what was their term for the bezel that just has the dot, no other markings. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | It's sort of, you know, you know the one I mean, right? Yeah. It's sort of reminiscent of the, what they called the bund version of the Blancpain. Exactly. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a black bezel with a dot. So you still get the track. You just don't get any of the markers. I thought that was gorgeous. And this is kind of like another step further where the bezel physically is still there. There's just nothing on it. It's just a brushed cylinder around the dial. And I think it looks great. Yeah. Super cool looking watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, you know, well, speaking of, uh, Blancpain influence, um, we're recording this on the Tuesday before the show goes live. And, um, I just happened to wander over to the, uh, Hodinkee homepage and the release of this, uh, 50 fathoms mil spec, Hodinkee edition, um, is pretty spectacular. Um, you, you probably know a little more about this. Why don't you give the lowdown? |
| Jason Stacey | I do. Yeah, it's actually super simple. So if you remember in 2017, Blancpain made a limited edition, I think it was, I think it was 500 pieces if I remember correctly. of their tribute to 50 fathoms mil-spec. And the mil-spec is a specific version of the 50 fathoms that was developed to be used by the US Navy based off of the standardized 50 fathoms, which was a commercially available dive watch and used by lots of navies. It was a very popular dive watch in the early 50s. And arguably, as much as anyone has this claim, Blancpain can at least claim that they had the first or one of the first dive watches ever. And certainly if you consider the format of a dive watch as we think of it today, it was established by the 50 fathoms. So it's a wearable case, a normal thickness to the crystal like Rolex and Inacar and lots of other brands were developing watches at the same time, but they all came with different levels of actual practicality, everyday wearability, that sort of thing. That's why skin divers became very popular in the 60s, right? Yeah. It says a somewhat more lightweight version of something like a dive watch. But this new version is basically the same as the Mil-Spec from 2017, but there's no date. And the case is brushed versus being polished. If you remember, the Mil-Spec was a fully polished sort of case. And then there's no case signature. So most Blancpain on the case side, the nine o'clock case side, actually have an engraving of the word Blancpain. And in this case, that engraving has been omitted. So it's kind of just a less is more approach to the mil spec. It's still 40 millimeters. It still has the water ingress moisture indicator on the dial. It has a gorgeous sapphire insert in the bezel. So you get that kind of glassy texture that the Fifty Fathoms is sort of known for. And yeah, all told, it's a, it's an absolutely beautiful 40 millimeter stainless steel dive watch. And, uh, it has a four day power reserve. It uses Blancpain's 1154 caliber, 300 meters water resistance. It's delivered on like a black NATO strap. I got to see it, you know, a couple of days ago, you know, via Hodinkee and, uh, I haven't, sorry, I haven't seen it in the metal. I got to see some images and the specs a couple of days ago. And yeah, I mean, it might, the only bummer here, in my mind is that I can't afford it. I don't think it costs too much. They've made $250, which is borderline none for a watch like this. And it's $14,400, which I think is a few hundred dollars less, if I remember. The original Mil-Spec was either $14,100 in 2017 or $14,700. I can't remember, though. That's the way my brain works. But I think it's just gorgeous. I love the Bathyscaphe LE that Hodinkee did. Jason, you have one of those. I think if they could do anything to have kind of knocked that one off a pedestal, I don't know which one I would pick. Probably the Bathyscaphe, it's 30% less money. All things considered, I think the Bathyscaphe was just under 10 grand. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. This watch is so great. I mean, I remember at... I didn't realize it was 2017. That's a long time ago. It's longer ago than I thought that they came out with that Mil-Spec tribute at Basel. But I remember being blown away by that watch and crowing about it and gushing over it. And then people coming back and saying, Oh yeah, but that date is not good. And the engraving on the case band, well, both of those are gone. And then the brush case, this is, this is just perfection. There's something about that moisture indicator on the dial that just really kicks it up a bit. It's, it's like this, it's functional, but it's also this kind of weird, just very basic symbol that just adds the splash of color. And it's, boy, it's just a gorgeous watch. |
| Jason Stacey | And I remember back when I saw the 50 fathoms mil spec, which I do believe was 2017. I think I could be, I could be off. Maybe it was a little later than that, a little earlier than that, actually. Um, but I remember when I saw it, uh, I, I didn't, there was, I didn't care for the date. Yeah. Um, which I think was common to a lot of people. It was kind of, it's in the four 30 position. It was kind of a hole punch sort of solution through the dial. It didn't really look like it was designed to have a date the whole time. Yeah. And I also remember I didn't, I didn't really like the moisture indicator. I thought it looked kind of goofy. I thought the watch would look way cooler without it. And then once you go through the history, uh, and sort of the precursors to the TR 900 and, and the tornic Rayville's, which were block points that were rebranded to be sold in the U S um, it makes more sense. And now, now I find it really kind of just very cool to see it. It's, it's funny how I've come around on, on something like that. Cause my, my mind wouldn't have changed about the date. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Um, I'm kind of hit or miss. I don't really care that much one way or another about the case engraving. It's definitely better without it, but it wouldn't bother me if it had been there. Yeah. Um, but the, uh, yeah, I, I think they nailed it. Like they commonly do. Uh, I just, yeah, I just wish I was kind of flush with cash at the moment and could make one of these mine. That's a very cool thing. But once you, you know, do the currency conversion and the shipping up to Canada and the taxes and everything else, it's a, it's a, you know, more than I paid for the Jeep. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I mean, I think, you know, our, Our main topic and our new watch update is sort of blending together. This is a bit of a gray area because this is like an instant favorite for me for this year. And I think it really puts a nice cap on what's been a pretty amazing year for dive watches in general. This is kind of a fitting way to close out the year with something pretty spectacular. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. I don't, I don't disagree at all. I'm super impressed by it. I'm sure, I'm sure that even by now I'm, you know, I have my Slack shut off and the rest of it to record, but I'm sure by now they could be sold out. Yeah. I don't think the bathyscaphs lasted 10 or 15 minutes, so I wouldn't be surprised if these go the same. So well done to the limited edition team at Hodinkee on this one. They always do a nice job. But lately, it's been a lot of swatches and G-Shocks with John Mayer, and those are all special and fun. But I kind of like finally seeing a big, really special thing. And for it to be a dive watch that I think they kind of nailed all the parts, that's great. But it's also nowhere near the only collaboration on our list. We actually have the Warn&Wound's Christopher Ward C65 Sandstorm, which I think is a super handsome watch. I think they did a lovely job with it. And it's just nice to see Christopher Ward. It's a brand that I've had a lot of trouble just directly interfacing with over the years. But I think that the Warn&Wound guys, they always do a nice job. They've got great taste, especially in sports watches. And I think this is a great looking watch. Aesthetically, it's kind of in the same zone as that LE Halios that I have from Rolldorf. Oh, yeah. But with different kind of a different use of textures. And then it has this radial date display that's in a channel kind of below the dial. And it's a red marker so that they've managed to find a way to do the date that makes the watch feel a lot more special and also doesn't have a normal date window, which I think is really remarkable. The full steel one really speaks to me. Yeah, that's the one I like. Between the steel bezel and case and then the steel dial with all this different texture. It's a 38 millimeter watch. It's 11.6 millimeters thick. It's a steel watch, 20 millimeter lugs, 150 meters water resistant. You can get it in a DLC version as well, kind of the dark tone. And they're selling for between, looks like between $1,100 and $1,205, which, uh, for this sort of watch with this, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of a, a special, a special creation between these two brands. And it's a nice way to support, uh, worn and wound and, and, and that sort of thing. So, uh, kudos to them and to, uh, Christopher Ward for, uh, finding a design that still feels special and, and doesn't really take anything away from Christopher Ward's normal lineup. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And then another collaboration that, that came out recently, and we sort of touched on it during our Q and a episode, someone was asking about gentlemen's watches, but the, um, the Oris pointer date with the bronze dial that was a collaboration with Fratello watches. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. So I got this one in and I'll link to my post on Hodinkee where I wrote up a kind of hands on for it. The guys at Fratello are friends of mine and ours and are great guys. And they clearly have fantastic tasting watches because look, look what they were able to create. You know, Oris is a brand that has a lot of collaborations that happen, whether it be with watch company or with like other watch world things or jeans or ocean conservation, there's a lot going on there. So to make something that kind of stands out, I think they did a really lovely job by kind of mixing that oxblood, the deep red dial from the steel pointer date with a bronze case, and then going mostly gilt on the dial to kind of tie the two together. I think they did a great job. It's roughly the same price as a normal pointer date, despite being quite limited. I like some of these collaborations too, where it feels a lot like a watch that the brand would have made. Yeah. And, and I think in this case it does, uh, it does certainly. So again, like, like we said with, uh, Christopher ward and, and Warren wound. Yeah. Good, good on a good on Oris and, uh, and for tell us. So that's a, it's a standard, standard pointer data in terms of size and everything. So it's a 40 millimeters, uh, 50 meters, water resistant. It has a steel case back. It uses a Salida SW 200 with their pointer date. And it's, um, including VAT it's at 2315. So I don't think you pay VAT everywhere. It would depend on where you're buying it. but you have 250 units from Fratello and then another 50 sold via Oris. So there's only 300. Very cool. A cool piece for sure. Super distinctive. I thought the red, the red one from a couple of years ago at Basel was pretty distinctive, but to see it, there's like way more warmth comes out of the color with the bronze and it comes on a really nice kind of aged leather strap. It comes with a gray NATO as well, which is of course something we're fine with. And, uh, and yeah, I think it looks great. I think they did a, they did a super job. It wouldn't be surprised if these are, uh, these are quite collectible. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's beautiful. It has a very classic vintage look to it. I'm looking at a wrist shot on your Hodinkee article and, uh, I'd love to use it is it's very much a gentleman's watch. I think, uh, I think actually both this and the, the worn and wound Christopher Ward, the both are slot nicely into that territory where you could, you could just wear this watch for pretty much anything you do short of, you know, diving or you know, lots of snorkeling or swimming or something. And it's just, uh, goes with a lot of things. It's a great size. So yeah. Kudos on both of those. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, for sure. And speaking of diving, we also have the, is this the official launch now, Jason, for the, the Mark two descent? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, um, Garmin, this is a bit out of left field compared to the other ones we've talked about, which were all mechanical watches. Um, this is Garmin's second iteration of a dive computer. Um, which is called the descent and this is the descent mark two or MK two. It's no secret that you and I are huge Garmin fans. And, um, I've been wearing the descent as a dive computer for the past couple of years and absolutely love it. It's completely eclipsed any dive computers that I've worn, uh, prior to that, um, with its functionality, um, and ease of use. And the mark two is. I would say a gentle bump up from the Mark 1, the version that I've been wearing. I have the Mark 2 in, although I haven't been able to take it diving yet. It's a very similar feel watch. I think it's slightly bigger, but it maintains the same functionality. The biggest difference with the Mark 2 is that they're linking it up with a tank pressure sensor. So as those of you who dive might know, some dive computers come with a tank pressure sensor that you actually screw into one of the ports on your regulator on the first stage, and it will then send the tank pressure very precisely to the display on your dive computer. But what they've used in the past for most of these has been a radio frequency, which has been spotty. I would say I've had a, I had a Suunto D9 that would, you know, you'd be diving and you'd glance down and suddenly your tank pressure was not there anymore. So I always dove with a brass and glass, old-fashioned pressure gauge, which I recommend anyway. But what they've done here at Garmin is they've taken advantage of the fact that there's this huge company that does all this interesting stuff with marine and avionics, etc. And they've actually innovated the use of sonar for detecting tank pressure or communicating tank pressure from the first stage of the regulator to the watch. So clearly haven't had a chance to try it, but Their head of development for the diving division is a very avid diver. He's a, he was a dive instructor and a technical diver, um, rebreather diver, et cetera. And, uh, and he was very proud to introduce this. I sat in on one of their, their launch events for this. And it looks like a real game changer to me. It can tell the tank pressures from up to 10 other tanks. So you'd have to have the pressure sending unit for each of those other tanks. And then for instance, if you were part of a. dive team or, um, an instructor or a dive master on a dive, you could tell the pressures of everybody in your group, or if you're a tech diver and you have multiple tanks with all of your backup gases or decompression gases, you could, you could tell that as well. So it's, it's, it's pretty significant. Um, I think, you know, Garmin is inching its way into more, um, renowned and acceptability among divers. Um, and I think this will be a real step up for them. I think it's, uh, It's a pretty, pretty cool device. So hats off to that. |
| Jason Stacey | You were explaining me some of these, uh, features when, you know, a few days back and I was just blown away by the idea that you could be, uh, uh, an employee at a resort or, or somebody who does kind of discovery dives or something like that. And assuming that people had the budget or, or the gear was so nice at this resort that you could be operating one of these with all the sensors to be able to just look down and see that well, this person has this many PSI and that has this. And I just think that's so clever. I mean, you might miss whole dives. Just, just look at looking at that screen and watching everybody's consumption rates. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I always, I used to keep a, I don't, I mean, for every dive I ever took, I have my consumption rate. I do that math in a, in a, cause I keep a dive log, a normal dive log that I can show a shop or whatever. Yeah. But after about 50 or 60 dives, I kind of slowed down on doing that. And I would just keep a simple like Google Doc spreadsheet for every dive that would have all the gear I wore, how much weight I had. Typically, even if I had like breakfast, I had all these little notes. Sure. And because that back, you know, you'll remember this, Jason, back when I was doing more diving, you know, back even in the time of Clipperton, I was trying to get to be a very good diver. And my main issue was air consumption. You know, I'm a tall, lanky guy, mostly muscle at the time. And, and I could just go, I could really rip through tanks unless I had a few days of diving back to back. And so that was something I was really working on. I was always trying to track my consumption rate and understand why it was sometimes higher or lower and how gear may be affected and all that kind of stuff. And I have to think with something like this, where now it's just all going to your phone when you're done, the dive would be incredible for the, the, the improvement, the art of diving, if you will, the craft of it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, and that, Connectability with a phone app has been really great. I mean, I know that Suunto is doing the same thing these days with some of their newer computers, but when I got the first edition of the Descent, it was such a game changer for me to be able to come back from a dive and immediately link it with my phone app and look at everything. Consumption rate and it'll plot a GPS pinpoint where you actually descend and come back out of the water. And then, you know, the other nice thing about these is that They do everything else that a Garmin does. I would take it cross-country skiing or biking, and it will do all of the stuff that a Phoenix will, as well as the dive capabilities. Without going on too much further about this, I think if you're in the market for a new dive computer, this is $1,300 without the air integration. Then if you want to buy the additional tank sending unit, I think that's about another $400. It's a significant outlay for that capability. I'm not sure I would go that route. we'll always use a separate pressure gauge anyway. So I'm not sure I need that, but I think it's, uh, I think it's just a really cool, cool to have computer. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. I'm sure that the tech is better than I give it credit for, but, uh, you know, I had people who I dove with in Vancouver who had the, the D nine systems, the radio frequency ones and, or maybe with D sevens, there was a few different models like, and then the, the, there's a more expensive company I could liquid vision or, but they make these, these really higher end, dive computers that can do a lot of that stuff as well. Um, and then all of those people, regardless, we're still carrying like a simple gauge. Yeah. Right. And, uh, and I remember when I, when I set up my BC, I was kind of like, Oh, I'll go wireless. It sounds more fun. And the dive shop was like, definitely go wireless, but buy this normal one that has the gauge and also a depth thing so that you can dive when your computer dies. Yeah. Right. You can, you can just kind of be chill and know how deep you actually went and quickly run a table. So that's what I was using. And, and, you know, the, the fun thing about this descent Mark two, and hopefully I can do this before the descent Mark three becomes a thing is when I get back into diving, I'd like to think that once everything's shorn up and I kind of get my legs back and the rest of it, it'd be really fun to invest in something like this and, and kind of have that be the piece of gear that gets you out of bed and dives early in the morning and the rest of it. So I think that in that metric, it could be worth it, whether or not I would pony up, like you said, for the, wireless tank monitoring, I'm not so sure. We'll have to see how many tanks I could monitor. I only ever dove with one, so. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, but super cool. And yeah, you know, the other side of it, like you brought up, is that you can, it's still, it's basically a Phoenix. It has all the other feature sets as well, which makes them just the most useful multi-sport watch in existence. |
| Jason Heaton | If they can come out with a solar charged version, I think it would be the end game for dive computers. I think it would be the ultimate one. You know, if you, if you didn't even wear a mechanical watch or something different. I mean, this could literally be one watch for every single thing you do. |
| Jason Stacey | I was, I was commonly seeing the 45, 46 millimeter Phoenix on people's wrists at airports. Yeah. all the time. So it wouldn't surprise me people were willing to wear a slightly larger one and just have that be their one watch if diving was a big part of their life. But who knows, maybe over time you see that the Descent feature set will make it down into a 42 millimeter Phoenix or a Descent Mark III or whatever in the future. And yeah, they just do some really incredible stuff and that definitely bleeds into the watches as well. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's our new watch roundup. If there's a watch that you really wanted to hear us kind of chat about, drop us a line, thegreatnadoatgmail.com. We'll get it slated for an episode next year, early next year, I promise. And yeah, until then, we've got a pretty packed show, lots more watches to talk about. But Jason, how about we do a quick risk check before we get into an ad break and the main topic? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, definitely. Um, I pulled out a watch that I haven't worn in a while. Uh, it's, uh, my Rolex Explorer 14 to 70. So this is an old 36 millimeter one with, with a tritium dial and drilled lugs. Um, and I think I mentioned on a previous show that, uh, with, with vintage watches, and I think this is starting to qualify, um, uh, you lose some, some loom and that's kind of important to me, especially on these darker winter nights. Um, and strangely enough, I mean, this watch is from, gosh, late nineties, I think. And it has zero loom left. Whereas like some of my, you know, my docks of T graphs from the early seventies are, uh, are still glow briefly. Um, this one's completely dead. So it's interesting, but regardless, um, I love this watch. It's, uh, even though it's 36 millimeters, it wears really well. And then I pulled it out because I wanted to try it on this new NATO strap that I'm trying out. And I've got one winging its way. Well, not quite winging its way. It's very slowly plotting its way to Toronto. Taking a sweet time. Yeah. We were hoping to have that, uh, in your hands before the show. So we could both talk about this, but it comes from a guy named Rob based in Australia who goes by a F O two one zero strap. And we've talked about Rob in the past and I mistakenly said he was an Episcopalian minister. And I apologize for that. Rob, he, he isn't a minister, um, but he is a very, very much a strap aficionado and historian as well as a military watch collector. somewhat active on the military watch resource. And he had released this strap that is his Instagram handle, the AFO210, which was kind of a cotton strap that was used on dirty dozen watches in World War II. And then about two years ago, he started looking for what was the Ur-NATO, the original NATO strap that was issued by the RAF in 1954. So, you know, we think of NATO straps as having always been there, something that's always existed. And this strap was actually introduced by the Royal Air Force in 1954 and they called it the 6B-2617. And he tracked an original one down and then he decided he wanted to start reproducing these, which was a little more difficult because it has this narrow sort of eight rib weave design and it's a really lightweight nylon. And he was able to recreate this. And since the original was, 16 millimeters wide. He started with that. And then, you know, people, as you might expect, came out and said, Hey, look, I, that's great, but, um, I'm not going to be able to wear a 16 millimeter strap. I wanted an 18 or 20. And so he, he's gone ahead and made those and he's got a Kickstarter going, but he sent us a couple of these to try out and I'm wearing it on this Rolex. And, um, I gotta say it's, it's, you know, I mean, how many more Nados do you really need and how many more out there? You just think, how dare you? Yeah. I mean, there's just, I've got like a snake's nest of them in a box, but this one is, it's something completely different. It's something completely new. It's super light. You'd swear it's cotton, even though it's nylon and it's very thin. The hardware is a little further apart. And it's so feathery light and so thin that I'm always afraid when I'm even putting it on a watch that I'm going to drop the watch because it just feels so flimsy, but, um, when I put it on my wrist, it's super comfortable. It's very soft. I think it's best suited for a watch, for instance, for, for which it was originally made, which would have been, you know, something like a 36 millimeter, 38 millimeter, maybe sub 40 millimeter pilot or dive watch, not some gargantuan, um, modern thing, but, uh, right. Yeah. And, and so far I think he's only got it in this, this kind of light gray color, which was the original color. And, uh, So he's got this Kickstarter campaign going. It closes on the 10th of February, he said, and then he'll start shipping in mid-April. So there's a bit of a wait for it. But I think if you're a NATO collector, a connoisseur like we are, I think it's worth checking out just because it's where it all began. And it's really cool. So thanks, Rob, for sending that over. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, thanks in advance, Rob. I'm looking forward to checking out the strap once it arrives. The mail just isn't quite what it used to be these days. Everything takes a little bit longer. What are you wearing? Speaking of, well, speaking of special deliveries in the mail and such, I'm wearing my new chronograph. And by new, I mean it's a 40s chronograph. Wow. So this is a, you know, we did our episode about our watch discomfort zones and I really had kind of put it out in the world that I was looking for kind of a mid-century gentleman's chronograph, an old school sort of chronograph. And our good buddy, you know, one-time guest on the show James Lambden of Analog Shift and in some metric watches of Switzerland these days. It turns out he had a solid 18 karat rose gold chronograph Swiss from the 40s that he hadn't quite sorted out what he was going to get to do with and he offered it to me at a absolutely killer price. It was a very sweet move on James's part and I've been wearing it for a while. It snuck its way into an Instagram photo recently and I wanted to make sure that the folks who first got the sort of notice or the details were the TGN audience. And yeah, it's a 35, 36 millimeter, 18 carat rose gold, black dial. It has what's called an exotic dial or an exotic seven dial where the seven is kind of like an upside down two. It's weird, but I really like it. It's super legible. It's going to need a new crystal, so it'll go off to Roald Dorf in the new year for that, a crystal and a cleaning, but it's keeping lovely time. It uses like a very entry level sort of land around 48 chronograph movement. And so far, I've just been absolutely loving it. It feels great with a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, which is what I live in these days, you know, and I'm sure when I eventually dress in some other manner, it'll also feel great for that too. But this is my My concerted effort to dive into the chronograph world, you know, I have the, uh, the Aqua star deep star on one side of that equation for something that, you know, is a little bit more modern in terms of build quality and technology. And then we've got this, which is the better part of, you know, 80 years old and, uh, I'm, I'm quite spinning with it. It wears so well, it looks great. Uh, you know, this deep black dial with almost entirely gold markings. And yeah, a huge thank you to James as always. He's a king. Analog shift. Check him out if you don't know him. But yeah, this is my big push into chronographs. We'll see how it goes. |
| Jason Heaton | It's an amazing watch. You sent me a photo when you first got it and that shiny black dial set off against the gold is amazing. And think about a watch that old. Think about anything else in your life that dates back to the 1940s. I mean, I don't have anything. I don't think. Maybe my grandfather. I've got an old clock or barometer that was hanging on the wall or whatever, but it's like, this is, this is seriously old and this is something that, how many wrists has that crossed? How many places has that been? It's, I love thinking about that sort of thing. |
| Jason Stacey | Not commonly found in solid gold. And even this one, to what I've read, if you know a lot about chronographs, Swiss chronographs, please reach out. But to what I've read, this probably isn't even a solid gold watch in the same way that others are likely has hollow lugs to make it as cheap as possible. that couldn't matter anything less to me. I actually don't even not super worried about whether or not it's solid or plated. I would have been just as happy with a plated thing, but this is the exact aesthetic that I want. And I currently have it on like a, a nice sort of greeny Brown hood, inky leather strap. And, uh, and, and, uh, James was kind enough to send along a matching buckle and it just looks incredible. I'm so happy with it. It makes me smile. It looks really good on my desk next to a Doxa or like it feels there's something kind of complete about having an old fancy chronograph. Yeah. Which, uh, which I like quite a bit. So that, that's my new watch. Uh, you know, I've been, I bring the lead on this one cause I've had the watch for a little while and I was trying to decide the best way to, uh, to try and put it out there. Do I want to write a story? And I figured it'd be easier just to talk about it here. And, uh, maybe, maybe do a story sometime in the future. Once the, uh, the little chip in the, uh, crystals cleaned up and the rest of it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Oh, that's great. I'm, So happy for you. And I think it's, uh, it's just such a perfect way to, to move into that discomfort zone that we talked about. And I think, you know, as we move through next year, we'll be revisiting our dress watch slash chronograph, uh, discomforts, uh, time and again, just to kind of check in on each other and see how it's going. |
| Jason Stacey | We'll have to find a new discomfort. Maybe it sounds like both of us are kind of enjoying this so far. Um, but yeah, a huge thank you to James. And, uh, if you haven't listened to, our watch discomfort episode. It's just a few episodes back, so be sure to check that out. It's kind of a fun one and has proven to be one of the most popular of the year, which I'm pretty happy with. Yeah. All right. So it's what we've probably dilly-dallied long enough. This is going to be a long episode. So how do you feel about popping into an ad break and then getting on with the main topic? Let's do it. So much like with our last few episodes, this TGN ad break is proudly brought to you by Seiko and their latest Prospex LX dive watch, the amazing SNR029. |
| Jason Heaton | That's right, it's an award-winning combination of a 44.8 millimeter titanium case with a super hard coating, a ceramic bezel, and Seiko's much-loved 5R65 spring drive movement with incredible accuracy and more than 70 hours of power reserve. |
| Jason Stacey | And Jason mentioned that the Prospex LX is an award-winning diver, and that's no joke or turn of phrase. The SNR-029 won the Diver's Watch Prize at the Grand Prix de Horlogerie in 2019. That's kind of like the Oscars for watches. And it's not hard to see why, as it's the peak of Seiko's prospects offering, and it brings Seiko's classic dive watch aesthetic into a modern high-end package. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's a true kind of luxe tool watch with 300 meters of water resistance, a matching titanium bracelet, and then it's got this cutting edge movement that boasts a really long power reserve with an indication on the dial, a date at three, tons of loom, and a pretty amazing accuracy rating of plus or minus one second per day. |
| Jason Stacey | And yeah, it's pretty impressive. And all of that is $6,000 via the finest Seiko dealers. The SNR-029 is Seiko's synthesis of heritage and innovation for the Prospex line. And from professional divers to amateurs looking forward to their first certification, or even just desk divers who like a great dive watch, the SNR-029 is a classic tool for the modern world. |
| Jason Heaton | For more information about the Seiko Prospex LX, please visit bit.ly slash ProspexLXTGN. That's B-I-T dot L-Y slash Prospex L-X T-G-N. And let's not forget a huge T-G-N thank you to Seiko for supporting this episode and for making The Graynado possible. Sponsors like Seiko allow us to keep the show free for everybody who listens, and we greatly appreciate their support. |
| Jason Stacey | And now, back to the show. Alright, it's main topic time. We're a solid hour into the recording. Quick update, those Blancpans did sell out in just a few minutes. Amazing. With that in mind, that was one of our favorite watches of the year. It existed only for 15 minutes or something like that on the market. So we don't have to talk any more about that one. It is super cool. If you missed your chance, at least go take a look at the page and everything that was built for it. A great looking thing. But let's get into our favorite watches of 2020. Some of these, this is kind of an interesting list because this is kind of an interesting year. Jason and I didn't get to go to Basel. We didn't go to Switzerland. We didn't go to, you know, numerous sort of watch launch events and that sort of thing. So some of these watches are watches that we've held. And some are the ones that we like a lot and we're kind of working on getting a chance to get closer to. Normally, the best watch of the year sort of thing would be only stuff that we had on our own wrist. But with 2020 being what it's been, we figured we'd make a little bit of exception because there's a few watches that simply on paper, they look so good that we didn't want to entirely leave them out of the running. And some of them are ones we haven't talked about on the show. So I think it should be fun. I can start with a couple that I have talked about on the show a lot. Uh, first up would be the Tudor Black Bay 58 Navy Blue. This is one of my most favorite watches of the year. It's probably my most favorite Tudor offering, uh, currently speaking. Uh, you know, it, it, it kind of just encapsulates a lot of what you want from Tudor, which is, it has that sort of everyday wearability, but it still feels special and, and kind of, of the Rolex legacy, which is super fun. And the sizing's incredible at 39 millimeters. I really, really enjoyed this watch. It's hard not to like a Black Bay 58 in general, or even just a Black Bay in general, but the 58 really nails the size. I was never a huge fan of the gilt from the standard, the original Black Bay 58, which is a black dial with gilt kind of gold accents, but this one is white on blue, no date, a great bracelet, and I would absolutely love to own one. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean, this feels like another one of those watches that seems like it's always been around, and I think it's because Tudor has this this history of using blue. And I think that, you know, the Pelagos blue, and then of course the, the old snowflake blue dials from the seventies. Oh yeah, for sure. This almost just felt like a foregone conclusion. Like they have to do one of these. And, and yet when it came out, it was such a sensation. And so many people have, have, you know, bought this watch that, that I know that just absolutely adore it. And I think, uh, you know, not much more to say about it. I mean, I remember when it first came out, we talked about it at length and of course you wrote it up and have handled it. And, uh, yeah, it was pretty spectacular. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. And it's one of three watches that if, if the, this year's general financial scenario had been different, uh, or maybe if I'd come into a windfall, I would have had to choose between the one of these three. So I can move on to the second one. We can try and get these three out of the way. The second one is the Zen U50. It's basically perfect modern dive watch. Uh, so it's everything that you kind of love about a U series aside from the, you know, really, really impressive water resistance. Packaged in a much smaller, much thinner, super wearable design. And on a NATO, I was simply blown away by how much I enjoyed wearing it. And it was one of those things where, you know, you put a watch on and a couple hours later, you kind of forget which watch is on. Like you haven't, you're not actively thinking about the watch on your wrist. And you go to check the time and you're like, oh, look at this. And it's so different than what I would normally be wearing. And you know, I wear a lot of times I wear doxes is kind of my go-to is one of the two doxes. If I want a sporty watch, that's what I throw on. They're legible. They have some fun. They make me smile when I look at them. And, and this is a much more sort of modern two tonic sort of, uh, expression of the dive watch. And I think they just nailed it. It's a great price. It's been really hard to buy. And I totally understand why watch buys is the only place in the States that sells and, or maybe North America that sells in. as as an ad i guess definitely for the us they're the distributor um and and they've had some trouble keeping them in and i totally get it uh i you know if you're asking because there's several different versions i would buy the cheapest one uh it has a testament and bezel which is where most of your scratching is going to happen uh if you're worried about it you can definitely move on to something that has the fully testamented case i would buy the cheapest one on whatever the cheapest mount is and immediately put it on a nato i i absolutely love it and i would love to own one |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean I could see one of these in your future and I think Zinn is such a TGN brand. I think we gush about them every time they come out with something new and they just, you know, for a brand that flies under so many people's radars, they just keep coming out with such great stuff. We talked about a few earlier in the show and this was the U50 was arguably their release of the year, at least in our sphere. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, definitely for me it was. I think they've made a lot of great watches and we talked about a handful earlier in the show, but the that you 50 will remain kind of in my mind for a while when I think about dive watches. Yeah. And, uh, and then the third one, uh, of these watches that kind of got away because I was unwilling to pop out the credit card is this, uh, the DOCSIS of 300 carbon. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, and I, I even, this is a watch I find I go back and look at pictures of on my phone, which I almost never do. Um, but it's probably cause I wear, I wear my 300 so often. Yeah. um that like since i wrote the review i actually think i like the watch like a considerable amount more i liked it a lot when i wrote the review yeah but it hadn't gotten like in my bloodstream yet and and now i i definitely want one i i cannot i can't afford one i just can't uh there but they are super cool and uh and and i would love to track one down that black and yellow is so cool It's great on a NATO, which I know I say a lot, but it matters a lot to me when it comes to a watch, it has to be great on a NATO. And, uh, in, in, in it, it manages to feel like a DOXA and then feel entirely unique at the same time, which is a weird trick. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think, I think the one thing that I've always liked about DOXAs is that dynamic playfulness, that, that visual interest that you get from them. And this just takes it up to another level. And, you know, you can debate the merits of, uh, of carbon and, you know, is this going to scratch or shatter or break or how durable is it, et cetera, et cetera. And in the end, I don't think any of that matters. None of us are, you know, hammering nails with these things and, you know, in the unlikely event that it'll break, well, hopefully you've used it for something. |
| Jason Stacey | And it's a modern watch. You just get it repaired. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So no, I, I, uh, I totally agree with all that. I've, I think I've probably said a lot about this watch on the show over the year. Uh, so we probably don't have to go too much deeper. It's a sub 300, but in carbon and it's super rad, but it was also kind of expensive. And the sub 300 on a normal spec is kind of expensive. You're paying to have just the right doxa, which I'm more than fine with it's worth it. Um, but this takes it to a different level. And someday I'd like to make one my own. I'm that that's how I would leave it on, on my memory is at some point the world will align and it'll be the right time to pull the trigger on a, on a, on a carbon doxa, which would be just so much fun. I've rambled a bunch now. We've crossed a few things off the list. What stands out for you this year? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean, if our list is favorite watches of 2020, this is undisputedly my favorite watch of 2020 and possibly the past few years. This was the Aquastar Deepstar chronograph that came out this year. It's just so good. Revived by our buddy Rick Mirai, whom we interviewed a few episodes back and was behind the revival of Doxa in the early 2000s with their Subline. um and aqua dive and then he brought back aqua star this year with uh hit hit it with a real real splash i mean this is oh yeah this is possibly the best revival of a vintage dive watch name um in the past decade and and i don't say that lightly i think it's uh i think he he has a real eye for perfection and detail when it comes to recreating these watches and however you feel about sort of vintage, neo-vintage or revived watches. You can't dispute that this is just a really great effort and I have the gray dial, you have the black dial. We've both been wearing them for a few months and I think, you know, there are a few things special about this watch. I think the, you know, the shape of the case, it's that sort of skin diver, longer angular lug case with an unprotected crown and those beautiful mushroom-shaped pump pushers. that are driving a pretty special movement. This one has a Le Jouperé column wheel chronograph movement in it with a few days of power reserve and a real smooth actuation. I wear this watch more than anything. I've worn it non-stop from July through pretty much September and I still wear it really often. I think it's just such a great watch. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, no, I totally agree. When I got mine in, I wore it for like, I think, seven weeks straight. Yeah. I had to look back because, you know, at the end of the year, Hodinkee does their watch I wore the most. And I think the watch I'll speak about next only edged it out by maybe three or four days. I can typically, I keep some sort of a loose record of how much I wear watches, especially new stuff. But that watch, I got that one. And once it was up and going, I wore it enough that I started to learn its accuracy. Like I'd know that it was something like, I think it was losing two seconds a day. So once a week I would just put it 14 seconds ahead. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um, when I, when I bothered, but I, I would sleep with it on, I, you know, I did a lot of the stuff over the summer with it on the loom is great. The functionality is really good because you know, it's a chronograph, but it's still super usable. Cause it's a single sub register. That's really easy to read. There's no guessing. Like when I use the, this a chronograph Swiss, it has a ton of little lines on, on the minute register, which is a itty bitty. Yeah. I mean, it's the size of a sprinkle. Yeah. Um, but I, I often can't tell cause the, the maximum measure of the registers 40 minutes. So it's difficult to divide that up. Oh yeah. And I know that some of these lines are meant to mean something for people who are using pay phones in the era. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that usable. Uh, is the easy, is the, the, the kind of simple way of looking at it that gives you 40 minute, um, this corner, this one gives you 40 minutes that the, the Aqua star is a 30 minute totalizer. which is super handy. Um, I really, really, really, really love this watch. |
| Jason Heaton | And it works really well on straps too. I mean, I, you know, I've, I've worn it on a leather boon strap and, and it works so well on those, um, the crown and buckle Matt Supremes. I've been wearing it on that quite a bit. |
| Jason Stacey | And then the same, you know, even though I have it on a metal, Oh yeah. And on the tropic, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. And what a, what a killer watch a great job. I can't wait to see what else they do with the crazy Aqua star history. I think Rick picked the right one for the first. But that company is as wide as it is deep. There's a lot going on in terms of design that they could pull from. And if they iterate in the same mode that they have been with this first one, with the Deepstar, it's going to be one to watch for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, right. Well, you mentioned the other watch that you wore even more than the Aquastar this year. And we have a few of these on the list. We have a few This is the Seiko, and we've got actually three Seikos on the list. So why don't you start with that one? Great year for Seiko. |
| Jason Stacey | Actually, maybe the best year for Seiko in as long as I've been into watches. Wow. Yeah. They made a ton of great product at kind of every single range. Obviously, this episode is brought to you by a very high-end, really gorgeous version of the Prospex. The one I'm going to talk about now is one we did an entire episode about. We've done an ad break about it. Just to give you a heads up, Seiko sponsored this episode. They have no control over what watches we picked. These are our watches. We don't even interface directly with Seiko. They simply ask that we talk about the Prospex LX. The rest is up to Jason and I, just in a matter of transparency. But the watch I wore most this year, it shows up in the video thing we're doing for Hodinkee. It's the SPB143. It's a perfect Seiko dive watch for me. That's a moving target for a lot of people, but I've been through all the SKXs you can care to memorize and a lot of other versions and models and iterations of dive watches from this brand. And this is the one that's just right for me. And I put it on much like I did with the Deepstar. I wore it and I just kept wearing it. I didn't want to take it off. It's got a great 70-hour power reserve. The accuracy was okay. I just absolutely love it. I like the Aquastar as well, which is born of a similar, the aesthetic era is similar between these two watches. It's a strap monster. You can wear it on anything. It's incredible on leather, which isn't that common for a Seiko dive watch. Typically they're best either on their bracelet or on like a NATO. And this one's great on anything you can find on it. And for 1200 bucks right now, who knows where it'll be in a year or two, but for 1200 bucks, I can't name a Seiko I like more. I just can't. |
| Jason Heaton | I'll just spit out what our next one's going to be. It's the SPB 151 and 153. I think what's common about these SPB releases from Seiko is the You know, it's everything we love about Seiko dive watches, but then there's this little bit of something extra, a little bit, something special that, you know, you're getting a slightly better movement. The finishing is a little better and it kind of scratches the itch of wearing a Seiko dive watch with one that you don't have to necessarily take off when you feel like wearing something a little bit more refined. Um, and yet it can put up with anything you do with it. And so I think you're right on there. And I think just to segue into the, the 153 and 151 SPBs, which everybody's calling the Willard because it's the homage to the 6105 that Captain Willard wore in Apocalypse Now. Um, you know, I would have a really hard time deciding between these two. I think I have an affinity for that oblong sort of bulbous case style of Seiko divers. So I might opt for a Willard if I, if I go that route and it's tempting, it's still very tempting. |
| Jason Stacey | I think my eyes are just clouded by the 40.5 millimeter case of the SPB. the 143. But you know, Cole Pennington, he's got a Willard and he really likes it. So maybe what we should do is circle back on this sometime early next year and bring Cole on to talk about because he hasn't written anything for Hodinkee about the watch as of yet. So it might be fun to get his thoughts. He's been kicking around all sorts of areas where he would get a chance to get it wet and and adventure with it so that it might be fun to get a kind of a SPB 151, 153, you know, field report from our good buddy Cole. It's a better looking watch than the SPB, than my SPB. If I'm, if I'm fair, like if I just put them, the two images next to each other, I do prefer the look of the Willard. It's even more Seiko-y. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I like that it's somehow closer to an SKX in its footprint. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which, which I think is very special. And it's really one that, um, There's a few on this list that I really wish I had gotten a chance to have seen in person and just didn't cause of 2020. Right. So this one will remain deeply on my, I can't wait to actually see, have one, someone hand me one and, and say, Oh, this is what it is. Like, yeah, that's what I'm missing. Cause it was a really special moment when I got my one, four, three in the mail, not really knowing what I was getting. Yeah. Um, and, and having not really seen it before and it just being like, Oh, this is great. It was perfect. Yeah. Um, Uh, so yeah, definitely, definitely that, uh, that, uh, the, the new Captain Willard stuff looks incredible and we'll try and do a Captain Willard episode sometime in the new year with Cole. That could be fun. Uh, we've got another Seiko. You want to cover that one? Cause this is one that you got, um, that I'm also a fan of. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So this is, this is the, this is the Seiko that, um, I ended up with this year. Um, a little bit less expensive than the SPBs. It's, it's just occupies a different category. This is the so-called, uh, Safari Arnie or Safari piece, the SNJ. I ended up with the one with the khaki toned strap and dial accents. It's an analog digital tuna that harkens back to their 1982 analog digital diver that Arnold Schwarzenegger wore in a couple of movies. I wrote a review about this for Hodinkee back in the sweltering days of summer when I was wearing it quite a bit and sort of trying to beat on it and see what it could take. It certainly came through that with no problem. I haven't worn it as much since. Um, so I'm starting to wonder if this watch is slipping from my favor. Um, you know, once I started wearing, uh, the deep star more, um, you know, maybe my love went back to more strictly mechanical stuff. So we'll, we'll see if this one lasts with me. Um, but I still think it was a pretty amazing release for this year and enjoyed huge popularity with people. I think, um, when, when this watch, and then there was one with more of a, uh, I guess a green, accent to it that people just loved, and I can see why. I mean, it's a really visually interesting watch. It's got a lot of functionality. It's very tough. It's very comfortable. Yeah, I would say this is definitely one of Seiko's real wins for this year. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, I totally agree. I haven't had a chance to see a Safarni in person, but I spent a lot of time with and reviewed the Arnie reissue. It's a very similar watch from earlier this year. And I was really, really impressed. I think I would lean towards the Safarni as you did, because I think the kind of Marine Master handset is a good evolution of the sort of SKX handset used on what I think is the SNJ025, the standard Arnie. I like the Marine Master handset a little bit better. It's a little bit more clear. I like the thinner, longer minute hand sort of look. Uh, I really like these watches and, and, you know, maybe if it doesn't sit with you, maybe this is the, you know, this one leaves and incomes a Willard who knows. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, uh, a killer watch. And yeah, like I said, uh, a great year for, for Seiko, a great year for Seiko sponsoring episodes of TGN. Again, we like our transparency. Um, what else is on the list here for you, Jason? |
| Jason Heaton | Well, um, this is a bit of an oddball, very small brand, um, Vertex, uh, Vertex is, um, brand of an old brand name that was revived by Don Cochran, whose great-grandfather actually founded it back in the early 1900s. And they're most famous for being one of the 12 brands that was part of the Dirty Dozen watch set that was issued to the British army during World War II. And, you know, of course he's made the reissue for several years now, but what he called the M100 in steel, And then he also made a DLC version of it. But this past year, he came out with the Bronze 75, which was a homage to 75 years since the victory in Europe day at the end of World War II. And I got one of these watches in. I'm still waiting for the bronze to age nicely. But boy, what a beautiful watch. It's 40 millimeters, so it wears perfectly. It's nice and thin. It's a hand-wound movement. But what's really amazing about these watches is these beautiful, long hour and minute hands and of course these chunky three-dimensional numerals on the dial which just glow super bright and I've worn this watch quite a bit in rotation over the past couple of months. I wore it camping a few weeks ago and I just I find I'm wearing it around the house a lot. It's just the size of it and the legibility of it is just fun and it's fun to wear a watch that's hand wound. I mean you'll Uh, you'll experience that of course, with your, your new chronograph, but, um, just something about that little bit of a ritual that like suddenly it'll be. You know, two in the afternoon and I'll be like, Oh, you know, I forgot to wind my watch this morning. I'll take it off and kind of enjoy the slow pleasure of, of just winding it up. And, uh, so yeah, it feels a bit old fashioned. Um, but it's, it's very wearable. It's a hundred meter water resistance, so I can pretty much do anything I want with it. So yeah, that one makes my list. |
| Jason Stacey | I like it, and I didn't get to see the Vertex in person, but it absolutely looks incredible. The one I have seen in person that's similar in some areas is the Bremont Broadsword Bronze. For me, it's this one with the Sotec Blue. I think it's one of their most appealing models. I think it's the kind of thing you could wear and really let the bronze just kind of go nuts. I really, really love the color of that dial, and I think that of all their watches that they could have gone the bronze route with, The broadsword makes a lot of sense. Um, I, I would love to see that dial color make its way to some of the air co stuff as well. Maybe an interesting thing to see. Cause I think that blue would work with a steel case just as well as it does the bronze. Um, but yeah, for me, uh, you know, having not seen the vertex, I got to spend a couple of days actually with a, with a stack of the Braymont stuff from this year, uh, back in very early March. It was my last trip before I left the city before we didn't come back for our, uh, canceled, uh, hangout. on the 18th. So yeah, it's the Bremont Broadsword Bronze. If you can get a chance to see this in person sometime, whenever that makes sense, whenever you're given the opportunity, don't sleep on this one. It's a really cool watch. I think it's great on wrist. The coloring is perfect. And it's always fun to see Bremont moving in different directions, kind of iterating. They're kind of on the cusp of the next stage of their entire company with the opening of their huge manufacture in the UK. And that's going to include a lot of changes to the way that they're able to operate. And I think it's going to be an exciting decade for the brand for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. And I think of the three dial colors that came with this broadsword bronze, I agree with you. The blue was the most interesting. I'm not sure what the inspiration was behind that color. I'm trying to trace it to some sort of Royal Air Force or Army uniform color, but I didn't see any reference to that, but it's a beautiful color wherever they got it. |
| Jason Stacey | I think it's an oddball color. I love an oddball color. And I think just like that red that we talked about with the Fratello Auris Pointer Date was a really successful match with bronze. I think that they did a really similar sort of thing with the blue. It's this saturated but not shiny sort of blue. Yeah. And yeah, it looks great. Yeah. Speaking of Auris, we do want to make sure that we mention the Aquus 400. While I don't think the Aquus itself is necessarily one of our watches of 2020, that movement absolutely is. And we were just talking about Bremont being able to move in new directions. This is a new direction for Oris. And it's one that I think says a lot about the brand and their plans. And it's a movement that I'm really excited to see in other watches. I think Aquuses are a known quantity and they're a great watch for sure. But I think it'll be really excited to see the Caliber 400 make its way into Diver 65s and stuff like that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think so too. I think, you know, um, uh, without dwelling too much on it because of the Aqua, like you said, as a known entity, I think, um, this is more of an honorable mention and the kind of a hat tip to them for releasing this, uh, this amazing movement this year. |
| Jason Stacey | In, in the world in which Jason and I only sort of care about movements, which I think is a fair way to assess it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think it's, we, we love the fact that the Aqua star has that, the, the great algebra movement rather than just a, an edit or whatever. So it's kind of hit or miss where a movement really matters. But in this case, when it kind of signals where the company's going and the fact that they're going to continue producing watches with the Salida stuff, and then on top of it, offer something with this amazing warranty and service interval of a decade and the rest of it, I absolutely think it's worth a shout out, even if the Aquas itself is kind of, in many ways, just another Aquas, which is a great thing. I just wouldn't necessarily say that without the movement, it certainly wouldn't necessarily be a watch of the year. |
| Jason Heaton | What else is on the list? I mean, I think we talked a little bit about dial color with the Bremont broadsword, and I think we can't overlook the 36mm Oyster Perpetual that Rolex came out with this year. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You added this to the list, and I kind of slept on it because in my mind, I went through the Submariner updates that came out this year and such, and they're fine. It's just so similar to the Submariner that was out previously that it's not going to be my watch of the year. Yeah. A yellow OP 36 is the kind of thing I would pay for. I would save up and try and buy. I don't think that you can just go out and buy a Rolex of any type, a seal Rolex. So it's not going to happen for me. Um, but I do really love that watch. I'm very excited to see it in person. Uh, where do you land on the color? How, how could you pick, man? |
| Jason Heaton | It's tough. I mean, they did like a green and then they have the, um, that coral, which is like halfway between orange and red. It's such a deep warm color, but you know, to, to have a yellow dial Rolex, I think would be It's incredible. And so that yellow one is just so non Rolex and yet it's probably my favorite. |
| Jason Stacey | So cool. I'm hugely on board. I think that it's, um, in many ways it's, you know, it, it, it is them kind of reestablishing the idea of like a Stella dial. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a larger conversation to be had there as to what a Stella dial is. We're not going to do that today. We're, we're trying keeping to some semblance of a, of a time limit, but look up the old Stella dials. If you don't know what I mean, they're these bright, colorful dials used in Datejust. And to see them go with a 36 millimeter, in my opinion, one of their best cases. Yeah. In their, their entire lineup, the whole brand's lineup, um, at 36, a very similar case to what you have on risk today. Um, uh, you know, just, uh, a few logical generations later, uh, but, and then to go the colorful route when they've offered it, you know, uh, they've offered the 39, which is now discontinued in black and white and more stoic sort of iterations. to see it in these colors. And so like, it's like Skittles. It looks, they're, they're so fun, but the yellow, the yellow is, is like a Bahama yellow Porsche. It's saturated and a little orangey. Yeah. Um, I love it. I think it's great. I can't wait to see one in person. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, and, and the, the dirty little secret that I always think about these is the, the oyster perpetual is basically an explorer with stick hands and, uh, you know, different dial markers, but I almost like it better. I love the stick hands. The Mercedes hands are cool. Um, and they've always reserved those for their sports watches, but yeah, there's something just so versatile. And again, gentlemen's watch, you know, we keep talking about that term now, but, um, this is just a watch you could wear for anything. I mean, this is, this is basically the watch that went to the top of Everest and that, you know, Ian Fleming wore and, and everybody thinks of Rolex and then to throw it, um, to, to add a splash of, of incredible color to it. Um, you know, this is, yeah, this is, worthy on a top watches of 2020 list, I think. And everybody was like waiting for the Submariner, but this was Rolex's hit. |
| Jason Stacey | So a quick hypothetical for you then. You walk into a Rolex AD summer next year and you say, hey, just by any chance, do you have anything in steel in? And they go, well, we have an Explorer, a 39 millimeter, a 214270, or we have one of the new yellow OPs. Oh, they're going to be in a very similar price point. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | All the way entirely. |
| Jason Stacey | Okay. Me too. Yeah. And how much of that do you think is the case size? Cause the 39 millimeter Explorer is pretty perfect wearing this 36 millimeter Explorer. |
| Jason Heaton | I might be in the minority, but I actually prefer that case size for, for a non diver Rolex. I think it's still perfect. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. I remember when I was in Miami, uh, you know, a year ago, a year plus ago now, um, I, we got to stop by Matt Bain's office. He's an incredible dealer out of the Miami area. And, uh, and he had trays and trays and trays and trays of watches, every brand you could imagine, all super collectible. And I was like, what do you have? That's like not expensive Rolex. He's like, Oh, I got a tray for that too. He brought a tray out of like, of just kind of loose 14 Oh six Ohs, uh, 14, two seventies one, one, four, two seventies, which is a slightly later generation of the 36 millimeter. Yeah, explore. And I tried on he had he had a one one four two seventy that someone at some point in its life had put a jubilee on. Oh, yeah. OK. And I put it on. And I think if I hadn't been so busy trying to photograph, I remember I actually overheated my flash. The only time I ever did that, I shot so much in this bright space with the flash at a very high power. You can go see the article or I'll put it in the show notes. It's, you know, Ben asked me to go to Matt Baines and produce a modem burner. Yeah. If you've been on the internet back when we had modems, just something that would take a huge amount of data to load the page. And I think we published 106 images from, from, from his office. And, and that I think if I hadn't been so busy and so preoccupied with doing a good job with that, I would have taken a few minutes to realize like he, he listed me a price that doesn't exist anymore. And it was a fair price of a kind, but fair price during that I should have bought it immediately. Oh yeah. Yeah. It was free money essentially. It was, you know, it was no boxes or papers, but it was from a great dealer and it was well verified. And, and it was on this weird bracelet, which is kind of perfect to my taste. And I, that's a watch that I have very few regrets when it comes to like not buying a watch that I could have, and the price was right on this. And I should have just been like, absolutely, I'll keep shooting. You guys put it in a bag or whatever, bring me the receipt. Um, but yeah, really, really cool watch. There's, there's something, yeah, 36 mil, 39 mil Rolexes. It's all great, but those new OPs are super, super fun. Let's see what else we've got here. Actually, we can stick in the same rough space in terms of sizing. This is a watch I'm excited about, but nobody's really talking about. I didn't get a chance to write about it because just somebody else on Hodinkee's team was assigned the post, but it's the Longines Heritage Classic Tuxedo, which I think is quietly one of the cooler like kind of vintage inspired, but affordable, uh, watches released this year. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Um, I think it's a, let me just pull it up here. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, they've got a chronograph version of it too. You're talking about the non chronograph, right? |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. So yeah, there's a chronograph and, and I, I wrote down, I think either one is fine that there's, it comes in two versions. Um, but it's this, uh, this three hander. So it's a small seconds. Uh, I just think it's like, I think it's so, so pretty. It's 38.5 millimeters in steel with drilled lugs. this kind of high contrast black and white dial, this gorgeous handset. Uh, the Longines, like the name, the brand, I know this is a weird comment, but the actual like text of Longines looks so good on the dial. And I'm not really sure why it's maybe because there's no other text on the dial itself. I'm super impressed by these watches. It's one where if, if I had gotten to go to Basel or to whatever event that Longines would have been kind of, this would have been the one I would have gravitated towards and wanted to photograph and do a hands on and the rest of it two thousand dollars on a black leather strap man on sale at your at your local a d i think this thing is so so pretty yeah yeah i'm going for the chronograph the chronograph is super beautiful mid-century style beautiful hands like really really gorgeous hands a lot of lovely like railroad details on the dial It's 40 millimeters, so it's only a hair bigger. That's not too big at all. And that brings the price up to $3,000. So it's two or three. I think both of these remain in really, really accessible parts of the market. And then these are later generation ETA movements. So you're getting 54 hours of power reserve and a nice modern movement from Longines. And yeah, I like this a lot. I think these are both really good watches and they just weren't was a tough year for watches that didn't go perfectly on their launch, that weren't a new Submariner, that weren't a new Black Bay Blue or whatever. And with Longines, I think that they're kind of a quiet brand still in North America. They don't really go that hard on their own quality. They launched a lot of other stuff this year, the Spirit Collection, is has proven to be very popular from a sort of content standpoint. Uh, I, I think this is absolutely the winner from them and it's a brand that I would like to talk about more on the show. Uh, so for them to be making these sort of, it's, it has that gentle person quality. It has a bit of a 50, 60s feel to it, or even 40s, 50s feel to it. And I think the sizing is on point. I think the pricing is on point. And, uh, this is another one that I'm very excited to see. And I think if I had had a chance to see it, I would have come away very impressed because on paper, they, They just look really good. Both watches. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I totally agree. Um, and, and it's funny that we don't talk about Longines more on, on TGN. I, it, it, there, it's such an incredible brand and I think you're right in North America. And, um, you know, I have friends in, uh, in Sri Lanka, you know, and in Asia, Longine was always kind of this affordable brand that was so ubiquitous and everybody associates it with some slim, shiny quartz dress watch that dad wore or grandpa or whatever. And, and so now they're coming out with these incredible heritage pieces that The hits just keep coming. I mean, every year when, yeah, they had a few, a few really good ones. They did some sort of a, like a Royal Navy, something or other. And they did, I mean, they've just done so many good watches and, um, I don't, I'm guilty of it. I don't pay enough attention to them, but every time I see one, I'm like, yep, I would recommend that to anybody. |
| Jason Stacey | So yeah, the, uh, their big eye chronograph has always kind of been on my list. I got, I was fortunate enough to review that a couple of years back. and have a couple weeks with it. And it's a great thing. They make a really great watch. Typically, their pricing is really, really thoughtful. It's super competitive. It's in the space that you want it to be in. I think it's a great offering at a fair price. And if you don't know the Heritage Classic Tuxedo, pop down into the show notes and take a peek. I think it's a good one. And it leads us sort of in the path to the last one that's on our list. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. This is another brand that we... I guess we talk about a little more than Longines, but we don't talk about it a lot. And that's Breitling. The AVI reference 765 1953 reissue. And I think this was a watch that so many of us wanted them to reissue. And lo and behold, they did. And they kind of nailed it. |
| Jason Stacey | Yep. And it was a little bit forgotten because this is in the before times of February. Yeah. Before the world kind of lost its mind for the rest of the year. Yeah. This was just a few. I remember I was sitting at a fantastic brewery in Brooklyn on a Saturday when I got the text message that this story needed to be written ASAP, and I was indignant about that fact because it was a Saturday and I had already reveled all the way across Brooklyn to have a great beer and a snack on a sunny day, but made my way back to the home plate and put this piece together. And this is one Breitling has Louis Westphalen on their kind of heritage team, And he's a longtime collector, one-time employee, Hodinkee alum sort of guy. And he was able to work alongside Watch Fred, who's a guy we've talked about on Instagram before. We've talked about him on the show before. He's known as Watch Fred on Instagram. He's a huge Breitling collector. And honestly, I think if you want a little, a quick textbook on how to make a vintage reissue, you can look at the Aquastar or you can look at this watch. They are like perfect. They're perfect. The pricing is fair. I can't afford one of these, but I just think it is such a gorgeous watch. The 12-hour bezel, the deep black dial, the functional elements of the actual... To have a 12-hour chronograph, as a guy who... And now I know a lot about chronographs at this point. I own two. uh, but the 12 hours, a nice idea. If I'm going to drive somewhere that takes six hours, I can kind of time myself with that or, or whatever. Um, I think, you know, they also, they're, they're making a version in platinum with the blue dial. That is pretty pricing on these was, it was about eight grand in steel. Just imagine like you look at this and you go, well, do I want a modern Daytona for what are they? 13 or this, right? I would want, I would want this. The Daytona is lovely, but look at this thing. Yeah, I know. I know. This is one that has stuck with me for 10 months. Like I just, I really like this watch. It's another one. I get it. I've said this so many times when I mean it, it's just another one. I really wish I'd had a chance to see in person. Yeah. Cause I'm sure, you know, if it came out in February by March or April or May, it would have been making the cycle of the rounds and, and bright links had a big year. They've, they've, you know, new Chronomats and, and, and like a lot of, a lot of line development. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | But I think this is the... You okay with the polished bezel? You're okay with that? |
| Jason Stacey | That would be my one thing that if it was matte, I might... I think it would be better matte, just like I think the numerals would be better in white loom. Yeah. But I don't think either of those parts is enough to make me dislike the watch in any way. Yeah. I think if they were... Maybe they produce all of these and they make one that's more of a standard production run. If they got to that point where they didn't want... Because I know that Fred had come into the comments on the Hodinkee posts because people were saying, well, why put full loom in something that's supposed to be like a carbon copy? And he's like, we actually found images. And this was basically the color of that loom in the fifties. Oh yeah, sure. So it's not so much that it aged this color. This is the color as accurate as we could create it based on the images we had. And I like that sort of faithful recreation. If you're going to make an $8,000 chronograph that nobody needs, make it as romantic as possible, connect it back to And these are the right stuff sort of watches. Like I know it's not a... Navitimer. Navitimer. Thank you. But it makes me feel the same sort of thing. Oh, totally. And for the money, it's got a little bit of type 20 in it. Yeah. Which I like quite a lot. And that's a much more expensive watch. Yeah. And you could buy this and get the same vibe and never feel like, oh, I didn't spend enough to have a type 20. Right. Right. Like Breguet makes an incredible watch and then the watch has an incredible history. But I think this one, There's just a lot on the table. I'm not saying it's cheap or that it's even some sort of screaming deal, but as a cool vintage inspired chronograph from the chronograph brand, depending on who you talk to, right? The sporty chronograph brand for a long time was Breitling a long time. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think this is killer. And they make such quality watches. I mean, there's, I mean, regardless of what you've thought in the past about their styling and oversized bling, et cetera, et cetera. The watches have always been very high quality and you know, right down to the strap. I mean, look at the, look at the leather strap on this, that, that beautiful stitching and the, the yellow on the, on the inside of the, of the leather and, um, yeah, the, the bead logo. I mean, everything about this watch is, is spectacular. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. And I agree. Like there's, there's a lot from Breitling, especially from say 2005 until now. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | That is like not great. Breitling for Bentley comes up, right? Like these are, these are giant, super flashy watches, but if you've ever held one in your hand, they're really nicely made. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. And I think all through that time, they didn't, they weren't all really flashy giant watches. Some of them were kind of normal, sporty chronographs and dive watches and steel fishes and the rest of it. Yeah. And, and I think that their, their ability to, to lean into the heritage in the last three or four years is just great. They've been making some great stuff. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And it's hand wound. I just, I was looking at the specs. It's a hand wound movement, which is very fitting for the, for the era from which it comes. And the one thing I'm not seeing is there, for some reason, the dimensions part of the specs is not showing up on their website. Do you know how big this thing is? |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. 41 millimeters, 11 millimeters thick. And that hand wound movement is also COSC certified. Wow. Awesome. I mean, again, like don't get me wrong. We're not, Jason and I will never sit here in front of our microphones and tell you that like seven or $8,000 is not much to spend on a watch. Yeah. even if you're really into this hobby, it's a lot of money. That's just, this is just a huge amount of money. But within the guise of what this is within the microeconomics of the watch world, I think it's a great thing. A great offering for a fair price. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Stacey | Um, and I, I definitely hope that this inspires both modern Breitling and more Breitling stuff in the past from their past. Sorry, more accurately. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. It's funny, you know, when you, when you think about $8,000, um, If you had $8,000 or any of our listeners had $8,000, you can buy a lot and you can buy multiple watches. You could buy several of the other watches on this list that would add up to that one Breitling. So it's a tough call to say, what would you spend that on? And would you buy this Breitling as opposed to, you know, a Willard, a sub 300 carbon and an Aqua star, you know, or whatever would add up to that, um, tough call. But I think what's fun about an episode like this is this is, this is our list of cool and arguably our favorite best watches of 2020. And we were allowed to just dream and throw this stuff out there, um, which is what we're doing. |
| Jason Stacey | And yeah, I, I totally agree. That is the fun part of doing our own favorites watch lists. In some cases, these are watches we got to spend a lot of time with like the deep star and we're still in love with. And in some cases, the watches we just saw pictures of, and we really wish we could have seen them. And that's how it's going to be for 2020. I can give you a quick recap for any of you who might've forgotten, or if we talked about too many watches in this, uh, nice long episode, but the Zen U 50, Tudor Black Bay 58 Navy Blue, the Aquastar Deepstar, Seikos including the SPB 143, the 151, the 153, and the SNJ 029 Safari. The Aorus Aquus 400, kudos on a really rocking new movement. The never forgettable DOCSIS Sub 300 Carbon, someday I'll find you. The Bremont Broad Sword Bronze Sotec in blue, definitely one to see. Breitling AVI REF 765 1953 reissue, which we spoke about, a killer watch, the Longines Heritage Classic Tuxedo, the Vertex Bronze 75, Rolex OP36, preferably in yellow, and the new, brand new, very new and gone Honenki Mil-Spec Limited Edition from Blancpain. And yeah, I think that's our list. I'm sure it's not... We didn't get to everything. We did some pre-work, some research to make sure we got the stuff that really stood out to us. But Yeah, that's our list. That's our favorite watches of, uh, of 2020. Uh, what do you say, Jason, you feeling some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. We're, we should wrap this thing up here. Um, I can go first. So I just watched this yesterday. This is a film on YouTube. I think it's about 55 minutes long. So very, very watchable, squeeze it in on a lunch break or something. Um, film called the Porter. Um, it doesn't feel terribly professionally produced or edited or shot. Um, but really fascinating. This was a, um, An American guy, I assume he's from Virginia because he's wearing a Virginia University t-shirt throughout most of it. But he decides that he wants to become a Himalayan porter. So the porters are the traditionally the Sherpas or the Nepalese locals who, when there are climbing expeditions or trekking expeditions or tourists that want to go hiking in the Everest region will carry all of their backpacks and duffel bags and gear from one lodge or one camp to another, uh, up and down, um, this incredibly mountainous and high altitude terrain, incredibly hard work. You've seen them. They use these tump lines that they put across their forehead, which is supposedly a more efficient and effective way of carrying heavy loads as opposed to backpack straps, because these guys are carrying, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 kilos of multiple packs and duffels at a time. And this white guy from Virginia or somewhere in the U S decides that he wants to make a short film about what it's like to be a porter. What a great idea. This isn't something that, um, is easy to do, um, both physically, but also it's a bit delicate. I mean, for, for kind of a privileged Westerner to show up and say, I want to do your job, um, you know, could come off wrong or, or they might not even allow him to do it, but, but he was allowed to join a crew and take part in one uh, trekking expedition with some clients. It looked like a family. I think they were from Australia that flew into Lukla and he had to hike to Lukla from, I believe Katmandu or something, which was, you know, 80 kilometers to begin with. And then once he got there, um, he was only allowed, you know, basically the clothes on his back, um, and some very small personal items like a toothbrush. Um, but then everything else he was carrying had to be the clients. And amazingly enough, this guy spoke Nepalese and he insisted on only speaking Nepalese. um, throughout the whole thing to, to kind of remain as authentic as he could. And he must've had somebody with him who was doing all the filming. And, um, he, he goes through this incredibly difficult way of life with, with very little pay, um, over an 11 day track, uh, from look LA up to ever space camp and back carrying this, um, these amazing heavy loads. And it was a real insight. It was a real window into, you know, I, I kind of related to this, um, you know, when you go on a dive trip, for instance, to a tropical location and you get, you know, the guys that are driving the boat or hauling tanks back and forth, they're working in the back of the dive shop, filling tanks or rinsing gear. Um, you know, we overlook. So much of the working class that is helping well-heeled foreigners have fun on their trips and, um, and to have this guy go out and do this and really show an honest behind the scenes look was was downright fascinating. Like I said, this isn't a, um, you know, high production quality movie. It was a, it was a less than an hour long, um, you know, filmed with basically a handheld camera and the editing wasn't bad, but, uh, um, I just recommend it. I thought it was really, really well done. Very unique perspective. So check it out. It's on YouTube. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. I've, uh, I've never heard of this. That's a really fascinating idea for sort of like a social experiment in the mountains. Yeah. Um, you know, you read, um, uh, what was the, uh, the book I was thinking of while you were talking about this? Oh, there's one called high crimes, which includes all sorts of problems in the system of mountaineering, especially in the Himalayas. Uh, and some of that is of course, the treatment of the way that locals are dealt with in terms of the economy and, and kind of being taken advantage of a lot of times. And, and, and that's led to all sorts of problems with, The book covers a lot of things, most notably the access to oxygen bottles from all over the world, which is like a weird thing because it creates some really strange trash because people don't want to lug them down. And then some of the bottles come from weird places in the world, so you don't actually know what's in the bottle. You just think it's air or O2, but it's not. And anyways, an interesting book that made me think of this because it is kind of making a highlight of something that is sort of a background systemic problem. for something that a lot of us enjoy learning about and even partaking in mountaineering. Yeah. Um, and so, yeah, that's a, that's an interesting thing. Definitely worth a watch. I've, uh, I've added it to, uh, to my list. I'll give it a, give it a review. Yeah, definitely worth it. |
| Jason Heaton | What have you got? |
| Jason Stacey | So for the last final notes of the year, I've got a story from Jalopnik by a great writer named Bradley Brownell, who does a lot of motorcycle topics for them among other things. And, uh, the story is I took a Harley Davidson live wire on a road trip and everything that could have gone wrong. did. Uh, so the Harley Livewire, this is in some metric that a similar bike to, uh, what Ewan McGregor and, um, Charlie Borman rode on the long way up. Uh, so, uh, you know, being a professional motorcycle reviewer, Bradley Brownell decided he would, um, get, pick the bike up kind of up in Northern California and then ride it to Southern California. You know, it's a state with a lot of access, uh, to, uh, uh, electrical charging solutions. This is an electric bike for those of you who might have missed the name Livewire. It's kind of the first-generation electric bike from Harley-Davidson. And he picked it up and had a really interesting experience trying to manage getting it charged and how to charge and doing so during a pandemic and the rest of it. And I actually just thought it was kind of an interesting look at no matter how many solutions we put in place in terms of the technology of how good electric cars are now, or even are only say 20 years into their genuine product life cycle, charging is still a major issue. And you know, right now the electric car sales make up like one to 2% of mass. And if that were to change drastically, if they were to become 10 or 15 or 20% of new vehicles sold, not just owned vehicles, but new vehicles sold, I think you'd have a lot of like grid and charging issues, depending on the city. Certainly places like LA would, um, despite currently speaking, being probably the key spot in North America to, to drive an electric car. Uh, so it's, it's an interesting sort of highlight. Um, he also, you know, basically a few nearby people are able to help him. It's, it's a nice kind of good Samaritan story in some, in some ways as well. I found this really interesting. I find the concept of electric cars to be fascinating because I think they're going to make so much sense for commuter vehicles, but The grid has to reflect that, and it doesn't right now. You know, you can get gas in five minutes almost anywhere, but all that gas is driven around by trucks. Like we've developed this, that network took a long time to develop, and now an electrical network means we're going to have that like consistent, an electrical network that is going to have that level of demand. We'll have to be different from what we have now, which is designed for our current level of demand. Just an interesting story. I also really love the idea of an electric motorcycle. Um, I, while I think there's definitely a time for, um, uh, a nasty high revving Italian, uh, motorcycle that I hope Ducati's don't go away in their current spec. I do think that a lot of the commuter use of motorcycles could transition, you know, pretty nicely into electric and dirt bikes as well. Imagine if you could be out on a hike and not hear a dirt bike or an ATV. Yeah. I would love that. I would just adore that. If it, if that part of the, if that sound part of that world went away. Um, I, it's fun when you're at like a park or, uh, uh, an event because the noise is part of the experience. But if you're just trying to be like out, out in the middle of nowhere and all I can hear is snowmobiles this time of year. Oh, right. Yeah. That's the really common thing. And like, I don't want to begrudge somebody's recreation, but at a certain point, like I like it, I like the silence of being outside in the woods or whatever. So I'm excited to see things like that. Jet skis, especially, are the one that really bother me on the lake because it's like a constant sound. There's not like a lot of change. Anyways, I've complained about that before. This is an interesting post. Bradley does great work for Jalopnik. And if you're kind of interested in the world of electric vehicles, especially from kind of secondary or recreational spec vehicles, I know a lot of people in the world would have motorcycles as their main vehicle. But in this case, I think a Harley Livewire probably wouldn't be anyone's number one vehicle. Most commonly, it would be somebody's number one bike, maybe. And I think it's a fascinating thing, especially with a legacy American brand getting into the electric ring. Yeah, cool. My apologies for the background noise. We did our best, but a long episode cut through the construction crew's lunch break. So what are you going to do? |
| Jason Heaton | Um, yeah, this looks great. I mean, I, you know, having watched long way up with McGregor and Borman, um, I still need to watch, I was so struck by, um, you know, the admirable sort of idea of, of doing it solely on electric bikes, but then the issues that they ran into basically because the grid was not well-developed, especially where they were, um, how much, um, extra help and, and ironically, you know, diesel power was required to, to keep them going and the, all of the workarounds that they had to develop with, you know, trucks coming to pick them up or, you know, ferrying the bikes on, you know, airplanes to get across here and there, you know, and, and it just struck me that they almost had the opposite effect. And if they'd just taken a nicely fuel efficient gas powered motorcycle on this trip, they probably could have done it actually more efficiently, but you know, I'm, I'm open-minded about this stuff. And I think, uh, I love the sound of these bikes. I mean, they have this incredible, sort of whirring electric motor just kind of winds up. |
| Jason Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | It's great. Um, but yeah, I'll give this a read. That's a, that's a good pick. |
| Jason Stacey | Cool. All right. Well, there it is. 2020, uh, looks like we made it is the song that we could use if I could pay for those rights, which we can't. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, 2020 was, uh, you know, I mean quite a year looking back, I mean, we, we talked about maybe doing a reflective episode, but I think, you know, I mean, this year it was tiring. Um, you know, TGN was, was a great, um, sort of reprieve, you know, sort of bit of normalcy, as I mentioned at the top here. But, you know, we had to find silver linings all year. And I think for the most part, we were able to, and I hope our listeners were. And I think one of those silver linings was just experiencing the incredible community that we have through all the amazing direct messages and emails that came through the greynadoe at gmail.com and, you know, the overflowing Q&A episode questions that came in. Um, you know, it really, really pulled 2020 out of what could have been, uh, you know, an out and out, uh, horrible year, um, and made it a little bit better. So we thank you for that. |
| Jason Stacey | I agree. It definitely became a year where your best course of action was to find some way to practice gratitude. And, uh, I couldn't be more grateful for this audience or for the ability to have something that's just ours. Yeah. Um, just, just those of, you know, those of Jason and I, and anybody who has written an email or left a comment or sent in a voice memo, the rest of it, it's ours. This is ours. Yeah. And we got really lucky this year with sponsors, which made the shows possible, which made it possible to do more episodes and more fun episodes. And so, yeah, I think I think overall it's a thank you. And I think if Jason and I were going to raise our glass, we thank everybody for for listening and for commenting and for supporting us and for keeping the show going. And, you know, as far as 2021 goes, I hope there's a lot more a lot less construction in my general area and a lot more diving and adventuring and maybe some travel and time with friends and the rest of it, but TGN is not going anywhere. So whatever 2021 is, we can, we can kind of do it together, I guess. |
| Jason Heaton | Yep. And as always, thanks so much for listening to episode 134 and all of the episodes in 2020. You can hit the show notes via Hodinkee.com or the feed for more details and a huge thank you to Seiko for supporting this episode. 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 TheGreyNado at gmail.com and keep sending those voice memos. We'll be collecting them over the next month or so and coming back in probably late January, early February with a mega Q&A episode. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music Throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the Free Music Archive. |
| Jason Stacey | And we leave you with this quote from JB Priestley who said, I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start. with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. |