The Grey NATO - 151 - Challenge // Oris

Published on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 06:00:22 -0400

Synopsis

In this episode, Jason and James discuss their upcoming travel plans and share their "risk check" watches. The main topic is an Oris brand challenge, where they each pick 2-3 Oris watches they would buy within a $7,500 budget, drafting picks back and forth without seeing each other's choices. They analyze the brand's value proposition compared to other Swiss brands and highlight some of their favorite Oris models like the Big Crown Pointer Date, Aquis GMT, and vintage-inspired divers. They also mention upcoming website upgrades to facilitate community interaction.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Native, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 151 and we thank you for listening. Jason, how are you doing? Pretty good.
James Stacey Pretty good. Yeah. I'm getting ready for a bit of a getaway. Gushani and I have a bit of a bit of a trip planned. That's great. We're going to try to get somewhere near the ocean and not really have any plans, you know, nothing too ambitious, but, uh, you know, it's been a while. It's been a while. I mean, it feels kind of strange to actually even to go into the airport and getting on a plane. I'm not sure what to expect, but, uh, you know, once we're on the other end of it, it doesn't matter.
Jason Heaton So, yeah. Yeah. My guess is a lot of people will have forgotten how to travel. Yeah. But otherwise my guess is that like the, the flight crews are probably old hat at all of this by now. Right. It's just going to be, yeah. Do these three things. it's, you know, hopefully it's not a super long flight, so you don't have to sit for forever with a mask on, but I'm sure it's worth wherever you're headed. So that'll be great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And any, anything else new? How did the, how did the book signing go?
James Stacey Oh, the book event went really well. Uh, it was last Thursday. So we had our show last week and had so many TGN listeners, so many people, you know, I asked everybody, you know, how did you hear about this? And they're like, Oh, Instagram and TGN. And, uh, you know, I had guys that were, A guy Matt flew up from Houston and a guy Riley drove eight hours from an Air Force base in Missouri for the event. And it was really nice to meet them and lots of local crews, you know, the watch enthusiast crowd from the Twin Cities. And I had an old high school buddy and his wife show up. And, you know, it's just it was fun. It felt like kind of busting out of a lot of things, you know, for for all of us. I think people kind of needed that. And, uh, the brewery where we met was a perfect venue for it. And the beer was good and, uh, sold a lot of t-shirts and, uh, you know, it was fun because I had mentioned in our, um, summer essentials episode that I was looking for the perfect boonie hat. And when Riley came from Missouri, he brought me a boonie hat from, from his air force base. He said the air force is moving to ball cap style. And so I guess when they D issue, old gear they typically just shred it or get rid of it because they don't want it falling into hands of people that could use them to disguise themselves or something strange like that. But I hope I don't get Riley in trouble by saying that but he said it was okay. So he brought me a boonie hat that he hauled all the way from Missouri and I love that and that was really kind of him and I don't know it was just um it was just so much fun and I'd love to do I'd love to do more of this thing uh you know whether it's it's for depth charge or for you know, TGN at some point, I think Toronto would be a really fun place to, you know, road trip up there or, or something, or, you know, for a TGN get together or whatever, but yeah, great time.
Jason Heaton Yeah, for sure. I mean, no, no promises just yet. I think we might, it's definitely a little bit early for Canada. Um, if, if, especially if we were hoping to have you in Gashoni, uh, great grace, our fine shores with your presence. Yeah, I would absolutely agree. It'd be great. It'd be great to know that we could do at least a couple of those a year at some point and, um, and kind of pinpoint where would, where would make sense for people to kind of rock up and, and do that kind of thing. So, um, more of that in the future as the world, uh, kind of gets to the point where we can, we can spend a lot of time face to face and move from one place to another without too much of a headache. So that's, uh, that's great. I'm, I'm so, so thrilled by the turnout. I was following along on Instagram. With just about the strongest case of FOMO I've had in the better part of two years. So yeah, that's awesome. I'm really happy for you.
James Stacey Yeah. Just, you know, thanks to everybody that came out for that. And for those of you that have been asking if those t-shirts are going to be for sale, they will be. I've been kind of building out the depth charge website to include those and probably sell a limited number of the remaining t-shirts through the website in the next couple of weeks. Look out for that. And, uh, yeah, it was fun. What about, uh, what about on your side of the border there? Uh, more, more cottage work, more, more demolition and construction.
Jason Heaton We didn't do any construction this weekend. It was actually just more of a relaxing weekend. Uh, you know, working, you know, having Hodinkee as kind of my main client means that the fourth weekend is a little bit longer than it would be in terms of time off. So I ended up with Friday and Monday, uh, with not a lot on my plate. Nice. Uh, so I, yeah, went up to the cottage for a couple of days and, and swam a bunch in the lake and, and did that kind of thing. We've got a few more Renos on the, on the plan, but you know, that, that requires a weekend where you don't, you don't really intend to do a whole lot else. And it's kind of more in the space of needing, needing a bit of a, an unwind rather than the transition from one type of tasks to a different. So just kind of, just kind of laid low and, uh, you know, hung out at the cottage and yeah. came back and now, yeah, it's just, it's, it's that kind of July. Sometimes it's really sunny and beautiful. Went on a nice bike ride the other day, um, on, on Monday around Toronto, uh, just to breaking in a bike that I picked up or my dad helped me find a little while ago. Yeah. In some ways just, it was four days of avoiding work and a lot of responsibility. So that was nice. Uh, but yeah, it's funny. It's funny, you know, especially now moving to weekly episodes, it does kind of highlight how little, at least I actually do in terms of things to report. Like, Hey, I work and I watch TV. Sometimes I go for walks. Like it's still, it's still a pretty, um, pretty inactive, uh, I guess in terms of interest, it's, it's not a very diverse lifestyle these days.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, for, for a show that talks about adventure and travel and diving and driving, I mean, it's, it's been a tough, uh, 18 months for us to kind of stay fresh with. with stuff to do. And, you know, um, I think your cottage getaways have been a little bit of a mental escape for, for me, kind of just hearing about your, your jumping off the dock and, you know, working on the, on the place and even sleeping in a tent, uh, sounds great. And, you know, I'm looking forward to this trip, but, uh, at some point, at some point we'll be back to normal. So we just have to hang in there. I, I do feel that, you know, here we are, you know, well into July now, and I hate to be pessimistic, but it almost feels like we're going to be talking about fall adventures and gear and Yeah. Ski season before long. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think we're over halfway through the year, but let's not, let's not dwell on that.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think, you know, and this is typically that time of year where people do start taking more and more vacation and that kind of thing. So I think, I think there's still tons to do and, and I'm, you know, still planning to dig into that pretty, pretty resolutely around Ontario, kind of find new adventures. I'd love to get back up to Tobermory in the next couple of months. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it was kind of like a working, thing. Like if I just decided to work out October morning for a week or whatever. Yeah. I think that could be pretty fun, especially if you thread the needle for weather and that sort of thing. So yeah. Yeah. Summer, summer's officially on at this point. And I think there's definitely some adventures on the horizon. I'm planning to dig out all of my dusty dive gear and get it serviced and ready to go for some, some fun dives in Lake Ontario later in the season. So yeah, very cool. I think we're still, still moving in a good direction, but you gotta, you gotta learn to play, or at least in my case, I get to play in my own yard for the rest of the summer, probably.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. Well, Hey, before we jump into risk checking our main topic, we just wanted to mention that, uh, you know, we're getting some good, good adoption by listeners to the, the sub stack feed. And we still want to encourage people to sign up for that at, at notes.thegraynado.com because it's, uh, it's just building a nice community of, of listeners that can comment on shows and you get it in your email every Thursday, um, with the actual. ability to play it there. Um, but also, uh, you know, we, for as long as we've done the show, we've, we've taken emails from, from listeners, uh, at the gray NATO at the G at gmail.com. And, you know, we've gotten to the point now where it's difficult to get back to people in a timely manner, even with both of us kind of dipping in and trying to do responding. So I guess we'd like to encourage people to continue to sign up for Substack and to, you know, if you have feedback on a, on a specific item in the show or a question about the show or a suggestion, that you think might benefit more than just us, uh, you know, add it to a comment on, on that feed on the website. And, you know, certainly you can, you can still keep in touch with us if you have something specific for, for James or for me, but you know, it's kind of nice to be able to involve a bigger group. You get some suggestions from other people that respond and more people can, can, uh, can benefit from your expertise or your suggestions, or conversely, you might get some, some good suggestions from other people. So. Just thought we'd, uh, we'd mentioned that at the top of the show here, kind of encourage people to keep signing up for that and using it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think this makes a lot of sense. As much as the email I think has been pretty effective. Um, we certainly get a lot of repeat emails and, and we hear from new people every week. It is a bit of a lift just to make sure we get everything in half the time. I'd say like probably half the emails are just one of you lovely folks deciding to send us a link to a great story or to an awesome YouTube video or to a channel that you love or to a book that you just read and like All of these are great, but it's a little bit sad for Heaton and I to be looking at it and reply and say like, Hey, this is great. Thanks so much. We'll add it to our list. And then know that now that recommendation is kind of like gone. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas as much as we appreciate you taking the time for the email and everything, it might, you might be able to kind of share with a wider group of people than just Jason and I by throwing it in the, in the comments on, on sub stack. So yeah. Cool. All right. How about a risk check? What have you got on a, on risk today, Jason?
James Stacey I chose something fitting for our topic today. I'm wearing my Oris Diver 65. This is the topper edition that I got last year. And it's the 42 millimeter size with kind of the funky, I think they're called, are they called DeVille numerals? I can't remember what they're called. But they're, you know, the kind of that first style of dial that Oris came out with on the Diver 65 in the larger size case. Uh, it's such a fun watch. I, you know, for, for a bigger watch, kind of a 42 millimeter watch, it wears well on my wrist. But what I love about this watch is it's so slim. I mean, you know, with the, the diver 65, I mean, you even have a slimmer one cause you have the hand wound, but, um, it's, it's just such a pleasure to wear this. And today I put it on, I have one of these, uh, I don't know if you know that it was made by isoframe back in the seventies, but it's a thinner material than the big chunky ones. And it has the round holes. It's I guess they called it like a porthole style. Oh, sure. Yeah. Black rubber strap and that wears pretty flat and it's nice and long and it has that angled end. Um, and it, you know, might not be period correct for a sixties watch, but it, it just, it really looks good on the watch and debating whether this is my, my travel watch. You know, we've got that, that dilemma. We're kind of doing a bit of a tropical, you know, beachy sort of getaway. And, uh, you know, I'm like, okay, it might be in and out of the water a little bit, you know, which watch should I take? And this, This is a front runner at this point because it's just kind of a fun, fun summer watch.
Jason Heaton That's a great choice. Yeah. I love those, uh, those 65, especially those ones with the old school dial. Yeah. They wear really well. I think that larger size probably suits your wrist really nicely because the 40 mil doesn't wear all that large in any way. It's so, it's so small in many, in many proportions. Yeah. You know, it's very, um, the lugs are very subtle in terms of, of their, their shape and their, they're kind of rake on the wrist. And a lot of it ends up feeling like crystal because you have such a thin bezel on that design. I think those are, I think those are great. And, and yeah, I was tempted to pick my, uh, my 65, but I didn't want to kind of preempt what I might pick during the challenge, um, uh, which, which would be our main topic in just a moment. So I'm actually wearing one. I haven't had on in a little while, but it's one of those watches that I think will be with me forever. It's that, uh, the Roald Dorf, limited edition Halio C4. So I have the black DLC, you know, at a movement all assembled and regulated in Vancouver. And this has the cream dial, the cream tuxedo dial where the dark segment is actually like a pretty dark but lustrous sort of metallic green. Yeah. So I love this watch. It's a little bit tough to take a picture of it. It always just looks like a normal tuxedo dial and then you get it outside and it's like, it's, it's very green. It's like, you know, British racing green or something, something in that, in that space. And I don't, I don't know. I mean, for me that I think this is the ultimate Seaforth as much as I adore and really miss the pastel that we, uh, we auctioned off, uh, last year. Uh, it's a great watch and, and, and everything's perfect, but there's something so specific about this one. And the fact that I got it from, uh, Jason Lim, who runs Hallios and, and Jason Gallop, who runs Roldorf and co, you know, two, two of my Vancouver friends. Uh, it'll always mean a lot to me. It came to me at a very, uh, you know, just kind of transformative time in my life. Uh, this, this was a watch that I wore and, uh, and I, yeah, I absolutely love it. I don't, I don't wear it enough, but I do really, really love it and cherish it. And I've got it on sort of a, uh, a gray taupe Hermes leather strap and it just, just fancies it up a little bit. And there's this nice contrast between the black case. Yeah. And everything in the bezel lists, or it's not bezel lists, but the sort of sterile bezel C4ths, I think have really grown on me. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when, when they first launched the C4th with the 12 hour bezel, it was all I could kind of think about. It's so killer. Right. But there's something so sweet about these. I think, I think I want, I'm going to try and dig up a, like a matching black mesh bracelet for it. Oh, wow. Yeah, I think that that might be a really fun way to wear it. So if if you have a recommendation for a nicely made, but not like insanely expensive, preferably matte black DLC or PVD mesh bracelet, put it in the comments, please.
James Stacey And thanks. Yeah, that dark green on the dial. I mean, it really does, at least for me, kind of evoke the Pacific Northwest. I mean, it just my my visit to Vancouver, it has that sort of cool for, well, maybe not these days. It's so hot out there these days, I guess, but so hot, but, uh, that kind of cool forested feel. Yeah.
Jason Heaton That's a, that's a good one. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm very fond of it. It's a sweet thing. And, and very, uh, you know, even as far as Hallelujah's go very rare, they only made a few. So, yeah. Uh, always fun. Um, how about you say we dip into this, uh, main topic.
James Stacey Yeah. Today's all about Oris. Um, yep. We've done a few of these. challenge episodes. I think this is our third, right? We did Seiko and Zen. Was that it?
Jason Heaton So yeah, we did Zen for episode 139. We've definitely done Seiko. And for those of you who haven't listened to a challenge episode, that's not a difficult concept. We basically set an arbitrary budget that should make it possible to pick multiple watches, but not every watch. Yeah. And, uh, and from a brand and basically I, I can't see what Jason's picked and he can't see what I've picked. And once it's picked, it's off the table. Yeah. We did the Zen episode in 139. uh, with a $7,500 budget and given kind of largely the same market position that Oris has in terms of pricing, uh, we figured 7,500 bucks would do it again. And, and the idea is to try and get two to three watches for that price. Uh, but obviously when we did Seiko, you could really flex because you could spend your budget on, you could spend most of your budget on one watch and still grab a five to kind of fill it out with Orison was in the floor is much higher. So it's a 7,500 is kind of an interesting, interesting budget. And we're not saying that the goal of here is to say that you should go out and spend and buy three watches from one brand all at one moment. It's more just a thought exercise in how we see the strong points of a brand and how we would kind of negotiate a budget in picking the stuff we would actually want to wear from that brand.
James Stacey Yeah, this one was fun. I was thinking about Oris as I was doing this and how they occupy this unique space that I was kind of trying to think of their competitors from a Swiss perspective. I mean, I think, you know, Zinn is such a great, like perfect sort of side by side, but it's, it's such a different style of watch and very German. And then, you know, then you've got the Japanese brands, which have their own sort of value statement. But Swiss, I mean, you might look at like a Tissot or a Longines, but Aorus feels so, it feels so different. It feels like, I mean, I hate to say it, but it feels like you're getting more for for the money because it's an independent brand and their designs are so unique. It almost feels like they come from a different place, you know, and they certainly offer a lot. I mean, this was, this was like an embarrassment of riches to like, it was, this was a pleasure. Whereas I think Zen was like kind of Zen and Seiko, especially Seiko are so tough, you know, but, but Oris was like, Oh, I've got so much to choose from here. And I can just keep piling up my cart and still kind of come in under the, under the amount. So this was a fun one.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I agree. And the sweet thing about Auris, especially if you're going to compare them to a Swatch family brand, is they don't feel like a Swatch brand. Right. Yeah. You know, the Swatch stuff, especially when you get to Tissot, and I don't mean this as a dig, but there is a part of Tissot, Sertina, like, you know, there's, there's about six brands. You could even include Hamilton in there where it feels a little bit like parts bin. Right. Like if something works really well for Tissot, you kind of see it reflect out to the other brands and if the power Matic 80 movement applies here, you see it there. And, and it kind of feels a little bit like, uh, a little bit less specific in, in what they, in what they do. You know, they all have winners that new Certina diver, for example, it's just absolutely gorgeous. Uh, that's one I would love to get in, um, to chat about on the show at some point in the future. But with Orish, you know, I think you literally see the result of the fact that they're a privately owned, thing run by a relatively small group of people and that have managed to make like a really wide and diverse line of watches that I think a lot of enthusiasts have come to love, especially because you get this diversity. They have a huge range in sizes, they have a huge range in aesthetic, but all of them are kind of executed on roughly the same kind of level, which I really like. So Jason, how about you go first? You want to pick the first one?
James Stacey That's, uh, that's a privilege or that's a, that's a luxury to be able to go first on this one.
Jason Heaton Um, so it's hard to play a rock, paper, scissors over. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.
James Stacey Right. Right. All right. I'm going to jump into the dressiest of the three. This is the, the big crown pointer date. Uh, and it's the one with the blue dial. Um, Oh no, you're kidding. First one knocked off. No way. Oh, geez. Well, sorry about that. Oh, that's okay.
Jason Heaton This is the game.
James Stacey I mean, they, uh, you know, they make a number of dial configurations here. I mean, they make them with, they've made them with green and sort of that burgundy red and whatever, but I don't know this, this blue dial with the little flash of red on the, on the pointer date hand, um, those really elegant cathedral style hands, uh, the sort of coin edge on that, on that bezel. Um, and then the oversized crown. I mean, it's, it's just such a lovely watch 40 millimeter case. Uh, you know, steel obviously with an automatic and those, those big looping sort of old school numbers. Uh, I don't know if this is, you know, when I think of, I think we brought this up on a previous episode when we were kind of talking about the quote unquote gentlemen's watch, you know, the watch that, you know, you, you know, the one watch guy might just have this watch and wear it to cut the grass or to travel with, or to, you know, go hiking with it on. I mean, this is, it's a dressy watch, but it's also, it's so versatile and I've always loved the aesthetic of, of the big crown pointer date. I think it's a very distinctly Oris design and that blue gray dial it's, it's, it's like the perfect color. It's, it's just the perfect color. I think that the burgundy version was that the, the one they did for, um, Fratello. Not monochrome. Fratello. Yeah. The Fratello edition with that burgundy dial was cool, but it just felt less versatile. It felt a little too loud for me. And when I see this one, even on the screen, I'm just looking at it now. It's like, I'd love to see that thing on my wrist. I mean, it's just, it's a gorgeous watch. And that one comes in at $1,750. So it was a good starting point. You know, this is a sub $2,000 watch with an interesting, not, you know, not a really fancy complication, but a very interesting one with that pointer date. It adds an extra hand to the dial. and still has some usefulness to it and doesn't disrupt the dial symmetry with a date window.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And for 200 bucks, you can get it on the five link bracelet. Oh, yeah.
James Stacey True. For 1950. I'm going to do that because I have a little leftover. So let's put it on the bracelet. So let's go 1950. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I think that's a great choice. I absolutely love that watch. Yeah. I remember being at the Basel meeting where they showed that watch. Yeah. Along with a handful of other colors. You know, they had those crevasse. sort of inspired range of colors, these kind of desaturated pastels, which they've used on the bronze versions and some of the smaller pointer dates and stuff like that. So I think the pointer date family as a range is pretty impressive now because there's so much diversity from what is just basically a relatively simple platform like layout. And I really do think that if you're keen on a watch with a date, This is a way to actually make that date something rather than just an add on. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like a hole punched in the dial that happens to be there and tell you the date. This makes it a little bit more interesting. Yeah. And the, you, you really can't argue with this price point, right? No, no. Um, you know, as much as I think the caliber 400 stuff, you know, the new in-house stuff is going to change Oris in a big, great way. I still love that they're making, you know, Selita and Etta powered stuff under two grand that you could get serviced anywhere. Um, you know, I, I think for major service stuff like that, you'd want to send it back to the brand if you bought a brand new watch, but like if something little happened and you just needed to tweak, it's nice. It's nice to know that, that like you could probably find a solution for that locally. Yeah. Yeah. I think you and I remain pretty resolutely on the fence when it comes to the value of in-house. Yeah. Like it really has to add something, which I think the caliber 400 does. Yeah. Um, but I think a lot of, a lot of people's in-house options don't add that much. They do exactly the same thing as the less expensive, more easily serviced movement. And they typically ratchet the price up sometimes only a bit, a little bit, sometimes a lot. And they do so without add, like not all of them add, uh, you know, better regulation or better timekeeping or, uh, you know, a longer service interval or a better warranty or a lot more power reserve or whatever. And, uh, and I think it's nice because, With Oris, if you make that move to the 400, you know that you're buying into more features, not just this sort of nebulous, you know, self-affirmed concept that in-house is better. Right. So I think, I think they were very thoughtful in the way they went that direction. And I love that the pointer date still shows how strong you can be as a brand under two grand at a price point that is very competitive to any of the larger Swiss brands.
James Stacey When you were talking about earlier about how they, they seem to, stand apart from Swatch Group brands in kind of the same price bracket. I think, you know, their independence comes through in the causes that they support, the limited editions they create are a little bit different than the rest of the brands. But I also, with this watch specifically, or the different configurations of the Big Crown, Pointer Date, their work with color is different from any other brand. I'm just scrolling down the page that this shows up on and you know, you've got this Roberto Clemente limited edition, which has that sort of a white dial with some tobacco kind of Brown accents.
Jason Heaton Then they have really blown up my spot here. That was going to be, Oh no, no, I'm not, I'm not picking it.
James Stacey No, no. But, but, but you look at all these like, and then there's this 80th anniversary edition with this green dial. That's not the usual green or the bronze pointer date with this, light brown dial or the Holstein edition with this kind of gray dial. I mean, they're work with color, but I'm looking at this wrist shot that they have and whoever did their photography is great, but this wrist shot is just fantastic. That blue is just, it's wonderful, but I'll stop gushing about this. I think, you know, this was a, this was an easy first choice. It was, it's almost like the first watch that even pops up when, when I opened the Oris website and I was like, yep, that's my first pick. So that's what I'm going with.
Jason Heaton How about you? So, I mean, I think, I think we probably do this as a serpentine draft. Okay. So I'll, I'll end up with the, my first pick and then my second pick. Sure. Yeah. And then you'll, you'll be able to do both. So I can be really quick on the first one. It's going to be the Roberto Clemente edition. It was my backup to the blue. I love the white dial. Yeah. I really like the, the, I typically dislike the use of any gold.
Unknown Mm.
Jason Heaton on any of this sort of stuff, uh, you know, like a two-tone, especially where it's just gold on the hands, the dial, that sort of thing. It never really works for me. And with this, they've gone with white metal and then the actual kind of painted numerals are in this sort of tobacco-y brown textured gold sort of, I just really liked the way that they've done this iteration. And I, of course, I love a silvery white dial. I think that it really suits the watch and it does so in a way that's so different from the blue or the red. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, you know, I'm not a baseball fan. I wouldn't be buying this because Roberto Clemente is on it. He seems like a, like he was a lovely guy and certainly a very talented baseball player, but I would be buying this because I really like this style and the way that it suits the case. Oh yeah. But we, we've already gone a few minutes into, uh, into our appreciation for the, the pointer date. So let me move on to my second pick. Yeah. Let me see which way can we go here? I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose another one. They really throw off my game. I'll be honest.
James Stacey That's why I picked the Pointer Date first, because I knew you'd have a, you'd have a Pointer Date.
Jason Heaton I mean, it's such, you got to have them. I mean, it's such a good watch, right? Yeah. Um, I'm going to go with the Durmeister Tucker. Okay.
Unknown All right.
Jason Heaton So I, this is what I think their, their most special dive watch from the brand. Um, it's one that I got to dive a ton with in Clipperton and it's one of my few like big, um, watch buying regrets was not attempting to buy that watch after Clipperton. Um, you know, put it, putting it simply, Clipperton had a lot of outright costs that weren't going to be covered by, by the, you know, the company buying the story from me at the time. Uh, so I didn't exactly come off of the two weeks on that boat, like flush with cash at the moment. Uh, so I, I held onto the watch for a little while and I really hemmed and hawed on, on seeing if they would, they would sell me that one because it has all of my, you know, kind of my own scratches and my own memories and everything built into it. Yeah. And I think this is such a strange and, and cool watch. Um, you know, it's, it's on the larger side, it's 43.5 millimeters, but it's titanium. It's best on a rubber strap. And that comes on this bright red rubber strap.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And then being the Durmeister talker, it's a regulator. So it's a watch that doesn't have a centralized hour hand. It has a giant minute hand that operates on the whole of the dial. And then it has a sub dial for the hours. Yeah. It's a super weird layout for a dive watch, but underwater it just worked really well. And every time I looked at it, I was like, oh, this is just a different sort of take on a dive watch. Yeah. And I just, I absolutely love it.
James Stacey Yeah. That's, and it's such a, it's so distinctly Oris. I mean, I can remember first getting into watches and hearing about Oris and I think I saw one on somebody's wrist somewhere and I was like, that is a cool watch. And it's just so distinctly theirs. I mean, I, there might be another brand that's doing a regulator diver. Um, but. I had to snorkel quite a ways to find it on their website. I was like, do they even still sell that watch? And sure enough, there it is. I hope they never get rid of it because it's just so Oris.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So that one, the price point that I could find was $31.50 US. And then the Roberto Clemente, you don't actually pay much of any premium at all. It's also $19.50. So those are my first two picks. I just love that regulator. I think it's such a cool watch. Yeah. Very weird that I love that bright red minute hand crazy loom date at six is super nice, super legible. I guess there's a moment where the minute hand is going to overlap with the hour hand. Yeah. Yeah. But even then you're going to have a rough concept of, and it's not going to matter if you, if you're concerned with diving, you just have to watch that one hand. Great bezel, really cool case, not a watch like other people are making. I absolutely love this. And like I said, I will forever be kicking myself for not picking up the one I took to, took to Clipperton.
James Stacey And you're getting this one on the rubber, right? They do have a bracelet version.
Jason Heaton It does. Yeah. You can't get a bracelet. I would want it on that, on that red rubber. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the most fun way to wear it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a cool watch. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Uh, all right. So you have a, your second and your third pick. Okay.
James Stacey Well, so, you know, sticking with this, uh, big diver rubber strap theme, uh, I, you know, I fell in love with the Aqua GMT at, uh, at Basel a couple of years ago when they introduced that configuration of the Aqua. I've never been a huge Aqua fan. Um, I always preferred kind of the more old school style of the diver 65, but for some reason, the, the GMT, bezel kind of worked for me on the Aqua's better than, than the dive bezel. And the configuration I'm choosing for, for my Aqua's GMT is actually the Carey's Fort Reef LE. So this was the, uh, the one that, uh, I believe they might've even introduced when we were in Colorado with them a couple of years ago, when we interviewed Martha Ressler from the Coral Restoration Foundation. And, uh, just, uh, just a cool watch, just a super, like if you think sports watch, like this is like the quintessential sports watch. So this is, uh it's a 43.5 millimeter aqueous with a kind of a two-tone 24-hour rotating bezel for for a second time zone actually it could be a third time zone because it has this 24-hour hand that that circles around in the middle with the the smaller 24-hour scale and it has that shimmery blue dial um and i'm i'm going on the rubber strap i know that this comes on a bracelet and you know i still have a little money left over but Uh, maybe I can get both buy it on the bracelet and buy the strap separately. Maybe that's what I do. But, uh, with that orange rubber strap, it's, it's the same rough, roughly the same strap as you're getting on the Meister talker. Yeah. But this one's an orange and it sets off against the, the orange 24 hour indication and the, and that shimmery blue dial. And. You know, I can remember putting this watch on and it's like, it's, it's just gorgeous. It's like a big chunky, colorful. sports watch, like no apologies. Um, you know, if, if the pointer date is the, the kind of classy dress watch in my collection, then this is the, this is the one I wear to, to travel with or go diving or just kind of wear around when I'm feeling like, you know, total t-shirt and, and, uh, board shorts kind of day. So, and that, that one comes in at 2,800. So that's, that's the big boy in my, in my trio. Um, yeah. And that's my number two pick.
Jason Heaton I love that watch. Uh, I absolutely agree. It was on my short list for this whole thing and did the math didn't work out quite as well as it did with the Meister talker. Yeah. Um, but I do think that if you, if there was one watch that you were going for and you wanted a gin, like a full on dive watch, great vacation, watch travel, watch the rest. Yeah. I think this one in the, in the mix of the blue orange is just perfect. Yeah. And a super wearable, really great. This is also one that I would just love to see. a slightly smaller version of the, either in maybe the 41 millimeter case. I know it's only two and a half millimeters, but I think it would take it from being kind of a great summer vacation watch to being like an everyday sport watch. Yeah, true. Just on, just on the two and a half millimeters. I genuinely really like the 43.5. I think it's even better in titanium because you, the added size, but not the added weight. Yeah. But with this and these, I remember when we got to see these, you know, it, a nice memory. So I'll kind of tied up with these and being in Colorado with with a good group crew of people. Yeah. And that the mix of that really fun strap. Yeah, along with that amazing, you know, the depth of the dial and the way they do the markers and kind of a lot of the, the sort of lineage of the TT series that are still in the bullet style markers and, and the really nice dial finishing and then a very useful It's still a collar style GMT, but the layout is exceedingly useful. It's super easy to read. It's very subtle in the way that it's executed and you still have a date. I think it works on a lot of different levels.
James Stacey Yeah. And I think, you know, the one quibble that people bring up often when with this family of Oris dive watches is the use of their proprietary strap kind of system where, you know, you can't add a NATO to this or your own rubber or whatever. But in this case, I think it would be hard to beat. that strap. I mean, the Oris rubber straps are so good. The clasps are good. They've got, you know, kind of that floating sort of micro adjusting system. And, uh, I don't know, they're, they're very bold. They're the, it's the soft, supple rubber. And then the way that they kind of have, uh, you know, the Oris name sort of debossed in the, in the rubber. It's, uh, it's pretty fantastic. So yeah, that's number two. And I guess, yeah, I get my next pick as well. My, my final pick, um, let's do it. is, uh, you know, I was going to go with something from their culture line or another aviation watch, but, uh, I think it's different enough. I'm going with the diver 65, uh, huge family of watches, of course. Um, but in this case, I'm going with the diver 65 bronze with, uh, well, it's, it's not full on bronze. It's actually, um, steel with just that bronze lip around the edge of the bezel. And then that kind of smoky Brown gold kind of brown dial so it's a 40 millimeter case uh on the um not a huge fan of kind of the riveted bracelets so i'm going on their on their leather strap with the hopes of you know just wear this thing like crazy on all sorts of nato's and my own leathers and whatever um this is it's just a beautiful watch i you know two-tone some quote-unquote two-tone watches have not normally been my thing i think this is done about as well as as as you can and and as much as I can wear the even the crown is steel so you know you just don't get a lot of that bronzy tone it's just on the on kind of the outer edge of the of the bezel but what does it for me on this one is that is that kind of uh fade you know fade to black sort of brown dial that that looks you know it's unapologetically fotina I mean it just looks like it's been sitting out in the sun for you know, for too long. Absolutely. Great watch. This is, this is $2,100, uh, on the strap, 40 millimeters, you know, auto winding kind of just classic, uh, classic, uh, diver 65. And I think that that gives me, you know, three very distinct watches. I think the Aqua GMT is just, like I said, just shorts and board, you know, board shorts and t-shirt summer travel Burley sports watch the big crown pointer day, is very classic, very different. I mean, you could hardly even tell they're from the same brand. And then this one is just, you know, kind of scratches the itch that I have for kind of retro style dive watches, um, in, in a very nice, slightly dressy way. So yeah, those are my three. And where did you total out for that? I mean, I've got money left and maybe you can help me. I mean, I've, I came out at 68 50, I mean, out of a $700 budget, I mean, I could do what one 50 and, I've got another 650 to spend. I don't think I can get a full on watch.
Jason Heaton Spare straps, probably, right? Yeah, spare straps, maybe, you know. Swing by a boutique and just buy up all the colors they've got. Yeah, right. There's a lot of different colors that fit the 43 millimeter Aquus. So I don't know if you get, like, I don't know what the rules are. Like if you walked into a a boutique or called up a boutique and said like, look, I own this watch and maybe you bought it from them or whatever. And I'm looking for the black strap or the gray one or the yellow one from this watch or who knows, maybe you can order some of them. Maybe you can't, but I'm sure 600 would get you at least one more strap. Maybe two.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton I don't, I genuinely don't know what they cost. OEM rubber straps can, as we've talked about in the past, can be a literal fortune. I've bought watches for less than what an, you know, an Omega rubber strap costs.
James Stacey Oh yeah. I mean, I was, I was honestly going to choose one of their Cronorus watches because I've long loved the Cronorus, but the Cronorus I loved was the one that I think they don't make anymore, which was just that, the big sub dial right in the middle, orange accents, orange and black.
Jason Heaton Oh, the Crono.
James Stacey Yeah. From like, it was like a perforated leather strap. This was from, I don't know, probably 10 years ago or something, but love that watch. You know, I'd love to maybe source one of those with maybe I can get one used with that extra, extra money I've got. So for sure. Anyway, that's, those are my three. How about you?
Jason Heaton That's a solid three. You got one more. I got one more. I went, I went with, I think this is a fair choice. It's not for sale anymore, but I do own one. Yeah. It's the, uh, the Hodinkee LE Diver 65, the hand wound. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's kind of a ridiculous thing to suggest. Now I checked stock X, which is like a reseller for all sorts of usually sneakers and stuff like that, but they also do some watches and they're saying, The bid price on a watch on one of these is 13 grand, which that, that can't be accurate. It was 2,300 bucks when it came out. I I've seen a couple go to auction and you know, it's higher than 2,300 bucks, but I don't know, maybe that maybe this is Canadian. So maybe we're looking at more like 10, but 10 grand is still a lot for this watch. Uh, I it's definitely, you know, super limited. I got the number that I wanted. I adore this watch. I don't wear it a ton, but I like it quite a bit. Um, it is, uh, it is a really, really beautiful watch. And especially if you get it on the ideal strap, a strap with a bit of tan to pull from the markers. Yeah. For those of you who aren't aware, Hodinke did a, uh, an Ellie, a limited edition with Oris where they took, um, uh, the standard 40 millimeter diver 65, but they fitted a hand wind movement and then compress the case back. Uh, so that you still have a screw down crown. It's a hundred meters water resist, which is a strange combo for a a dive watch that that is also, uh, you know, it's hand wound. So you have to, you're unscrewing the crown to wind it. Uh, it is kind of a, uh, an odd ball creation in that way. But the, the, the total execution is on this kind of matte dark gray dial. And then you have kind of a ghosted gray bezel and the tan loom, no date. It is really thin, um, and super easy to wear. It suits a lot of different wrist sizes. It comes on the rivet bracelet, which is nice. I prefer it on a strap or a NATO. It's great on a Perlon because it weighs nothing and takes a military green Perlon really, really well. Fantastic summer watch. Probably, at least judging by StockX, one of my most valuable watches. But at $2,300, that would bring me into 7400 bucks. Oh, so I'm 100 bucks try. Yeah, so I and that's, you know, 1950 on the Clemente so that we're not factoring for tax here. Yeah, right. I would have blown blown through but 1950 for the Clemente 3150. Yeah, for the Durr Meister talker and 2300 for the podinky le which like I said, you can't buy but I don't think I'm being unfair. I do own one. I think I'm allowed to claim it. Yeah. In this scenario. And I suppose it's also our show. So, um, but yeah, those would be my three, you know, I, I think, um, man, the brand has a lot, right. They really do. We didn't even, none of us picked anything from the pilot range and there's a ton of great stuff in there. I guess you could kind of say that the, in some ways the pointer date has a kind of a vintage pilots watch field to it with the cathedral hands and, and the sizing and kind of the rustic appeal. But I like their pro-pilot collection.
James Stacey I mean, I do. I like the straps and I used to own one of the altimeters and it was a fun watch, but I don't know. I mean, like I said at the top, I mean, we're just spoiled for choice here. It's like, there's just so much to pick. And I, you know, avoided the pro diver collection, which also has some strong contenders. And neither of us even went to the caliber 400. You know, we didn't, to me, I'm just, it comes down to priorities. I'm just not a movement snob, or I don't want to say movement snob, movements are just not, as important to me as, uh, as everything else on a watch. And so I just sort of bypassed that.
Jason Heaton And my guess is our picks would have been different if we'd said 10 or 12 grand. Yeah, true. You would have, you would have had room for, for, uh, you know, the 400 stuff costs a little bit more. And both of us came in like there's not leeway for a whole other watch or even close to a whole other Oris. Like, yeah, that's what I was saying with Seiko where you could finish a Seiko run and have $600 left and could almost get two more watches. Right? Yeah. Yeah. it I definitely think the caliber 400 is worth the money. But it's one of those things where when you do these challenges, you have to kind of balance how many watches you're going to get. And it would have brought me down to two watches to have been able to fit that. So yeah, I think they make make a fantastic watch. Obviously, we're huge fans of the brand each of us, you know, have owned and do own various models from them. And I think it's always worth being on the lookout Man, I'm just looking at the photos of the Carey's Fort GMT. It was a gorgeous watch. I know, I know. I got to leave this page. I just keep rambling on about it. But yeah, so that's the challenge presented. We each got our three watches. We came pretty close to the sort of limit in terms of pricing. And then I think I would love to know what all of you listening would pick if you had $7,500. Um, and, and I would say go nuts, whether or not you want it to be $7,500 in your currency or just 7,500 U S like, like Jason, I did, but let us know in the comments, notes.thegradiator.com click into episode one 51, and you'll see the comments. And I would love to see what, what other people would pick with, um, with the same sort of budgetary constraint with the idea being, you know, maybe you get two watches and one of them is really special. Maybe you get only get one watch with the 7,500, but there's not really any rules. Yeah. The idea is to highlight some, some strengths of the brand and kind of your perspective on it. So I would love to hear what, um, what everybody else, uh, thinks about 7,500 bucks to spend only on, uh, on Oris and, uh, and where you might differ from what Jason and I picked, which is, you know, large, largely dive watches with a kind of a safety play on a, a dressy casual watch, like the pointer date.
James Stacey Yeah, this was fun. I mean, and again, you know, you'd have to be a pretty hardcore brand loyal collector to, you know, to go this route, but I think it's, it's a more interesting topic than say you have $7,500, what three watches from any brands would you pick? I mean, I think it's just, the field is so huge that it's, it's almost not even as interesting. So absolutely. That's why I like doing that kind of the brand specific stuff.
Jason Heaton All right. So how about some final notes? We might actually, might actually make this a normally length episode, which is a rare move for us.
James Stacey It is very strange. Yeah. Yeah. I can jump in. So this came from a listener, John Cook. John thought we might be interested in this, and I certainly thank him for that, and definitely am interested in it. This is from a website, from a publication called Field Mag, and it's an article called Inside the World's Best Archive of Vintage Outdoor Gear Catalogs, written by Bob Maya-Ing, if that's how he pronounces his name. And it's, there's actually a collection of They're kind of archiving or preserving old gear catalogs from 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, the, the kind of golden age of, of outdoor gear when Chouinard equipment was, you know, selling climbing gear. And, you know, you had, you know, actual field photography in the Patagonia catalogs from, from out in the, out in the mountains from people that are now famous, uh, old North face catalogs, Marmot, you know, some of these old brands, uh, Sierra designs, just really cool stuff. And, uh, So you can read about this collection on this website from FieldMag, but then there's also an Instagram feed, our outdoor REC archive. So outdoor REC archive on Instagram, that is actually the archive itself. And they keep kind of putting up photos of excerpts from these gear catalogs. And it's just fun to look. I mean, some of these I remember, you know, I mean, I still get some gear catalogs in the mail, you know, from, from mainly from like clothing brands and stuff, but stuff's changed. I don't think they have the same sort of raw, uh, kind of real world photography, a little bit more gritty. And of course, a lot of it, most of it was probably all of it in this case was shot on film, which has a lens, its own warmth.
Jason Heaton And so much of that budget has gone to websites, right? Yeah. Yeah. So imagine being even a big brand and going like, well, and like, imagine being a Patagonian being like, well, we could print something on paper that people will throw out. Yeah. Which is kind of a problem for our, our kind of brand ethos, or we can just invest in a website and then take whatever's left over and make one of our cool movies for YouTube. Like it makes sense, but there is a little bit of something that feels kind of lost, right?
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I spend a lot of time on the Europa star archives. Oh yeah. Right. Uh, so you know, Hodinke has a membership to their entire back catalog. So if I'm, you know, researching a vintage movement or, or trying to do a reference points on a watch. I usually start there with a few searches and try and see what was said about the watch in period, if you can find it. But a lot of what you end up finding is kind of these roundups, like you would see on a website now where it was like the 10 hottest watches of the summer or the 10 big things to come out of Baselworld in 1998 or whatever. And they're really fun because it makes me think like, oh, so the whole list thing that's happened to the internet over the past 10 years probably, the listification of everything. That's not new. Right. Uh, we just, we just moved to the same content from, from pages to screens. And, uh, but I, I love going back and seeing it and seeing the old ads and seeing how much work used to be put into these layouts and the photography and the, the, you know, all of it. And it is kind of a special thing, especially to see from outdoor catalogs where that's a whole different world. Like you literally have to illustrate a different world. That's one thing to show a watch maybe on, in a vacuum floating in the air or whatever. It's another thing to, to have some of these ones where it's, you know, people climbing and, and, or these really, you know, creative kind of Jan sport ad campaigns that, you know, have bags and sort of large, uh, scale sort of landscape style photography. It's, there's some pretty interesting stuff in here and field mag is a must follow. Yeah. Everyone listening field mag is awesome. They put out exclusively really great stuff. definitely worth a follow, put it in your RSS or at least get them on Instagram. So you don't miss really great stories, but they do some really cool stuff. I like their aesthetic. I like their treatment, um, of, of a lot of different stuff. It's very straight on and simple and, and they do a lot, uh, to try and explain things to people who might still be getting into stuff. I think they do a great job. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Good stuff. Well, thanks. Uh, thanks to, uh, John Cook for sending that over. Good suggestion.
Jason Heaton Yeah. How about you? So mine is a YouTube channel that I recently got into as I want to do, you know, I previously have spoke about a donut media. They have a huge back catalog of these awesome videos that the series that they do often with seasons and, and varied sort of topics. And this new one is one of my brother actually suggested to me, it's called corridor crew. They have 5 million subscribers. So I guarantee that there's some folks listening that already watch their stuff. Uh, but it's corridor crew and basically they do, uh, they do a lot of different videos, but specifically I'm going to talk about two kind of specific series that they do. And it's VFX artists react and, uh, stunt men or stunt women react. And basically they, they play clips from famous movies, huge movies, big movies, you know, movies of all types. And they either, you know, kind of explain how they did the special effects usually with a special effects professional. Yeah. And sometimes they've had very high, high level people, people who have founded Weta and went on to do like some of the most famous VFX ever done in films. And they sit there and they kind of break down scenes and what works and what doesn't and how it might be different with today's technology versus a movie shot in the 20s or the 30s or the 60s or the 70s. Like they do a really great job. And I learned so much from every video. And then the stunt man ones are kind of the same. They show a stunt and then they go like, how do you do that without dying? Is that a real person? Like, and, and they kind of break down some of the special effects and some of the practical stuff. And, and, and they, they do so with really well accomplished, uh, stunt men and stunt women. And I just find it super easy to watch. It's very light. It's a great, like, um, decompress at the end of the day. Or if I want to kind of start my day by experiencing somebody else's creativity, like I woke up today and put on one of these. Yeah. Uh, to just kind of have with my coffee. Uh, I really like it. They, they, they know what they're talking about and they have on interesting guests and it is, you know, I think these react, I think these sort of react videos are a huge trend on, on YouTube. And I think these guys are just doing a really, really good job with it. Um, you know, a lot of these videos have several million views. So I'm sure, like I said, many of you probably, you know, caught one or two at some point, but I suggest kind of hitting the playlist. and just progressively ripping through them, especially if you're a film fan or, uh, you know, being able to see how some of these stunts were done or, or where you see a stunt and you go like, well, that has to be CG. And they're like, Nope, that was a real, real guy. He actually did that. Uh, and, and so, yeah, there's some, some really great stuff. I really, really love the channel. It's corridor crew. And specifically you're looking for VFX artists react or stunt men or stunt women react. Oh, that sounds really cool stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton That sounds great.
James Stacey Nice. Well, solid show. We came in under an hour today. Pretty, pretty amazing.
Jason Heaton And yeah, so I guess that's the show. Didn't, didn't go too long, which is nice. And, uh, you know, as always, thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the show notes via notes.thegreynado.com, or you can check the feed for more details and the links. You can follow us on Instagram. That's at Jason Heaton at J E Stacy, and please follow the show at the gray NATO. If you have any questions for us, you can put them in the show notes comments. Just pick the correct episode. This is one 51. And make a comment. You can always email us if you'd prefer to thegrenadoatgmail.com and please keep sending in your voice memos for a future Q&A. Lastly, if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts and music throughout is of course, Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Jared Allen Brock, who said, if you wish to find a needle in a haystack, light a match.