The Grey NATO - 156 – All The New Watches We're Watching

Published on Thu, 12 Aug 2021 06:00:36 -0400

Synopsis

This episode discusses several newly released or upcoming watches from smaller brands like Brew, Clements, Arkin, Toceno, Raven, Dietrich, and Scurfa. The hosts review the design, specs, and pricing of affordable watch models ranging from $400 to around $1000, highlighting their unique aesthetics, quality, and value proposition for enthusiasts. They also share recommendations for interesting articles and media related to horology and travel.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. My name is James Stacy. I'm joined as ever by my illustrious co-host Jason Heaton. This is episode 156 and we thank you so much for listening. Jason, how's it going?
Jason Heaton Very illustriously. I'm feeling, uh, I'm not sure if that's a, if that's a word, but, uh, no, doing great. Yeah. Just got back from, uh, bike ride. Ghoshani and I have been, we get up with the sun these days and we, if it's a decent weather day, we zip out for an hour, kind of do a lap up and down. There's sort of a loop we do and come home, take a shower and here, here I'm sitting back at my desk. So it's, it's good.
James Stacy Oh, super. Yeah. I'm, I'm actually on vacation this week. This is the one, the one kind of exception I'm making to my, well I shouldn't say that I've done some other work, but this is the one kind of like exception I'm letting my kids see me do. As I told them, I would, I would make a real effort to actually be on vacation rather than just not taking new work. Yeah, right. So yeah, we wanted to get the show in, but admittedly, this is probably gonna be a somewhat compressed episode. And if you're upset about that, you can blame me. This is the equivalent of me taking a break, but we didn't wanna take a week off. We only went to weekly recently. Maybe next summer we'll actually take a chunk of time and do a little actual holiday schedule. But for now, we've just figured a kinda short show. And the nice thing is, There's been a bunch of really interesting watches that have been kind of announced or have actually fully come out that aren't that expensive, that are from kind of smaller brands that we just haven't talked about because the pace of the last few shows was kind of, you know, wrapped around having a guest on. And so this gives us a chance to kind of clean that slate and make sure that we get a chance to talk about some of these watches that we find kind of interesting. But before we get to that, what else is new beyond your bike ride?
Jason Heaton Um, well, so, you know, I remember on, uh, gosh, I don't know if we talked about it on episode or if it was just in via email, but, uh, we, we've got a couple of recommendations for sailcloth straps and sailcloth is that genre of strap that you and I don't really talk about a lot, but I've had a long love for them. Um, you know, some brands do a really nice job with sailcloth for the OEM straps, but it's, it's really hard to find. good quality aftermarket sailcloth straps. And my Blancpain, which I was wearing quite a bit for the past few weeks, comes with a really nice, very supple, you know, beautifully stitched sailcloth strap, but it's just too short for my wrist. I'm on like the last hole and I can't use the second keeper and that always bugs me. So I was kind of on a quest for a longer sailcloth strap for it. And coincidentally we had a couple of emails come through the TGN inbox from a couple of listeners, one named Jeremy and the other Daniel, who both actually wrote in suggesting a company called Artem, A-R-T-E-M, Artem Straps. And they make a really nice sailcloth strap. And I went ahead and ordered one. They're based in Australia, in Brisbane. And so it came, I think, last week. And I ordered the long size. So a couple of the variations they have come in regular and long. And I ordered the long. And it actually is a dead ringer for the Blancpain one. It's really, really nice. It's got like a rubberized backing and then it's that textured sort of fabric look for the front and then it's fully stitched. I ordered the gray stitch to match the OEM one from Blancpain. And then actually I moved the buckle over from the Blancpain to this strap and it fits perfectly and I'm really pleased with it. know, if anyone out there is looking for a good sailcloth strap, and I think they work really well on a number of watches. I haven't moved this one to anything else, but I think it would look great on, you know, pilots watch or some other dive watches, uh, and they come in 20 or 22. So I'm really pleased with that. So thanks to Jeremy and Daniel for kind of giving us the heads up on that brand. And then I looked and I immediately ordered and took a week to 10 days to get here from Australia. And I'm, I'm really pleased with it. Nice. Yeah.
James Stacy All right. Yeah. You know, my thing with sailcloth is it's almost always black and I don't really wear black like textile straps like at all. I don't wear black NATOs. In the past, I've kind of seen that look and I remember trying them back in the day when you could get some that were, you know, cheap from cheaper brands or sometimes they came with a watch like you mentioned. And I, you know, a lot of times I just ended up going for a gray or a navy blue, like Cordura or nylon, something like that. And then, of course, eventually it was just NATO's all the time. Right. But these look really good. And who knows, maybe it may be able to do more colors in the future. But if you're if you're keen on the black ones, these do seem to have an incredible reputation for making a really solid strap. And actually, it leads nicely into mine, which is also a strap recommendation, which came from sort of So a few episodes ago, I had said that I was looking for a sort of semi fine link black mesh bracelet. So a steel mesh. And, uh, you know, for my, uh, Halio C4 Roldorf LE, which is a, uh, a black finished watch and, uh, a listener named Avram Rago, A-V-R-A-M-R-A-G-O on Instagram. There's a post on my Instagram. I've already thanked him, but Avram, thanks very much for this. He recommended one from Holben's, who I've bought other bracelets from in the past, called the ULIT, so E-U-L-I-T, Stalix Milanese Mesh Black PVD Watch Bracelet. It's $48. It's kind of that Casio style sliding. So you kind of adjust where the foot is going to be.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacy And then the other side just hooks in and then locks down. Yeah. So you get a really fine level of kind of comfort with the sizing, and you can very quickly size it up for the summer afternoons. Apparently German made, it's got straight ends, 1.1 millimeters kind of thick as far as the mesh, and then the actual end pieces are more like three millimeters thick. I'm really impressed by it. It's nicely made, it's nicely priced. I mean, it's not gonna blow you out of the water with the quality, but for $48, I think you'll be impressed. Yeah. I certainly am. And on the Seaforth, which is what I have it on currently on my wrist or on the Synchron Military, it does a great sort of thing where it adds this sort of physical weight to the watch that feels just a lot different than a strap. So I've been super, super happy with it. Obviously, both the Ardham strap and this Eulet Stalix Milanese Mesh Bracelet, we'll put both in the show notes. Jason and I didn't get any deals on these, Holbins and Ardham and the rest. These are just things that we bought and we like. It's not an ad in any way. I paid the full $48 plus the shipping and all that. It showed up in maybe a couple of weeks, and so far I've been pretty impressed. It's a nice little change of pace. I'll say on the Synchron, it's almost too heavy for my wrist. It's a lot of metal. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it could just be that I have to get used to... I've been wearing kind of a few smaller watches lately that kind of shrink some of that physical weight.
Jason Heaton But yeah, a good strap both ways. Yeah. Yeah, cool. We both got new straps and I, you know, moving right into wrist check, you mentioned your C4 on your wrist. I've got something really cool on my wrist. So if you remember back. Yeah, I'm excited about this. Yeah. If you remember back, was it Q&A? I don't know. We were talking about Seiko's and like going with three watches from one brand or something. And I mentioned that I was always curious about the Seiko 6139 Pogue with the yellow dial and how much I liked them. And you said, Oh, that's such a you watch and whatever. A friend who lives locally here, John, um, he, he wrote me and he said, you know, I've got two of these. Uh, I'd be happy to do like a longterm loan to you of one of my pogues, uh, if you want to try it and if you like it after a while, you know, I'll make you a good, good deal on it if you want to, I want to buy it in the end. If not, no, no harm done. So we met the other morning and he passed it on to me on the bracelet, which fit right out of the box. I didn't even have to adjust it. And I'm in love. I mean, you know, early days here. Uh, so it's still in the honeymoon period, but you know, what a fantastic watch. What a, just a beautiful watch. It's so different looking. It's just such a unique watch. This one's from, I dated it, you know, using one of the websites that you can look up the serial numbers. And this one's from June of 1975. And he told me that the guy he got it from was actually the original owner. So the guy's like in his sixties and he bought it new in 75. So it's got some good provenance. And so far, it's fantastic. It's been fun to kind of go down the rabbit hole of kind of researching and reading up on Pogues and just wearing it around. Every time I look at my wrist, it's like it's just such a wild looking watch with that really shimmery yellow dial.
James Stacy Yeah, that's killer. As soon as I saw you post that photo and then you posted one with that little Seiko Marathon clock behind it. Oh, yeah. Certainly made me laugh. I think that's a really cool one. Oh, the other thing that came through about that clock Yeah. And I'll put it in the show notes, my buddy Paul Hubbard, one of my oldest friends in watches, he found the little USB connector that plugs into the back of it. Oh, yeah. So you can actually have the backlight on all the time.
Unknown Oh, okay.
James Stacy I didn't know that. So there's a little cable that goes from one of those single pin power adapters to a USB connection. So if it's on your desk, you plug it into a USB hub. If it's next to your bed, you just have to plug it down to wherever you charge your phone or whatever, and that way the backlight stays on all the time, which I think fixes one of my only complaints with it after the last little while, is that in a bright room, it's not the most legible display on that little clock. So if you don't know the clock we're talking about, I'll put that in the show notes too, it was from the previous episode, but a big thanks to Paul for sending in the correct spec of cable, to power this thing. So I guess that means you also don't have to bother putting batteries in it, presumably. Sure. But it doesn't enable the backlight according to reports from other users. So that's pretty cool. I'm gonna see if I can grab one of those.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I was wondering what that little hole in the back was for, and it didn't come with a cable, so you have to order it, presumably. But yeah, that's great.
James Stacy Yeah, kind of fun. So another good one there. And yeah, as far as my wrist check, I'm wearing the C4 Throldorf LE. This is a watch I absolutely love. I've talked about it a lot, so I probably don't have to go into additional detail, but it's a bezel, like a sterile bezel style, C4 with a metallic green and cream tuxedo dial. And it was made in very limited supply and assembled with an ETA movement in Vancouver. And it was a gift from a couple of friends, Jason at Roldorf and Jason at Hallios, just after I left the city. back in 2018, and it's a watch I absolutely love. And now I've got a cool bracelet for it, which doesn't feel super summery. The Jet Black watch with the Jet Black bracelet on an uncovered arm. But I think for the fall and the winter, this is gonna be a go-to option, so I'm happy with it.
Jason Heaton Nice, cool. And then speaking of watches on your wrist, you had... Let's move into the main topic, and I think we're talking about kind of new watches that have caught our eye lately, and it kind of makes sense to start with one that you actually had on your wrist as of probably yesterday or a couple days ago, and you wrote up for Hodinkee, and that's the Brew Metric. You want to start with that one?
James Stacy Yeah. So we've got a whole list of these watches that we haven't quite gotten to yet in the last little while, but it's been a summer of interesting dive watches and even just other watches. And in the other category, you do have this Brew Metric with the Retro Dial. There's two versions. The Retro Dial is the kind of brightly colored oranges and yellows and kind of minty blues and that sort of thing. And then there's a silvery blue one that's a little bit more subtle in its application, but also you get the bright dial. So it's a really different sort of take on the watch, two different ways, but it's a cool thing. And they're $400, 36 millimeters wide, less than 11 millimeters thick, so super wearable. And they include this very tapered kind of 70 style segment bracelet. which uses these, you know, kind of almost like links that fit a little bit like a lobster tail. They don't nest into each other, but they don't have any kind of visible connectivity. If you look carefully, you can kind of see a connective channel that runs down the center of them as you would predict. But this is a watch I'm just really, really impressed by for the $400. Some people have already gotten upset in the comments that it's sold out. I think it was sold out before we published the hands-on. And to that, I would say, one, that's not my problem. I wrote about the watch when it first came out. You could have bought it then if you're going to try and make it my problem. And on top of that, you know, Brew's not selling limited edition watches. Just give them a few minutes. I think they're saying sometime this fall, maybe November, we'll see new availability of these watches. So get on their email list and stop complaining. You didn't get something quickly. This is a small business. Let's be realistic. It's not like you're trying to find a Seiko and they made thousands of them. It's not a limited thing because of demand. It's limited because it's a small company that's making it. And I think Jonathan has done a nice job with the design and with the way that he's kind of approached fulfilling orders. So give people a break when it comes to things like availability, especially when there's so much kind of complexity in sourcing things during COVID. Uh, this is, this was difficult before and it's only harder now.
Jason Heaton Well, I also find it kind of humorous that people, uh, you know, one complaint about some Houdinki articles is that, you know, you're, you're acting just as kind of a sales mouthpiece and trying to sell a watch. And then when you, when you actually do write just a, just a review of a watch, um, they complain that, uh, that it's not available to buy. So, you know, I mean,
James Stacy You can't have your cake and eat it. It's probably not all the same people, but yeah, exactly. You can't please everybody, and at a certain point, especially when I tread into the comment section, even on a post that most people are just very happy with the watch and the rest of it, but I always try and think of that quote I've attributed in the past to James Hetfield of Metallica, who said, you can carpet the world or you can just put on a pair of slippers and take your pics, basically. You know what I mean? Yeah, but I think this watch is really impressive. It uses a... The reason that you get the sub $400 price point is it uses one of those hybrid Mecca quartz movements. Yeah. So it's a quartz movement, which I think is really smart, and then it has a mechanical element for actuating the chronograph. So when you press the buttons, it feels a lot like a mechanical chronograph, and then when you do the reset, the second hand flies back. It doesn't kind of wind back.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy And I think it is kind of a best of both worlds. I could see there being a case for people who are saying, I would be willing to pay more money to have a traditional mechanical movement. And if it was just a one-to-one, like one engine versus a different one and from the same brand, then I get it. But I think there's, at least in my experience, it's pretty hard to get, say, a 7750 to 11 millimeters with a case and the rest of it. And it's not like this thing's lacking all kinds of water resistance. It has 50 meters of water resistance, so it's like it's still kind of a nicely designed thing. I just really love the way it looks. It's fun. People don't like the kind of asymmetric value to the dial that comes up a bunch in the comments and the 430 date. And look, I hate all 430 dates. This is no different. But this one, there's enough going on aside from the date that I find very charming and lovely, so I would give it a break on that count. I like the asymmetry. I think it feels really good on wrist. I like there's this kind of weird negative space from about 11 o'clock to about 4 o'clock on the dial. There's an embossed logo, brew logo, but otherwise there's no text. I think the color and the layout kind of stand for itself, whereas you don't need a bunch of text or the branding or the rest. And I think they made a nice thing. By all means, check out my hands on with it if you want. I went all out with the photos. They're full of brightly colored candy. My teeth hurt for a couple of days after shooting that because of course I couldn't just take the photos. I had to eat the candy as well as we went through that process. But yeah, that was a really good one.
Jason Heaton I think this is a watch that for the price and just for the kind of gonzo design and just sort of... It's just so different from anything else. This is a watch I would buy or consider Um, purely based on, on appearance and for design. And I think it's a very design-y watch. I think every once in a while, a really design-y watch comes along. I think of Autodromo specifically, you know, as one of those watches that, you know, there's some watches you don't buy for the, for the movement or the provenance or the name you buy it because this is just going to look so cool on your wrist. And it really like immediately when I saw him post the first photos of that watch, I don't know when it was weeks ago. Uh, it reminded me of, of those, you know, and everybody else I'm sure. those TV set Omega Seamasters from the early seventies. And you know, I used to own the blue, I think it was the reference 176.001 Seamaster Chronograph with a blue dial, which I regrettably sold years ago, but that wasn't the TV set version, but they made a TV set version of that. And I always loved that watch. And so I think I'm actually drawn personally to the silver dial version. It's not quite as funky, but I just, I don't know. I love this watch. I think it's just so. Yeah. of a specific era and yet contemporary, and I think he did a great job with it.
James Stacy Yeah, no, I agree. And it's interesting that you bring up Autodromo, because that was kind of the only thing that I could feel there was some peer for this watch, would be the current generation of the Group B that has the bracelet. Yeah, yeah. Which is also a watch that I absolutely adore. Bradley and the team at Autodromo did a beautiful job with the original Group B. I owned one and wore it for years and really liked it. And that kind of has stretched on and now I'm always curious for one with a bracelet and I would love to see them do one in a gold tone. Oh yeah. Like a yellow gold group B would be hilarious. Yeah, yeah. And maybe they're a little bit more money than the metric, but they operate on sort of a different movement and they are a different layout and that sort of thing. But I do think them as sort of spiritually similar in that they have these very defined aesthetics that reference something that had its time and then kind of faded.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Be it, yeah, 70s Omega kind of wild chronographs or the instrument cluster from a Lancia rally car. Yeah. Something like that, so.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Some really good stuff. Why don't you take us to the next one with the Clemens Photic?
Jason Heaton Yeah, the Clemens Photic. So this watch is one that's launching on September 14th via Kickstarter. It's going to go for £429, which I think comes out to roughly about $500. And so This is a watch that has been designed and will be assembled in the UK. Specifically that the brand is based in Scotland and I had a little bit of back and forth with Tom Clements for whom the watch is named and he mentioned that you know it's really important to him to do the assembly in the UK and he's really proud of that and apparently he's got a watchmaker who has some history used to work for Bremont and a couple of other brands and so he's got a good team over there. And I just think the design of this watch, this is a 39 millimeter dive watch. Lug to lug it's 47 millimeters and the thickness is 10.7 plus a 1.5 millimeter domed crystal. But this watch is, I think it's particularly beautiful. It's that kind of throwback dive watch look. It's got a little bit of Submariner to it. The really narrow domed bezel certainly kind of harkens to like a Blancpain or like a vintage Seamaster. It uses a Miyota movement, kind of keeps the price down of course, there's no date. It's got kind of a classic looking oyster bracelet. I just think this is, there's something just visually very appealing about this watch. It's different enough, it certainly has the hints of the watches I just mentioned, but I think it stands on its own based on kind of the handset that's used. uh, Arabic numerals at 12 and six. And, uh, that, that really narrow bezel without any numbers on it, I think just makes it kind of a versatile, really handsome kind of throwback piece. And what's interesting about what, what Tom is doing or what he's planning on doing with this watch is he's donating a percentage of each watches sale to, um, he vows to, to plant a native tree somewhere in Scotland, um, as kind of part of a environmental push or, or kind of angle to this watch. And I think he's, he's uh refers to the the photic zone which is the the kind of the limits to which light can penetrate water and you get you know you still get things that grow like you know corals and um colorful fish and things that live in the photic zone before you get too deep and and 200 meters is probably about the limit of that um hence the the water resistance rating for this watch but i i think it's uh i think it's a really handsome piece i'm i'm looking forward to to kind of Uh, I'd love to, you know, check one of these out in person or if you managed to get one, get your impressions of it. Uh, I think it, I think it looks great. It looks really promising.
James Stacy Yeah, for sure. Uh, I, I think it looks great as well. Uh, you know, I, I don't know the, the brand behind this, Jason, you spoke with, uh, with Tom and, and I think this is a great looking design as I like to always say it's Kickstarter. So do your research. Uh, you know, Kickstarter is not a promise. Uh, and again, I'm not saying this because of Clements or because even of another watch brand, I've just, I've supported, let's say five Kickstarter projects and four of them tanked. I never got the product and I lost my money. Yeah. I haven't seen that happen with watches. I feel like the watch world would absolutely, you know, blow up if that were to happen. Yeah. But it is something to consider. I think this is a good looking watch. I can't see any reason here that you wouldn't be able to make the watch that they're promising. This looks well, well within the range of the micro brand speed and has some nice, nice kind of details. I think that the treatment on the rotor is very cool. There's like a laser engraving on the rotor, solid movement, looks like great loom, a nice size. I mean, what's not to like? A few different color ways look to be coming. And yeah, so I would say best of luck to Clements and we'll certainly be following that project as it goes through its stages. So that looks to be launching September 14th. Next up, I've got one. They actually wrote me and then I saw that you'd put it on the on the list, and this is an interesting thing because it doesn't look like other dive watches these days. It has some callback to dive watches from ten years ago or more. Yeah, but this is the Arkin Instrumentum, and if you if you haven't seen this on Instagram already, it's a it's a wild looking thing. It's a forty millimeter titanium dive watch that I would say kind of shares some some elements with maybe the Seiko monster, maybe maybe some of the bigger boulder citizen eco divers from a while back, but of course it's not that big. It's a three hundred meters water resistance. It's got plenty of loom. It's an integrated bracelet, so it has a sort of like an IW and an older IWC style. You can't put a normal strap on it. Basically, you wear it on the bracelet. Yeah, another uses a Mioda nine oh one five has a date at six. I think this is a really, really cool looking thing. It looks like they're making 300 to start. And it's a weird thing because the bracelet and the case have this very aggressive taper. So it's hard to imagine what the 40 millimeter sizing is going to feel like on your wrist. What do you think of this? I'm really interested.
Jason Heaton Yeah, me too. This watch, it reminds me of several watches that I almost can't put my finger on from the past. But I think what really stands out for me is that this is a a $500 watch that's fully titanium, including this integrated bracelet, which I think is a really, for people that want those two things, especially together, it's a really attractive proposition.
James Stacy And a ratchet extending dive clasp.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know what it reminds me of? I think only in the bracelet because of the way it tapers and then the kind of the format of the bracelet with those narrow middle links, I think Swiss army used to make a watch back in the day. And I can't remember what it was called the mock something or other, um, with, with a bracelet like this. But I just love the notion that, um, I think a lot of the, the kind of the micro brands play it safe when it comes to, to bracelets, they want people to, you know, they want to be able to kind of put a NATO strap or get like a kind of a Tropic knockoff or something. And I think this, you know, this company goes straight to integrated bracelet. They're like, this is what we're going to do. And I think it looks fantastic. And, Initially when I saw this, I was like, okay, this is a little bold for my taste. I'm still not sure this is my style. I think the, the hands are kind of funky and the funky markers on the dial, but you know, it's got a six o'clock date. The bezel looks really aggressive. So, you know, regardless of whether this fits into kind of my notion of, of what I like, which is kind of typically traditional kind of throwback looking dive watches, hats off to these, to, to Arkin for, for taking this step and just going super bold with it.
James Stacy Yeah, the style of the bracelet for me really screams like Vacheron.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
James Stacy You know, if you like the overseas, it's the same sort of link shape. Obviously, I'm sure one link for an overseas would cost as much as the Arken. To Arken's credit, to be clear. Yeah, I'm excited about this. I like that it doesn't look like a vintage effect sort of dive watch. It's doing its own thing. It kind of feels like something we would have seen in the watch you seek space, you know, eight years ago. Yeah. Alongside an ocean seven and dream and a dreadnought and that kind of thing. And yeah, no, I'm, I'm pumped for this. I'm, I wish, you know, I don't really understand. I guess I understand if it's a, it's a simple limitation of starting a watch brand, you make 300, but they're, they're numbered pieces. So I guess they're just making 300, maybe they'll do, they'll do other versions later. Right. You know, I, I would, you know, We'll have to see how it goes. But for these $300, I think they'll be pretty cool. And at $500, I mean, it's nice to have something to talk about in this world that's $500. Watches have gotten really expensive in the last two years. They were expensive before. We talk about this a lot. And with Seiko kind of changing the mode of the Seiko 5, it's kind of destabilized that lesser price point, the $100 to $300 price range. But I think that a lot of people listening have probably had an SRP 777. They've had an SKX. And maybe you want something a little bit different. And I think this is one of your options for a little bit different. There's a handful of a little bit different on the list. But yeah, I'm excited to hopefully get a chance to see this. If you're curious, just stay in the mix. I'll get it on Instagram and a hands-on if possible later on. But that's the Arkin Instrumentum. And hit the show notes if you want to see what it looks like. It's a neat looking thing.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Next up, let's hit up one from, is it Toceno? Yeah, so maybe you might remember this was... I'm not sure how to say the brand name is the only thing I'm worried about, but yeah, the Toceno Shellback. The Shellback. Which I feel like we've chatted about them in the past, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, Toceno had... Johan from Toceno had sent me an earlier dive watch that they did called the Blackwater. This was, boy, a couple of years ago, and I wore it and talked about it on the show, and that watch was really cool, and the quality just blew me away. It felt really a lot like kind of a 90s IWC. That one had an integrated bracelet as well. Yeah, and actually the Shellback, actually the pre-order opens today, if you're listening right on Thursday the 12th. And, you know, this is a watch that, again, you know, okay, so here are the watches we've just talked about. The Brew and the Arken and the Clements, they're all 40 millimeters or smaller. And again, the Ticeno is also, the Shellback is also a 40 millimeter dive watch. And This watch feels, you know, a cut above kind of the typical micro brand. And Ticeno is like a brand that nobody ever hears about. They're based in Gothenburg, Sweden, home of Volvo, among other things. But the watches that I've seen, and certainly the Blackwater that I had, really impressed me with the kind of the quality feel to it. It felt like a much bigger brand. But the Shellback Um, it looks fantastic. It has what's really unique about this one. I think, you know, he does a nice job with the hand shape, kind of keeping it unique. And then the dial markers kind of look Seiko or maybe even Bremont Supermarine. It's a sandwich dial. So the, the, these big markers, I mean, there's just giant, uh, our markers, the, the kind of dot hash and then double hash at the 12 or, or just massive. And, and it's a, it's a sandwich dial and he's got a blue version and a black version. So blue bezel and dial and a black bezel and dial. Um, comes on a bracelet. Um, and you know, this, this watch just looks, I think superb. And I think, you know, judging from quality of, of what I've seen in the past, I think, uh, let me get the U S price on this thing.
James Stacy 650 on pre-order and 800 afterwards.
Jason Heaton Tremendous. I mean, you know, again, you know, these, these brands, these watches we're talking about today are aggressively priced, spec'd really well, um, You know, certainly until you hold them, you won't really know the quality. But I have no doubt, especially with Toseno, because I've had one of their watches in the past, I think, I don't know, I'm excited. I think this one looks fantastic.
James Stacy So, yeah, no, I agree. They've got, and it looks like they've got another, it's yet another one where we're seeing a ratcheting clasp extension. Yeah. In the dive clasp, which I think is, it's so nice to start to see that under a grand. Yeah. That used to be something that we only saw from larger brands, and then we started to see weirdly large class on more entry level brands, and now we're starting to see these more polished designs. Yeah. Hallios has them, and we've seen them on some of the watches we've already talked about today, and then on this Tucsono. And I think this Tucsono looks really good. A nice size, 47 millimeter lug to lug should make it pretty wearable, 12 millimeters thick. You're right in the vein of 2254 Omega. Right. That's a nicely wearing watch. It comes with a RONDA automatic movement, a four hertz... Yeah, four hertz movement with 40 hour power reserve. I don't know this movement, the caliber R150. It must be... Just looking at the basic specs, it's a competitor to a 9015 or a ETA 2824. Yeah. Yeah. A really good looking watch, I think, from a brand that's continuing to prove itself. And hey, you've got a fully loomed bezel. That's also a faith.
Jason Heaton Hard to go wrong, right? Yeah. And this one, so this one also comes with, if you pre-order, it actually comes with a Tropic style rubber and a NATO strap. So, you know, you're getting a good amount for the 650 and this is, you know, compared to the previous two dive watches that we just talked about, this one has a Swiss movement as opposed to Japanese, if that matters to you. So I think, yeah, three promising divers in a row here. I guess we move on to Raven with their Airfield, which is not a dive watch.
James Stacy Yeah, this one I'm excited about because it's like an evolution of their aesthetic, of the Raven aesthetic. We've seen this dial and handset in previous watches.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy But I think they've just done a nice job with this. And what we're looking at with the Airfield again is it's sort of a take on an aviation slash field watch and it comes in blacks and greens, a white dial, a really handsome looking piece at 40 millimeters. It's 48 millimeters lug to lug, 13 millimeters thick, that uses a, you know, a Seiko sourced NH36 movement. I guess that'd be NH38 maybe without the date or the other way around. But they're making a handful of different versions. It comes with a bracelet. I think this is a really good looking watch. I mean, I'm a big fan of Raven. I think their dive watches and the stuff they've made previously is all really attractive and nicely made, and I really like the people behind it. They've been in the micro game for a while before Raven. Part of Raven's current management worked with Benares watches, another brand of which I was a huge fan, and was one of my entry points into watches way, way back in the day. And yeah, 700 bucks for this. You've got solid loom, domed anti-reflective sapphire crystal, and 200 meters water resistant.
Jason Heaton So this is a fixed steel bezel and it has a ceramic insert, which is, I don't think I've ever seen that on another brand. I mean, short of something that has like a tachymeter scale on a chronograph, but a ceramic insert on a fixed steel bezel on, on what's kind of a field watch or a aviation style watch. That's a really unique feature. And, you know, we talked to Bill Yao last week in the episode, and this kind of reminds me of, of his, uh, I guess he calls the, the crucible. uh that kind of oh yeah kind of a bolova a11 or mark 11 uh iwc style watch you know just simple kind of arabic dial two you know three hands um which one are you drawn to i like the green or the this white no date with that orange sweep hand looks fantastic yeah i think it'd be the the white no date i really like the contrast of that black ceramic insert
James Stacy and the way it kind of nests in nicely with the printed numerals. Yeah. Day-date is so handy. Yeah, it is. So you'd really have to depend what you wanted the watch to do for you, but they're on pre-order now until the end of August for 600 bucks, and then afterwards they're 700 bucks, and it looks like they're shipping in September. Yeah, this is a brand that I've had experience with. I would have no kind of qualms ordering or pre ordering a watch from them and being worried about delivery or the rest of it. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. I think probably it would either be the white one or weirdly, I like the black one quite a lot too. The red second hand is pretty handsome. The green is a little brownie green field green for me, for my taste. But I do like that it kind of strays, it keeps away from that really kind of weirdly popular, like rich green that we're seeing on every watch right now.
Unknown Yeah, right.
James Stacy But yeah, it looks nicely made and that's a good price for a watch with a bracelet and with drilled lugs and with good water resistance and a nice size. And I think it's definitely worth looking at. And again, it's nice to look at some of these brands we're talking about are quite new to the market and some are still kind of developing themselves. And I think Raven has a pretty solid back catalog. You can go take a look at what they've already made and get an impression of what they're good at and kind of what they've kind of where they've kind of found themselves a space in the microbrand world. But I'll also include the last sort of story I wrote about them if you want to dig into a previous watch. But I think the Airfield looks like another winner for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah, looks great. All right, now we've got one that you put on the list that I had never even heard of, wasn't on my radar, this Dietrich, I guess.
James Stacy Yeah, Dietrich, the skin diver. So Dietrich reached out to me because, you know, I've heard of their watches in the past. They make these more complicated, kind of sporty, modern designs. But now what they've made is a dive watch that's supposed to harken back to the world of the skin diver, you know, that 60s more entry level dive watch rather than buying a Rolex or a Blancpain, you might have bought a Sylvania or you could list about 50, maybe 60 different companies that were all using the same case or hands or dial and just kind of swapping them out. I have a Sylvania from the 60s that I think is a really charming watch. So this is a 38.5 millimeters, 12 millimeters thick, 46.2 millimeters lug to lug, and it's 150 meters water resistance. It uses a Sellita SW200, so a Swiss movement. comes with a bracelet with micro adjust. Very cool bracelet. Wow. It's a very cool bracelet with sort of a hexagon shaped center link element. From the images, really nice finishing. That's also something like Dietrich has done. You'll see little elements like there's a fish design on the cap for the crown. You get a very tall, easily gripped bezel, and then you get this really kind of three dimensional modern take on a dive watch dial. So this doesn't... Despite the fact that its inspiration is perhaps the 60s, it really goes its own way when it comes to the dial, the bracelet, that sort of thing. It has that sort of... Look at the hands. Wow. Yeah. I'm really excited to see this one in person. This is a brand that I've always been kind of interested in, but they never really hit my personal sort of curiosity metric. Just take a look at the images on their website and get an idea. It's got a sapphire bezel, and it's all luminous, which is super fun. A big open date aperture at six o'clock and a solid screw-in case back. They're saying pricing is $10.50, and it looks like it'll ship sometime in October. So another new watch, a little bit more expensive than some of the ones we've talked about previously, but I think you can kind of see where that money went. I like that they've mixed their own aesthetic with a vintage aesthetic, so it's not just a we made a new watch that looks like an old watch. It's like we took some things we liked from the past and made it our own, which is a cool way of doing it. And yeah, I'm excited to see this. Again, hit the show notes for more details on it, but yeah, cool bracelet. I think a really neat dial design and trying to imagine it at 38 millimeters. instead of, you know, maybe we would have seen a design like this five years ago or six years ago at 44 or 45. But at 38.5, I mean, this could be a really fun watch. And this is another brand that's been around for a few years now and has a track record. So if you're keen on it, dig into that and I'll do what I can to try and get some hands-on time with it in the future. I think this looks like an absolute winner.
Jason Heaton Yeah, the blue one would be the one for me. I think it's just, it's beautiful. And you know what I'm struck by as I look at, you know, all the watches we've talked about actually, is, you know, for any of us that have, you know, watch nerds that sit down with, you know, a sheet of paper and kind of doodle and think, Oh, if I were to design a perfect watch or my own watch, what would it look like? It's really difficult because we have so many preconceived notions of what a watch should look like, especially, you know, like a dive watch. And for somebody to come up with a really unique design, you know, even if it might incorporate some elements of something else, like with the Toseno, you know, the markers might hearken to something else or, or the, um, the Clements or whatever, but like to create something new from scratch, and this Dietrich is that. I mean, the handset is interesting, the hexagonal elements on the bracelet, and it all comes together in a really cohesive, beautiful, very mature-looking design, but it's so fresh. I love that. So hats off.
James Stacy I agree. Good work on this one. Dietrich definitely deserves a spot on this list, and it's another one of these ones where we're seeing refinements and elements that were previously in more expensive watches or larger watches. Yeah, making it down to the, you know, the trend towards the smaller sizing, the sub 40, um, would really starting to see kind of dividends in both price and feature set, uh, that we were maybe more used to seeing around 43, 44 millimeters previously. And then to, to round out our list, we have another one that I don't believe is a brand new watch as much as it is one that's now going to be available in the next few days for sale. And it's from our friends at Scurfa, a brand of which we're very fond of. And unlike some of the Bell Diver and the One series, like what Jason has talked about and picked up in the past, this is kind of a new design for them. It's called the Treasure Seeker. It's a 41 millimeter watch, 20 millimeter lugs, 49 millimeters lug to lug, 1,000 foot, so 300 meter water resistant. And it kind of has... It's a little bit more modern than the Diver Ones. a little bit more polished, a little bit more up, like a more has kind of an upscale vibe to it. And I think this one should absolutely be on your radar. I think it's a nice size. It definitely looks nicely made. We have enough experience with, um, with scurvy stuff to know what Paul is going to put out, you know, not only that he's a friend of the show and we could definitely have him on to chat about the watch at some point. Although my guess is the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy for Paul. if he's launching a new watch that people have been pretty excited about. If you go on his Instagram to comment, people are pretty jazzed for this. It's a Miota 9015, date at three. I like it. You know, what it kind of has is, you remember those like 3586 series IWCs with the ceramic or with the sapphire bezel, the black yellow scale? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. The Aquatimers, it kind of has that vibe but crossed with a bit of Seamaster. Yeah, yeah. This is one of those watches where you can literally see the creator in it. Paul just knows dive watches really, really well and what they need to do, and this watch just has it. It has a nice modern feel, it has some texture to the dial, it has a nice bezel, comes with a bracelet. I'm not seeing a price, so maybe that isn't out yet. Are you seeing a price on the website?
Jason Heaton I'm not seeing a price, no, I'm not, no.
James Stacy Yeah.
Jason Heaton not sure.
James Stacy So, you know, stay tuned for the price. It's Kerfa, so it's going to be fair, whatever he's asking. Check out some of the details on this, because it really is kind of a handsome thing. It's got a ceramic bezel insert, like I said, kind of a honeycomb pattern to the dial, and then these big applied markers that I think work really well with the design. And like I said, it kind of harkens back to a type of dive watch that existed just before we all became obsessed with dive watches that looked like they came out in 1965. And it's another kind of a treat to see it. And so they're saying it's a brand new design, steel case, embossed dial, grade A superluminova, so you get like that big blue glow, and that's the Scurfit Treasure Seeker. It also comes in a bunch of different versions. So there's a black one, a blue one, orange and black, a brighter blue, white dial with a black bezel and a yellow dial with a black bezel as well. So there's a handful to pick from. And man, the orange looks really good. It's hard to do a good orange dial, so I'll certainly give them credit for that. And the white one, they did what I love, which is where you get the surrounds on the marker are black as well, like on the Explorer 2 that I love. I love a white dial, but sometimes they just put on the normal... Seiko does this a lot, where they'll do a white dial and then they just put on white metal surround markers and the markers just kind of disappeared, right? And or they'll do the markers will have the black, but the hands won't, there'll be orange or there'll be gold or something like that. And I want like, just give it all black for the surrounds. It gives this kind of cohesive design.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy Yeah. I think, I think they've done a really good job and I think it's becoming pretty obvious that I've had several cups of coffee to try and stay awake through this. But yeah, another winner from, from Paul to round out the list.
Jason Heaton I like your your mention of, of a Seamaster and I'm starting to see, like now I can't not see that when I look at this and I, it's certainly not an homage at all, but, but especially the white dial version or the blue dial version with, with that, um, I guess you get one, two, three, four, five, and like five row or six row, um, bracelet. Um, it just, it has a, it has a much more upscale look. I think, you know, Scarfa watches, I've got the MS21 and it feels like a tool. I mean, it feels like the kind of watch you want to wear on a NATO strap and just beat up. And this one, definitely has a more polished to it that three-dimensional dial um the case back engraving it says on the website is uh was designed by uh an ex comex diver which is kind of cool i mean you know paul's just like i mean he throws this stuff in there and he like you said he knows his dive watches and i think this is uh this is a really fun piece and i know he was excited to debut this and he's had it in the works for quite a while so uh so yeah super exciting what a great list i mean in fact that skirf was the only watch that Exceeds 40 millimeters and it's only 41. So, um, quite, uh, quite an interesting list here, uh, with the brew, the Clements, the Arkin, the Toceno, the Raven, the Dietrich and the Skirfa. I mean, they're all presumably right around a thousand or less or much less and reasonably sized. So great, great, great new stuff from some small brands.
James Stacy So yeah, we'll make sure all those are in the show notes. And of course, all of those notes, this is my ad for our Substack platform. Of course, all of the notes will be on notes.thegreynado.com. You can get in there, you can comment. Let us know what you think, which one you like, what you think maybe doesn't work, or which colors you prefer, or if we missed anything. We really only had time. We want to say time. We're three minutes over the allotment that I wanted for this show. But we had time to grab a handful of watches that we felt like we had missed. And this is the handful, but we'll do more of these. And we'd love to hear if you think that you found something that either should be in this list or in a future list. Let us know in the comments and we'll certainly be there. And it's been a real treat to see you guys and gals in there and chatting and sharing and all that kind of stuff. So that's super fun. But in the hopes of not making this too long for me to edit in one sitting this afternoon, how about some final notes?
Jason Heaton Sure. Yeah, I'll jump in. It's not a big long article, but it was one that that's particularly interesting to kind of the TGN sphere. This was on the BBC's website in their travel area and it's called the British shipwreck that changed the world. And it's the story of the HMS association, which was a ship. It was a, it was a warship back in the early 1700s that met its end on the rocks in the Western Isles of the UK down in the Southwestern part of England. What's interesting about it is it was the flagship of Sir Cloudsley Shovel, who was the Admiral of the fleet. This was in 1705 and when the ship sank, his life was lost. So he was actually killed in this shipwreck. And what it spawned was the search for a better means of navigating and finding longitude. And you know, any, anybody that's into, watches and clocks and horology knows that, you know, finding longitude was, was really key for world exploration and exploring the world by sail and led to the development of the marine chronometer. So I think, you know, this was, this was kind of the direct root cause of, of the admiralty, you know, putting out the, the call for, for someone to invent an accurate means of, of telling longitude and, And I think, you know, this, uh, this story is about that wreck and kind of that very treacherous region of the UK, the waters of the UK. Um, and the fact that there are just so many shipwrecks around the Western Isles and it made me want to, um, you know, go over there. I bet there's some good, good wreck diving. And I think that to kind of tie in with, with the development of the Marine chronometer, I think it's a, it's a quick read. I, like I said, this isn't like a long form travel piece or, or story, but it's, uh, It was something I wasn't aware of, and I think it's just kind of an interesting little tidbit. So check it out.
James Stacy Yeah, very cool. Yeah, great pick for sure. And some lovely photos in there too. That's what I caught as I did a quick scroll through, but definitely worth a read. Throw it in pocket, enjoy it on the dock before jumping in sometime this weekend. What have you got? My pick is actually a fun one. You know, Anthony Bourdain's been kind of in the media again with Road Runner, this documentary that I'm very excited to watch. I'm a big, big Bourdain fan, but it's also wonderful because it's another time to realize just how much, how big his body of work was, despite the fact that he largely, at least within, let's call it television, stuck to a single general format. Obviously, he had several different shows and they kind of went in different, slightly different directions. Yeah, but they were mostly character pieces about him and where he went, the character of the town, the city, the country, whichever. And Huckberry did a really good job, I think, ranking the best episodes of TV that Anthony Bourdain ever made. So it's a pretty simple list, it gives you a breakdown of why you should be interested in it. I don't think it includes everything, but like I said, the guy had a huge body of work, so there's no way to rank it without taking some risks. in your pics. Like you can watch an episode that some people might think wasn't the best and it'll have these moments of pure genius. I mean, there was nobody like Anthony Bourdain, and in my opinion, he was kind of the last of the Gonzo journalists. And he represented... If Hunter S Thompson kind of represented the start, which was like an explosion, he represented like the burning embers of that. It was this compacted, thoughtful, somehow both ego driven, but self deprecating heat that he brought that was all fueled by his own personal curiosity and his inability to sit still. And I still identify so closely with him. We're not similar people in any way. I think everybody that enjoys his stuff identifies with the spirit that kind of fueled a lot of his work. And I'm so, so excited to see the documentary. I've read it's quite challenging and sad and all those things as you would expect. Yeah, but I thought this for those of us who can't make it to a movie theater to see Road Runner or however it's available to be watched. This might be a nice way to start. And if you have the right, I guess, platforms, you can find some of these episodes. I've had a real tough time in Canada finding where his various shows can be streamed. So you may fare better than me, but Huckberry did a nice list and there's two or three on here that I've never seen that I'm in the process of just tracking down and I'm pretty excited for it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. I love his stuff and I'm just scrolling through this article and most of these I haven't seen, but I, I like that, you know, they're just little snippets of, of a summary of each of these episodes. And then, um, the author just says, you know why I love it. And it's kind of like, just here, here it is. It's the cinematography is good or, um, the music is great or whatever. And I think, uh, I think that's really cool. So I'd, I'd love to track these down as well and check them out. So, yeah.
James Stacy Yeah, good. Well, if I find any legitimate source, maybe somebody can put them all in one place and we can all subscribe to yet another streaming platform. Why not? That's my pick for the week.
Jason Heaton Cool. Well, in the interest of keeping it short, we'll jump right into our close out. I think it was a fun episode. I hope everybody enjoyed it. Yeah. And as always, thanks so much for listening. Subscribe to The Show Notes via notes.thegrenado.com or check the feed for more details and links. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton, And we leave you with this quote from Anthony Bourdain. Maybe that's enlightenment enough to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity.
James Stacy Perhaps wisdom is realizing how small I am and unwise and how far I have yet to go.