The Grey NATO – 189 – Cole Pennington III
Published on Thu, 21 Apr 2022 06:54:06 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode, James and Cole discuss a variety of watch-related topics. They talk about the fire that severely damaged the Roald Dorf shop in Vancouver and efforts to allow the owners to retrieve any remaining stock or equipment. Cole shares his experience attending the recent Watches & Wonders show in Geneva and some of the watches that stood out, like the new Oris ProPilot X and the Aquastar Deepstar. They also discuss the challenges of writing about watch pricing and value propositions for different audiences. Towards the end, Cole provides insight into how he pitched and produced the new Watches in the Wild video series for Hodinkee showcasing watch culture and enthusiasm in unexpected places around the world.
Links
Transcript
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| James | Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Great NATO. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches this episode 189. And it's proudly brought to you by the recently formed TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegreatnado.com for more details. For those of you who have a calendar and are paying attention, Jason is still in Sri Lanka. This is one of the weeks where he's off, which means we have a special treat. And that's my pal and a former, several time former guests on the show. Cole Pennington is on. So this is Cole Pennington three. You're the only one to three Pete on TGN Cole. |
| Cole Pennington | So welcome back. Third time's a charm, you know? |
| James | Oh yeah. I think it's going to be a good one. I think this one will also have a little bit of weird energy. We normally record the show early in the morning, fairly early in the morning, early for me, let's call it 10 or 11. And in this time we're recording it, uh, you know, like, uh, we'll call it 11 hours before it has to be live. So it's going to be, it's going to be a more fun, interesting sort of take on the show. But I think that, I think that works a different energy than Jason and I would have. Um, I think, uh, I think all that sort of, uh, lines up. How are you doing? And, and thanks for being on the show. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, the, the, the pleasure is absolutely mine. I'm, uh, just as excited as I want, as it was for one and two. And, uh, yeah, thank you for having me. This is a huge honor, actually. Really? |
| James | I don't know what an honor, but we love we love having you on. It's always a good fit. And you've been having some adventures, which I'm excited to get into. Before we get into that kind of stuff, a bit of a bummer to open the show, actually, because, man, this is tough because this goes up tomorrow and I genuinely don't know what the state of this scenario will be. If you've been following my Instagram or Roald Dorf's Instagram on April 11th, there was a huge fire on an Abbott Street block in Gastown, which if you don't know, Vancouver is kind of a really beautiful It's the old side of downtown, the old town of, um, of Vancouver's downtown area. And that's where Roaldorf moved, you know, days before the pandemic started, they then weathered the whole storm of the pandemic. Nobody could come into the shop, et cetera, et cetera. And then, um, you know, the, the, the same weekend that the ship, the cruise ship start to come back to Vancouver, there's a huge fire and, um, the entire building, it's actually hard to talk about. It's been an emotional few days. I can't imagine what, uh, Jason and his team are going through. But, um, the, a huge fire kind of took out that whole building, including their shop. And, uh, and currently there's a little bit of a battle going on where that these people, you know, there's seven or eight businesses on the main, on the street level. And then there was, I think 75, maybe even more than that, um, single residency units in, in, in this old converted hotel. And everybody wants to go back in and see if any of their stuff is still there. and retrieve it. And in Jason's case, he wants to go back in and check for things like stock and tools, irreplaceable goods, handmade tools from Woestep, stuff like that. And the city of Vancouver is really dragging their heels. They're blaming liability. I'm going to be honest, I don't buy all of what they're saying. Nothing happens quickly in Vancouver, but they're willing to demo this building within five days. That seems unusual to me. And there's some other pressure going on there. I just did want to say a big thank you because this is a Wednesday we're recording this. And as of Wednesday morning, Roald Dorf had kind of asked that people send emails to these folks at city council and at the mayor's office and such in Vancouver. And a lot of you sent emails and my guess is we flooded their inbox, which I'm thrilled about. Currently, at the moment we're recording this, the best information I can give you would be that apparently somebody snuck into the building, which paused its ability to be demolished. it was supposed to be torn down earlier today, uh, morning in Vancouver. And apparently somebody got into the building and then the firemen couldn't find that person. Um, I've only heard that through back channels. I don't know if that's the case. It's not like I've read that in the news or something like that at this point, but, um, that's my understanding. So hopefully they don't find them, um, at least long enough for somebody to consider the fact that people are moving in and out of this building and it's not collapsing. So maybe give, folks like Jason and a couple of these other shops a chance to... Look, if the ceiling's gone on the top floor, I get it. There's nothing left. It burned and then it was covered in thousands of gallons of water and the rest of it. But there's stuff in his shop that would have survived that. Not all of it, probably not most of it, but some of it. And some of it's irreplaceable. So I don't really know what the situation will be even by the time I post this tomorrow morning or by the time people start listening to it in Vancouver tomorrow or later. Follow along with Roald Dorf, I'll put it in the show notes. Keep an eye on my Instagram. Any information I get, I will try and pass forward. But we've got a ton of emails into the TGN inbox and a ton of DMs on Instagram about it. It's absolutely heartbreaking. They were right on the edge of really seeing this dream come to a reality. And I personally see this as a setback. I think the watch community is big enough and about people who are as keen about watchmaking and supporting the community like Jason and Mary and the staff there and all that. It'll be interesting to see how this goes moving forward, but I really hope that the City of Vancouver... Does their anything. These small businesses, this is a second generation small business that moved to a more expensive part of town in the hopes of supporting the watch community and making a better business and the rest of it. And it's just been a nightmare. This has turned out to be a nightmare. My heart goes out to Jason and to Mary and everybody involved with Rodorphin. Of course, the other businesses and the folks that live in that building or lived in that building, it's all heartbreaking. And yeah, I don't really know how this is going to turn out at this point. But because we only do the show once a week, stay tuned. If there's a greater story to tell, Jason's been on the show before. He's answered your watchmaking questions before. The guy is as dialed in as anyone is to the watch community. So we'll have him on if there's more to talk about, but otherwise pay attention to Roald Dorf for the next little while. Their Instagram, I'll put it in the show notes. Of course, it's an evolving scenario. It could be different by the time I publish. It's one of those things where it's a little bit difficult to cover with a podcast, but I definitely wanted to, uh, to get a mention in kind of, uh, from the top of the show. Cause it's, uh, it's heartbreaking to see this happen to a friend and someone who supported so much of, um, kind of people's introduction and stewardship through the watch world. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. I remember I talked to Jason for that retailer spotlight series and was blown away and yeah, it became like, you know, Instagram buddies chitchat every now and then. I do like to see a little vigilante justice by someone going into the building. That made me feel good. |
| James | I didn't know that, but it's, I guess it's the, you know, the, the Vancouver squatter equivalent of chaining yourself to the tree maybe. Yeah, exactly. It's good to see that. Cause I think apparently there was some talk about there being a protest Or maybe the two were disconnected. Maybe this person just wanted to see what they could get out of their place or someone else's. I have no idea. But the end result is they couldn't start demolishing the building. Maybe that lasts a day. I have literally no idea. We're pulling for them. And as soon as we have more to share, whether it's GoFundMes or something to do with a new store, hopefully in Gastown or whatever, It'll be on Instagram. And, uh, the moment we have a kind of a complete scope on it, I'd love to have Jason on, on the show to chit chat about the experience because it's, it's just, um, it's wild. It's wild to think that, you know, beyond where it's so much. Yeah, exactly. So much work, so much work, so much love, so much attention, so much care, all, all kind of, uh, gone. And in this case, because so much of it, um, of the, of what was in the store was specialized, including, uh, you know, handmade clock that can't be replaced. It's a, it's, it's a tough thing to kind of wrap our heads around, but I wanted to start the show there. We don't have to dwell on this for the entirety of the show. You know, I think this would be an ongoing conversation moving forward, but our love goes out to the Roald Dorf folks and everybody affected in Vancouver. It's, it's really sad. |
| Cole Pennington | Likewise. |
| James | One of the reasons we're doing this late in the day is you, you just got back from a fairly long drive. Bless your heart for jumping right on a microphone. I appreciate it. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. I drove down from Island Park. Well, essentially Yellowstone, let's just call it Yellowstone. So Island Park is a little town outside of Yellowstone in Idaho. So there were a few entrances, North entrance in Montana, East entrance in Montana, Western entrance, I think actually might be in Wyoming, but Idaho, Wyoming border, right? So I just drove down. |
| James | It's a really ugly part of the world. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh man, it's awful. Don't ever go see it. Yeah, don't go there. It sucks. But yeah, I made that drive back because I spent, you know, the last almost left on Friday. Four days in the park, basically looking, doing a few things. A, I've never been to Yellowstone before. This was my first time in Yellowstone, which was great. And my girlfriend and I went up to go see newborn animals and so forth. That sounds kind of like, like, oh, that's weird. But essentially, like around this time of year, you'll see all the buffaloes being born, which are called red dogs. So they're actually kind of reddish when they're born. Red dogs? Red dogs, yeah. They're not actually dogs, but they're buffalo. Yeah, the park kind of comes alive, right? It's that, that spring transition. So I would imagine it's closer. I was thinking about this a lot, like down where I live in Salt Lake in the Valley, it's 70 degrees right now up there. It's in the thirties and forties and it's snowed a lot. Like every other day it was snowing quite a bit. Obviously it's an Alpine environment, but just five hours difference and you're in a totally different biome. So saw moose, bald eagle, Buffalo, golden eagle, |
| James | Do you take a long lens or anything, or is it mostly just, you know, binoculars and, and, you know, memories more than photos? |
| Cole Pennington | Half and half. I actually only use one camera, the, the Leica TL with a 35 millimeter Summicron lens. For sure. Which does allow you to punch in. So like, oh, and I saw a few grizzlies, which was very interesting. Up close. Yeah. So that was, yeah, it was good. So I took that camera and what I do is I just, I guess you would call it like spray and pray kind of just take some pictures, see if I could punch in later and uh, try and keep it fast enough to hope to get that focal plane right on, you know, whatever I'm trying to do. So I did get some good shots, but yeah, I would say like more just being in the presence of, Oh, it's also the parks, 150th anniversary. Wow. So that's incredible. And it really kind of underscored, I think we, you know, we know this intrinsically as Americans and Canadians too, that one of our most important national assets isn't necessarily like, well, it is if we're going by numbers, but like the tech sector, the finance industry, sure. That's great. Right. That's what we're, we're a leader in that sector, but national parks is really, I think in my opinion, the backbone of what America, yeah, really. And we set the model that let the world followed. So that park, think about 150 years ago, Yellowstone. Obviously our attitude towards, you know, hunting buffalo and so forth have changed, but even back then they knew enough, like this is special. We need to protect this. So for sure, obviously never having been there before going and seeing it like, yeah, I'm on board. Like definitely a huge supporter, even more so now of the national park system. |
| James | So very cool. Well, that's a fun trip. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it was nice. Yeah, it was good. springtime, you know, kind of got a ring in the spring somehow. |
| James | Yeah. When you, you sent me a photo, um, during your drive back and I was expecting kind of like, uh, grassy meadows, uh, flowers in bloom and, and like, you know, maybe a, a Buffalo or something running through the pasture or whatever. And it was just like Loki blizzard, like it looked like it had just finished blizzard. Uh, so yeah, not quite what I expected, but for goodness sakes, the, we got a solid, um, 12 hours of snow here the other day. So certainly not out of question to get it somewhere else. Right. Bless your heart, Jim. It's that fun time of year where you think you might be having some spring, but you're going to have another big serving of winter. Speaking of having some fun, I got a huge shout out to a listener, Gus. Gus, if you're listening, thank you so much for the invite. It turns out Gus is the keyboardist and vocalist for a band called Alt-J, a really fantastic sort of indie style band out of the UK. And they were running a show in Toronto. He sent me an email. and said, Hey, uh, do you want to get put on the list? And of course, look, I was 36 years old. The first time someone offered to put me on a list for their concert, it's a pretty cool feeling. Uh, and Gus, uh, we, we, it was, uh, Portugal, the man and, and all J and it was at a good size when it was sort of medium sized Coliseum here in Toronto. Uh, loved it. Awesome show so much fun to be back at a concert after a couple of years. It's something I didn't realize. I kind of missed as much as I had. And the music was incredible. Uh, the, the vibe of the crowd was great. Uh, you know, super expensive beer, you know, crappy pizza, the, the whole, the whole, we did the whole thing. It was great. Yeah, it was, it was perfect. It was too loud. It was too bright. I loved it. Gus, if you're listening, a huge shout out and a thank you for that. |
| Cole Pennington | That sounds awesome. Yeah, it was great. One of the things, you know, getting to know you throughout the years, uh, beyond watches, like, right. I knew you I know of you, like we know, we all know, well, not me. I came out of the scene a lot later, but I've been reading your stuff for years. Then after working together, I got to know that, okay, you're a huge music dude, deep cut movie knowledge, things like that. And I know music is super important to you. So good to see you back on the circuit. |
| James | My tastes are pretty narrow when it comes typically to music about something I would actually like sit on the couch and listen to. But like the narrowness helps a certain depth and Alt-J, as it turns out, is very much in that vibe. So it was a good fit and always fun to meet up with anyone who's kind of in the same vibe. He had a couple of watches with him on tour, including a Nomos that was from Rolldorf. Oh, man. Yeah. The show was super fun. I've got tickets to Fleet Foxes later in the year here in Toronto, which I'm super stoked about. And then Man, we're kind of like spoiled these days, if you're in kind of my vibe, because we're right on the eve of a new album from Arcade Fire, which has been, what, five, six, seven years, maybe, since they... Well, maybe 2017, since they did their last album. I'm not sure if you're a big Arcade Fire fan, but that was a pretty pivotal band for me at a point in my life, and I'm pretty excited about that. So yeah, I think it's exciting, because my guess is a lot of these bands have been sitting around just cranking on new music, waiting for a chance to do something with it. And hopefully they can, you know, make some money and have some great tours and that sort of thing. So I think the next year or two might be pretty great for music overall. Fingers crossed. That's for sure. But if you don't know Alt-J, I'll put a couple of links and a couple of things in the show notes. Definitely check them out. Solid stuff. You'll definitely recognize, I would say, at least three or four of their songs if you've been listening to sort of indie and indie pop adjacent sort of stuff for the last five, six years, for sure. But there was a handful of stuff that I found kind of preparing for the concert going back and listening to albums and that kind of thing. So super fun. Yeah, other than that, I don't know that I've gotten up to a ton since the last time we recorded an episode. And to be honest, because the last episode was a film club, which we recorded in March. I don't remember the last time I recorded an episode. Oh, wow. I'll do one with Jason that'll come out next week. We'll do one in a couple days. That'll be like the big trip report from Sri Lanka, which I'm pretty excited about because of course, he's had quite an action packed adventure in Sri Lanka. Thankfully, no rabies. He's gone through the whole course after the dog bite. Jason, I'm sure you'll listen to this at some point tomorrow. Miss you, of course, and looking forward to having you back in the saddle here. But, Cole, how about we dig into some watches? What have you got on wrist for watches? I had word it was possibly |
| Cole Pennington | Hublot? That's the truth, but I knew that that would be unbecoming of me to make a TGN appearance wearing a Hublot. |
| James | I don't think so. |
| Cole Pennington | No, maybe not really, but I did put something on a little more appropriate, which is the new Hamilton khaki in titanium. Oh, nice. |
| James | The titanium one, which you have, which has that interesting effect dial. Crater dial. Yeah, exactly. |
| Cole Pennington | Well, I don't know if that's the official term. I just think it looks like craters on the moon right |
| James | Every, all of these companies, Hamilton included, should take a tip from Grand Seiko and just start naming their dials. Something like very esoteric that we can all memorize. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So we don't have to do it. |
| James | At least with Hamilton, it wouldn't have to be a Japanese word that I'd always have to be worried I'm saying wrong. |
| Cole Pennington | Right. Yeah. And, and I'm digging the watch. Like, yeah, price point is it's up near a grand where like the entry point to khakis, it used to be like 475 for that basic khaki, right? So the, the real question with this watch is all right, if you double it, do you get double the you know, enjoyment and so forth out of it. And I think, yes, simply from a, like kind of a materials science standpoint, I love titanium. I never used to, when I first got into watches, I used to hate, cause there was a wave that you remember too, like early or mid-aughts, I guess I would say like 2005 to 2009, where micros were getting hugely into titanium, right? Yeah. |
| James | Ocean 7 LM2s and yeah, for sure. I mean, I had an LM2, I love that watch. |
| Cole Pennington | And I had the LM7 in titanium. Yeah. |
| James | Which is the, what was that? Like the Ploprof homage, right? Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | In titanium. So, and the Ploprof, originally they made a prototype in titanium. So kind of full circle, but. |
| James | And they made a titanium version in what, 27, 2018? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Modern. When they did. |
| James | With the orange bezel? Yeah, exactly. Gray dial. Really cool looking watch. Very cool watch. I agree. |
| Cole Pennington | And, and makes it, I don't know. I don't think I've tried one on actually, but maybe makes it wearable. I don't know. |
| James | I definitely did like at Baselworld in 2017, but I couldn't tell you what it wore like. I honestly like to be with a plow prof. I know I almost don't even care. Yeah. Like it's exactly, that's like, it's like complaining about how wide a Hummer is on the road. Like either enjoy being in a Hummer or just do what everyone else in the world does and don't drive a Hummer. Like it's, it's, it's an option or it's a choice just to, just to put it on your wrist or to go that, that route. Cause it is that niche, right? |
| Cole Pennington | It really is. And I would say with this khaki, |
| James | Sorry, give me a download. In my mind, I'm comparing it to the 38 millimeter mechanical, which is what, like a $550 watch? |
| Cole Pennington | I think it was $475 at one point. It may have gone up. Yeah, exactly. It's a hand-wound, I think it's an H50 movement. |
| James | Right, yeah. One of the added bases, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that's what the titanium one is as well? It's 38? |
| Cole Pennington | I think it may be a little bigger, actually. I wrote the article on it. My mind man. You know, like you said, it'll be in the show notes. It's okay. |
| James | That's easy. But it's not huge. Like I've, I had, um, it's not, no. Back in the day I had one of their titanium models cause it said titanium on the case band, which I think was for like a Jack Ryan movie with Chris Pine maybe. |
| Cole Pennington | Is it Chris Pine or is it a, the guy from the office? |
| James | I think it was John Krasinski later. I think this was a Chris Pine one. I don't remember what it was called. I'll put it in the show notes as well. It would take me too long to Google it. seven years ago, something like that. But I want to say that one was 42 millimeters and it had a black dial and a date. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | This one, no date. So imagine like the khaki you would design. Yeah. It's it's a, yeah, it's titanium, reasonable size light. I think a huge power reserve, no date, thank God. And very subtle accents on the green version. There's, you know, subtle orange accents and on the crater, version there. There's nothing actually in the crater. It's just, uh, not, not FOTINA like the one you were talking about, like the manually round one. |
| James | Right. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And tons of loom for the numerals themselves. |
| James | So, Ooh, nice. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. It's a nice one. So I don't know. Yeah. I was, I put that on for this appearance specifically so that I could honor the TGN vibe, you know, no, no Hublot is around here. |
| James | I got nothing against Hublot for sure. Um, but I do think that's a little bit more in our vibe, certainly from a price standpoint. And I do like that Hamilton isn't willing to just let somebody else become like the, the kind of name in loosely affordable Swiss field watches. They're not going to give that up by, by letting something go or, or miss that. You know, it's, it's, it is kind of a thing in this watch world to just make a lot of everything and figure that everything will find an audience somewhere. And Hamilton has definitely been guilty of that. If you consider it a negative, I'm not sure that I do, But with, with these, I do like that they're, they're iterating upon the success of the khaki field mechanical with more, um, more options for people. And even if it is say a couple of millimeters bigger, I don't, I can't imagine how that's really a deal breaker in any way. Cause they sit really low. Oh, Kate, uh, the lug mount points are nice and low and you can put lots of different straps on them and you just find the, find the way that's comfy for you. And you just wear it. |
| Cole Pennington | One of the important things that I should mention is that initially the, the length of the legs, So you're a big lug to lug guy, I know. I am for sure. So this had an unreasonable lug to lug, I would say. The lugs were simply too long on the original 38 millimeter, right? So I have them around here somewhere, but yeah, the lugs would actually dig in. They were long enough that the proportions just weren't totally there. You've heard of the long lug problems with these, right? Yeah, for sure. So they did redesign the lugs on these. So they are shorter and a little bit more balanced. And if that means, like we know with the whole Submariner fiasco. If the case size increasing a little bit means that it just wears better because the lugs can get shorter. I did have on that Hublot, it's the not for sale one. I don't know if you read that piece, but if you did, you should because it's a cool watch. |
| James | We'll link it. It is a cool piece. And in my opinion, I like it kind of an interesting watch in the watch world. Yeah. So definitely something, but I can definitely throw that in the show notes. |
| Cole Pennington | But yeah, I've been wearing the Hamilton. a lot aside from the Hublot and loving it and threw it on for this occasion. So, well, I guess it's my turn now to ask what you're wearing. |
| James | Yeah. So I'm wearing a brand new watch. Um, it's one that I was pretty excited to see in person and that's the new, the 2022 Aquastar Deepstar 3. I'm not sure if they're calling it a Deepstar 3 specifically. Um, but it's the 39 millimeter version of the 41 millimeter chronograph they made a few years ago. And the 39, like, It's going to be kind of hard to just show that it's any different than the 41. It's two millimeters smaller and otherwise I would call it identical. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, really? Oh yeah. So this is like when, when, if they just made this in 39 millimeters, I would buy it. Okay. Let's see people put their money where their mouth is. Cause he did it, right? It's the same watch. |
| James | So you're still getting the same column wheel chronograph movement. You're still getting the sub dial on at the three o'clock side for a 30 minute chronograph. You still get the kind of distinctive two point, seconds indicator at 9. The same sort of loosely kind of Doxa-ish dial layout where the branding is and the rest of it all kind of seemingly out of balance and you see it in person and it balances actually quite nicely. The only difference here is that it's 39. It's 21 millimeter lugs, which is a weird choice, obviously, but honestly, I put it on a 20 millimeter NATO and there's definitely not a millimeter of gap. I actually didn't notice. It's not like when you fit a strap that's too small. So maybe it's more like 20.5 millimeters. You can get it on a bracelet. I have it on a gray tropic strap. So I have this big thing where the tropics that they've made for several years are among the best rubber straps you can buy, but they had this cleft edge that was very similar to the vintage ones. Yeah. So where it met the case was this sharp kind of scalloped edge. And if you did a photo where it was laying flat on a table, it looked perfect. It looks so good. put it on your wrist and those scallops would rotate away from the case and it just looked weird. So now they have them with a rolled edge. So for a 39 millimeter watch, like let's be clear that it's not a thin watch. It's 16.5 millimeters thick, and it's 200 meters water resistance, got a screw down crown. A lot of that is crystal and the slope of the bezel. So it doesn't quite wear like 16 and a half, but I would say that it's not great on a NATO. This isn't going to be the first watch. I would tell you to go, Oh, just put it on NATO to be great. That adds a millimeter, at least maybe, maybe more, but on the rubber strap, it wears much like the 41, just slightly smaller. It's kind of exactly what you'd expect. It's the same thickness as the 41 has the same features as the 41. I'll admit like I'm a, I'm a sucker for these watches. I absolutely like, I think the original deep star is one of the most beautiful vintage watches ever made, certainly in the dive watch category. And I really like that they've, I wore the 41 all last summer. This was a gift from Jason. I absolutely adore it. I don't think the 41 is too big. I think of it a lot like if you enjoy a black, a 41 millimeter Black Bay or a Black Bay GMT or a Black Bay Chrono, these all fit exactly the same on your wrist. It's plenty of case bulk, but then the, the relatively short lugs and then where the, where the actual mounts are for the spring bars is very low in the lugs. So it ends up just staying low and against your wrist rather than flopping around. But when you cut two millimeters out of it, it really starts to be kind of, kind of strap sensitive. And it's really good on the Tropic. It's less, less good on a NATO is how I would describe it. I really like these. They're doing them in blue, gray, or black. And, uh, I'm going to have a whole story on Hodinkee in the next little while. It's pricing is like 2,800 bucks for an automatic chronograph with a movement from Le Jouperie really doesn't feel, um, Cool. Off for me, that seems in line. In my mind, these have to go up against the more interesting vintage chronographs or vintage style chronographs from Longines, which are the same price and have similar movement specs. You'll get a silicon balance springs and longer power reserves from Longines if you go with a big eye chrono or something like that, but you might even pay a little bit more. So yeah, they're in pre-order now. They're delivering sometime in April. If you're keen on something like the other two Aquastars, just Just watch Houdinki for another week or two and my story will be up pretty soon. But I dig it. I can't argue with a 39 millimeter version of a watch I already love at 41. |
| Cole Pennington | I'm going to watch the back end, our CMS, our content management system, because I have a feeling you're going to republish the 41. You're just going to put 39 in every year. |
| James | That's why that was one of the main reasons I went when they when they when I asked if I could have one in to borrow for review. And they said, what color? And I was like, anything that isn't what I did for the 41. Cause I don't think I like, I could be off, but to my memory, Jason wrote up the 41 for Hodinkee. Okay. And I wrote up the three hander, which is an incredible watch. I remember that. And, but I did do, uh, uh, like iPhone watch photo tutorial, which used the, the 41 millimeter as the subject of the, like how to take better photos with your watch, uh, with your iPhone or your cell phone. Um, so that's, uh, yeah, that's it. It's kind of fun to have all three of them and I'll have a nice comparison in terms of sizes and some, some thoughts on how to make the most slash least of the thickness and the rest of it. Cause it's, they're not small watches, but are you kind of at the point where like, like, like the dimensions, like so much of it has to be about putting it on your own wrist as much as possible. I've been trying to like, I talked to you about this a while back. Do you remember this conversation? Two years ago that I was making a spreadsheet to try and determine the golden ratio of case width to lug to lug. And then I found that it was more than I wanted to factor in the height of the spring bar position. So like if the spring bar was two millimeters from the bottom of the lug where it would hit your wrist. And then I realized you have this, um, Nobody's going to care about this except me. Uh, but if you look at the side of a watch and it's actually works with the, with the Aqua star, but if you look at the side of a watch, you'll see that some of them, the case, the case back actually goes lower than where the lugs drop. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think that, that for me is like a ding on how it's going to wear. Cause then all of a sudden you feel all of its size. It can't hide any of it. And I think that's a little bit of a secret of what Rolex does is they protect that case back and they keep the, the lug point the same or lower than the case back. See? Yeah. Cole is holding up his GMT master and like the bottom of the lugs where the watch actually sits against your wrist is probably within a millimeter of the case back. That's it. You're right. And it just means that the watch can be whatever size they want it to be. And it kind of wears the same on most people's wrists. As soon as you start messing with those, with the stance, if that's the right word, because like the proportions are one thing, but then where the strap actually hinges and tightens against things is another thing. And man, if I'm honest, I have not come up with a good way to explain this to people because like with a Rolex, well, maybe not with a Rolex these days, but normally the Rolex, you could go to a store and try it on. And maybe now you could go in and try a dummy, but with these Aqua stars or, or with, uh, I mean, with a lot of the brands, the micro brands and stuff that I talk about, there's no way to just say like, Oh, go to a store and try it on. Yeah. Like even with Zen, like, If you're in the States, you'd have to wait for one of those road shows that Watch Buy does and hope that they had the model. And like a lot of Zen ones, you've got to find the one that fits your wrist. Cause they also make stuff that's like 40 millimeters wide, but 17 and a half millimeters thick. And you're like, is this too much? Is it too little? Is it a lug length thing? Is it a hooded lug thing? Is it? So it's, it's kind of a, it's a, it's a frat consideration, but I do enjoy these watches quite a bit. So it'll be, it'll be fun to get a story up on, on Hodinkee in the next little while. |
| Cole Pennington | It's funny you bring up like, Uh, you're at like a, not a tipping point or a breaking point about discussing sizes. I'm running up against that when it comes to watch pricing. I mean, this is a whole nother episode, but recently put out two stories, one on Italia, when one on Mirka, she happened to catch any of the comments on this. |
| James | Uh, no, I typically don't read the comments unless, unless, unless I think that I could be helpful. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| James | Like, like if, if it's a post where I've, I've tried to write something to help people, like teach them something, then I'll try and get in the comments because I usually miss something and I can answer the questions in the comments. But with a lot of these ones where it's the comments just mostly are people's opinions and those people are people who haven't for the most part seen or held the watches. |
| Cole Pennington | So that's, so yeah, you just summed up exactly what I was getting at. That's it. There you go. That's it. It's, it's that. Yeah. Incredible negativity. And it always turns to, recently it's turned to pricing a lot. And I like to treat things like almost like a friend or a person, like, your relationship with something is very specific to that thing. It's one-on-one, right? You can't really compare it relative to something else oftentimes. And, and that's sometimes how pricing is. Like if a watch is created under unusual circumstances, like everyone likes to compare things to highly industrialized products that have utilized economies of scale. And so I think this Aquastar probably falls into the category I'm talking about. It comes from a unique circumstance. So, don't compare it to... Yeah, I see the Aquastar is kind of like Lotus. Yeah, I like that. Maybe not the 16... It's not just adding lightness, but it's certainly... Yeah, they're not adding lightness. |
| James | No, this is not Colin Chapman's Aquastar. But I see them as kind of a boutique manufacturer that come with a lot of strengths that are solely theirs, but the end result is not something that's competitive to those that are industrialized in the market. |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. And I think this isn't one of us should write this piece on, you know, a while back, Jack did something. How do you judge a watch if it's good or not? Like the movement, the finishing area. Sure. I think there's a conversation to be had around, well, how do you look at value as opposed to really we're missing a lot of people, not we're, but a lot of folks I think are missing the other half that they don't see. But anyway, that's a whole nother episode, you know, |
| James | The thing that I think, the way that, cause it's, for me, it's been a progression for a decade trying to understand what my relationship is to writing about, especially what I would consider expensive watches, because like, you know, like, like anything over about five grand is outside of my normal buying pattern by like a decent margin. And yet I mostly write about watches over $5,000, right? Yeah. Same. So I don't want to be disingenuous, but at a certain point that means I also, I have to like divorce myself from the concept of what the watch actually costs. and just assume that there's an audience for it and that audience has the money. Exactly. Right. Whether that's me or hopefully it's the people who are reading, everyone else who's reading it is like when I read a supercar review, it's entertainment. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. So if I write a hands-on, I want to have eight or 900 words of kind of watchy entertainment. And then I want to have 200 words of competitive entertainment where I talk about like, is this a good deal? What else could you buy for the money? What are people, Like I try and consider like if I had $8,000 to buy something, what would I be cross shopping? Right. Just, just in, in the, like as a, as a thought study to try and straw man, the whole concept of like, this is too expensive. It's too cheap. But I also think that a lot of people only consider their only perspective. And I did this for years talking about watches. If it was $8,000, $10,000 ago, this is ludicrously expensive when you could buy a Hallios for this much or a Hamilton for this much, or a, a Seiko for this much. And I think that's a huge disservice both to, if you're, if that's your opinion, when you're hitting a comment section, you're doing yourself a disservice by not adopting the concept that there's an audience for this watch and you just may not be part of it. And your relationship is now, you know, maybe talking to that audience to add something to their perspective or just enjoying it as entertainment. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So that's a good thing. Just enjoy it as entertainment. I I'm right on board. |
| James | I think a lot of, a lot of, uh, kind of niche fascinations, like whether it's automotive or sports or watches or, or the rest, like it's all, it's like 80, 20, 80% of it is, is entertainment. It's not about making a buying decision. Honestly, like if, if you're trying to decide how to spend $40,000, don't ask me, don't ask me either. Yeah. Take as long as you can to make the decision. I have some ideas for you. I have some ways, some brands you should be on your radar, but I'm not going to make the final decision for you. That's insane. You want to spend $400 on a Seiko. The stakes are a lot lower and I'm more than happy to also make some suggestions. Right. But no, the pricing thing is it's an interesting concept because it is literally like a, it's figuratively a can of worms. Like once it's open, you have to go in about 20 different directions to make sure you cover all the if ands, buts, the if ands, buts, all of the hypothetical considerations that go with, how people view how much is to spend on a watch. And if you're not, you know, the big thing you see on pretty much any comment is like any watch is going to be compared to Rolex. But of course you can't buy a Rolex for list price anymore. So you have this weird math that everyone's doing where they're trying to think like, Oh, I could have this, but, Oh, but, but if, uh, if, uh, if a GMT masters street price is $25,000, then I could have a long, I could have, and you go like, who's cross shopping a GMT master in a long, like, You, maybe. Maybe, Cole, right? Actually, yes. |
| Cole Pennington | But only if I sold my GMT, man. That was never a consideration in the beginning. They're totally different price points. I think this is, to me, it's what they call, like, what about-ism, right? Like, well, what about this? What about this? And like, you know, just going off in a million different tangents. |
| James | Which isn't a, you know, quote unquote, an intellectual way of forming an argument. |
| Cole Pennington | Right. |
| James | Um, typically it's a way of dissuading somebody from their argument or from their, uh, a more fixed position in an argument, but yeah, I think it's, um, I think it's an interesting thing. I also, I can't blame anyone who has any reaction, especially when it comes to price. Cause everyone's price sensitivity is, um, hyper specific to them. Right. And, and, and it also changes, it changes with how much they're earning, what, what things in their life cost, whether or not they just got a huge, I don't know, tax bill or their car broke or whatever. So like, Somebody looking at a $2,000 watch one day and then a month later going back to comment on a different $2,000 watch will have a different perspective on what $2,000 is to them. And my only goal is like, how much can I distance myself from any of those kind of prejudices towards the price and just promote it under the understanding that like the brand will either sell the watch or they won't. That's almost, I don't care. Right. One bit. But I would like people to feel the need to start the article and then go all the way to the end. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, or like exactly that. That's kind of it, right? When you're writing something, like use this watch as a starting point for a larger conversation about X, Y, and Z. Absolutely. Like this one, the Miriko that I was talking about happened to be about traditional kimono colors incorporated in watchmaking. I mean, yeah, a little bit of a page out of Grant Seiko's book, but I thought the watches are kind of cool. |
| James | But why not? I mean, there's way dumber things that we've used as inspiration for the way watches look, right? Portholes for one of the most famous watches in existence. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it's true. So yeah, interesting stuff, I think. something I have to think about a little bit more. I think this conversation is helpful too, but this might be something worth talking about at some point down the line, like writing a big essay on how do we look at this? But I think you've, you've, you've gotten there pretty much, right? The situation is different. |
| James | So I don't think I've got, I have no clarity on it. I, you know, I think, I think I, it's something I think about a lot, which I think is helpful. Cause I can ramble about it. Cause I'm always kind of doing it in my head. I would assume that like, let's say a hundred thousand people read my story about a Vacheron. I would assume like less than, one, maybe one or two people in that audience will buy it or a Vacheron because I put it on their radar at some point at best. Right. |
| Cole Pennington | Because of the limited availability of the watch or simply because. And the price. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Price. |
| James | But I would assume almost everyone else is there because they're, they just want something to read. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Or they're just into it. Like it's all. Yeah. So for me, it's age. |
| James | The same reason I would write about it. Right. You're into it. |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. Yeah. Like be, be some help. All right. The value that I can add is not, you know, whether or not this is a value proposition per se, although yes, there's some thought given to that, but it's more help along the watch journey. Give folks a sense of discovery and Hey, if you like it, sit back, read it. And that's that, you know, I hope, I hope you enjoy it. |
| James | You know, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've had this conversation with a good friend of mine who he gets, I guess, kind of the equivalent of FOMO when he reads about other watches that he knows he can't afford, or, or even if he could afford them, he can't get them. |
| Cole Pennington | It's a personal problem though, you know, |
| James | Oh, no, no, it absolutely is. And I've had this conversation with him many times ago. Like, I don't interface with watches like that anymore. |
| Cole Pennington | Like, I think something Steven Pulverin said to me, which I thought was very interesting, his whole thing was ownership is overrated. And he often cites like, you know, you can go to a museum to enjoy a painting without owning it. Right. So that transcendental experience of taking in X, Y, and Z is, you know, you're never going to own that. So like, just let go and divorce yourself of the ownership thing and just appreciate the existence of something or the beauty of something or the intrigue of something without thinking about owning it, right? |
| James | I think that's an important lesson to learn. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I absolutely don't disagree. I think that's super smart. The museum concept makes a lot of sense to me. You know, I want to know about the latest Ferrari or McLaren or, or, or the Rivian or the Lucid or the rest of it, but I'm not going to own any of them. I drive a 10 year old Jeep, right? And that's not going to change. It'll be a 12 year old Jeep at some point and then 15 and hopefully I just keep getting to drive it. Uh, for me, it's, it's, you know, I, I do think like the, the enthusiasm is the core and as the, and, and I see that a lot, especially with the TGN crew, the folks that are going to be listening to this, like there's just so enthusiastic. They like knowing about it. They like, they get it on the same level, but as watches as a whole have increased in popularity over the last few years, there's a different contingent where everything is, is a scorecard. Everything is, uh, is, is, to be angry about this because they can't get it or because it's too hard to do this or, or the, you can't get it at this price or whatever. And like there at a certain point, it's, it's not necessarily like a snake eating its own tail, but if one thing rises, everything has to rise with it. So if popularity goes up, so do things like prices and interest and speculative buying and, and competitive buying, I think like we're starting and we see this a ton in the cars. I mean, as we're speaking, somebody is spending more than $150,000 on an S 2000 on bring a trailer. |
| Cole Pennington | Wait, I haven't seen this yet. This is a good, this is a good pivot to some car chat. I want to, I want to hear about this, this, cause this happened with the Supra a little while ago. You remember that? |
| James | I mean, well, Mark four Supras are still way up. This is an incredibly low mile S 2000. It might even be a CR has a wing. |
| Cole Pennington | It's the club spec. Yeah. |
| James | The club racer. Um, I don't know the specific, I just, uh, Johnny posted about it. Love you, Johnny. Um, and he was saying that, that if you drive like his, he didn't say this specifically, he worded it much, much more wisely than I am. But he was saying, you know, the next 5,000 kilometers or miles that anyone puts on this will cost 60 grand because it's such a low mileage spec that it's so low, you can't drive it. Right. And I think that a lot of people mistake speculative buying in cars, watches, the rest for competitive buying. Interesting thought. Like if you didn't, if you didn't have the money for a S2000 or a Supra or whatever, three or four years ago, but you do now, and you just went through the whole pandemic, your cost sensitivity is probably lower. Yeah. That's how I see it. Right. I've come really close to buying a car that I can't even put anywhere cause I have nowhere to put it. Well, I mean, right. The moment I had a second car space, it would be filled. |
| Cole Pennington | It would take, it would take a week, take as long as the next auction to close. |
| James | You know, it would, it would take no time at all. I'm my car buying is controlled exclusively by the fact that if I bought a car and had to put it in storage on the other side of Toronto, I know I would never drive it. Hmm. would be too much of a hassle. It would sit there, it would eventually develop some sort of an oil leak, and then I would sell it. And this way, I have one car, I have one parking spot. And you use it. And that's what you have to deal with. And I think the car thing is wild. The watch thing is wild. It's also I didn't like all of what we've talked about for the last 30 minutes is not on the show notes. There's just purely, purely natural. So I don't want to lose our chance to chit-chat about I'm trying to decide how late I want to stay up tonight editing a show that goes very long. But you know what, I'm having a good time. So we'll go to the next one on the list. What did you think of Watches and Wonders? Was this your first or your second? |
| Cole Pennington | It was my first Watches and Wonders. |
| James | Well, like an FHH big trade show. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it was the first one. The fancy one. Yeah, it was very nice. What did I think? So that's an interesting question because I've been asked a million times since I got back and the answer changes every time, right? A lot is very specific to this year, right? To answer that question, you really have to put in the context of, well, we've been away for so long and so forth. But again, you know, the refrain is, oh, well, it's the people and so forth. Well, it really is like it was great seeing everyone. But, you know, a lot of listeners probably don't know these people. So it's fine to to kind of get to the core of the product and so forth. What I think of the show. Well, ask me a more specific question about the show. |
| James | What watches can you kind of not get out of your brain? |
| Cole Pennington | Great question. Yeah. the Oris Pro Pilot. Yeah. And that's what I can actually buy. And I think that was awesome. |
| James | I think a bunch of people, yourself and people listening are going to go nuts for that watch. I mean, you've seen it in person, but when that starts to hit local retailers, everyone should go try that on. Yeah. So nice. So cool. So different. So modern. |
| Cole Pennington | And yeah, it's exactly so different, right? I wouldn't icon. Everyone uses that. I mean, Oris doesn't really have an icon per se, like in the pantheon of, you know, modern sports watches like Rolex or whatever, but this one to me within Oris, this is, this kind of encapsulates what's great about the brand to me. Like this is the standout from that brand. Everything is right. |
| James | It's also just, um, it's so exciting to see Oris who's been, in my opinion, an aesthetic leader in the new vintage thing for six, seven, eight years. |
| Cole Pennington | Right. It's where he |
| James | eight or nine years for the Diver 65, somewhere close to that anyways, um, maybe seven years. And, uh, and now to see them come out with the flagship for, for this show is a very modern, you know, almost like Oris's take on a sporty Octo, but within the Oris world with this incredible bracelet and this kind of like low key, really subtle dial, even in color, even in like the, the pink, the salmon, it's still this very matte, industrial design study that I think is... To see it next to their other watches is really a fun thing, because you know Auris for the Pointer Date and for the 65s and for the Aquis, which all have their own vibe, but are all very much rooted in traditional kind of watch thinking. And this is very much... They've made... They've consumerized, if you will, or to a greater extent, consumerized the ProPilot X 115 and that aesthetic, which I think is just super clever on their part. |
| Cole Pennington | And yeah, that watch, I've... I went to the release of that. So I saw, but I've never seen one since I've never seen one in the wild and to, and it would be a shame to not democratize all the kind of cool things about that watch. So this is, you know, a democratic version that they just nailed. Can't get that watch on my head. Yeah. |
| James | Well, and now that they have the 400 movement, why not? Right. Like, like a big part of the VAT, the price and the size of the one 15 was the one 15 movement. Right. And now that they have the 400 and they can put it in a 39 millimeter case, man, between that and that blue, uh, pointer date, the most recent, uh, pointer date, Cal 400, uh, talk about some knockouts they've had this year. And we got to, we got to peek at some of the stuff coming out later in the year as well during our, our hangout with them at the show. And it's going to be a good year for sure. |
| Cole Pennington | This is, this is the year of Horace coming up. |
| James | And then you came with me to doxa. Um, I've waxed poetic, both, uh, in words and, uh, uh, vocalized, uh, into recording. about the carbon, what'd you think of that? Or what do you think about the white dial in general? |
| Cole Pennington | So that, that's, I think the loom element, the white dial, I mean, a white dial is a white dial is a white dial, right? Like we all do love them. I love, I would love a GMT in white, the Albina, right? Bring back. Like a 750T? Uh, no, no. And Rolex GMT. Oh, a GMT Master. I understand. Dream watch of mine. I love white dials. I love your Explorer 2's white dial. Me too. Doxa. With dive watch, it's, it's a tricky thing to, to go monochromatic white and black. Right. |
| James | But this, especially DOXA where you're used to orange, even on a black watch, like, yeah, exactly. |
| Cole Pennington | And that's it. That's what we like. We like something that's familiar, but just different enough to catch our eye. Right. And I think that is totally the swatch. I would say I would take it off the supplied DOXA rubber and throw it on a Tropic. That would be my move. |
| James | Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be unfair to, to doxa because I have kind of been hard on them about this specific rubber strap. |
| Cole Pennington | I didn't know. Oh, okay. Yeah. |
| James | I know you're talking. Yeah. And I don't like, I don't like it when Zen does it either. So let me, let me level the playing field a little bit. If anyone has these form fitted FKM rubber straps, the, the quality is so high, but the on wrist bulk is also so high. that I just don't want it. I want a thin rubber strap with a tang buckle. Omega is the one that everyone should be copying. Even the current Speedy that we saw, the gold Speedy with the black rubber strap, that's about perfect, slightly molded, nice and thin, has a tang buckle. Or that one, sorry, that one has a fold-over buckle. And then otherwise, like, yeah, if I bought, I mean, if and when, if I can make it happen, I get that, a Carbon Doxa, One, it'll be a NATO or the other one that works really, really well is the Hirsch pure. It's about a $90 pure. I'm going to get this wording wrong. So my apologies, cartouche rubber. Uh, it's like a pure rubber, um, but they make a very simple kind of almost in the same vein as what, um, marathon offers just a very simple, straightforward, not too thick, not too thin deals with strap, uh, sweat nicely. It has like a scallop on the inside. |
| Cole Pennington | Smells great. |
| James | Zen offers it on some of them as well. And yeah, they all have that kind of vanilla scent, which People seem to love or hate. I couldn't care that much, but yeah, I don't know. It's, it's an interesting thing. I, I, do you have any, have you had any like longstanding experience with a carbon watch of any type or a ceramic watch for that matter? No, actually. These are kind of holes in our watch reviewing ability, aren't they? |
| Cole Pennington | Well, yeah. So I would say it makes you professionally. It is something we should consider. I remember Jason said, uh, like this watch comes in three 16 L just like God intended. And I always took that to heart because I actually am the same way. 904 or 316, which, you know, who cares what the difference is, but that's how I like my watches personally. |
| James | You know, I don't necessarily disagree. I love, I mean, steel is great. Titanium is fantastic. Um, but I, I have become like increasingly interested, especially in carbon. I think I've had enough experience with ceramic that it, and it's also kind of a known quantity, right? You can't scratch it, but it will shatter if you, if you kind of give it the real business. But with carbon, it's so like, So much of it feels like, like a really high quality plastic that it makes so much sense to work as a watch case. Right. But I don't, I wonder, I do wonder how, like, how does it age with UV? Because there's a resin of some sort in there, right? Which conceivably would yellow maybe? I don't know. |
| Cole Pennington | I don't, I just don't know. I think on older carbon fiber, like I remember in high school, so this is kind of crazy, crazy offshoot tangent, but I had a Saab, I was a huge Saab guy in high school. Okay. |
| James | And this is going to sound... What did you have, a 9000? |
| Cole Pennington | No, I had a 93 SE. Well, I've had a few. I've had a 93 SE. I've had a Saabaroo. I've had a Viggen, which is like a hyper. Ooh, a Viggen. Yeah. All right. |
| James | That's the fighter plane one. |
| Cole Pennington | That's right. Yeah. But on this 93 SE, it was silver and I was on all these Saab forums and I loved, so like you, I mean, we both grew up in the tuner world. It wasn't really a choice for me. The Saab was inherited per se, but I kind of wanted to blend tuner and Saab. There was this guy I met on the forums who was experimenting with carbon fiber. And, uh, I sent him my grill and he molded my grill in carbon fiber. So imagine carbon fiber on a sob nine, three weird. |
| James | It's like a, like a hand laid hand laid. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. He was kind of like a, this wasn't his full-time gig. So the prices were pretty reasonable. Right. So yeah, I put that girl on there and then I went away to live in Asia. Right. And came back. And the grill had turned from black to like a, an odd brown, yellow, like actually it really resembled when we do see true carbon Kevlar weave, you know, that yellow Kevlar. Absolutely. |
| James | Which is the reason why they would paint and then clear coat over it at the time. Right? Like, like an F40, most of the panels on an F40 are that carbon Kevlar stuff. And apparently it UV, it doesn't, it doesn't handle UV that well. So they, they paint it very lightly. You can, on some of those pieces, you can see the weave. Yeah, exactly. And then they clear coat over that to manage some of the UV. |
| Cole Pennington | So I came back and the thing, it didn't look like carbon fiber anymore. It was kind of interesting, but if that happens with the watches, I doubt it. One thing I will say before I move on, because we're kind of in this area, you asked what watches you were thinking about. Yeah, yeah. The IWC ceramic stuff, the way they're doing the Pantone. So the Woodland Green. Yeah. Tahoe White. Tahoe White, yeah. Sure, that is a little bit of a clever marketing thing, but I find it charming in a way, right? |
| James | I like the green a lot. I mean, you're talking to a guy currently wearing a head-to-toe green. Yeah, that's your fight. But the white, I don't want to be unfair because I love a white dial. I can't get into the watches with white bands or white cases. Well... I think it might be a skin tone thing. It just looks ridiculous on me. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. I never even thought about the wearability. It's more of like, well, where, where can we go with materials? |
| James | Way, way back in the day, I thought, Oh, I need a white watch. It'd be fun. This would be different. It'd be like, I should give it a try. And I bought like a white G shock 5,600, like M and M style stuff, right? Like, of course I remember this is back in the day, man. This would be 2010, something like that. And, uh, I was old enough to have known better. And like, I think, I think I knew I had made a mistake within, it was one of my fastest, like put it back in the box, post it and sell it. Catch and release. Like I bought it on watch you seek and it took three or four days to get to me and it was in my house for 45 minutes. You know, it was an $85 watch. Like, and I love a G shock, but like I want one in Navy blue or maybe red or, or sure. Green, tan, black. Right. But like the white just doesn't work. It's a, I don't, I don't know if for me it's a little bit like, like, I don't know that I could pull off a pair of white jeans. You know what I mean? Like I'm not a white jeans guy. I don't think I'm a white case guy, but I do think |
| Cole Pennington | There is something like I could imagine you potentially French Riviera, loose, but well-fitting white linen pants. |
| James | I've messed around in that space for sure. But I think that's like a little bit of a different vibe. Right. But like even up to the, even up to like the white ceramic QP from AP, the Royal Oak QP. No, thank you. It's something about that when it's the, especially when it's the case or the bracelet, but even especially it's the bracelet or the strap being white. you know, when they, when they first, I remember back when they did like the, originally when they did the dark side of the moon, which was just black, black. Right. And then they came out with like five or six other versions, maybe even the same year as that gray, orange, titanium plow prof that we talked about earlier. I think it might've been roughly the same year as that. And, um, I remember looking at those and being like all of these in a vacuum in your pretty press photos in my photos look great. And then the moment you put them on my wrist, it's just deeply distasteful for me. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| James | It has nothing to do with the watches. |
| Cole Pennington | No, it's just like, I get it. Like I didn't suit me. I don't know how much I love yellow or something like that. So that's another thing with the, the moon swatches and all that. Like sometimes color is just like, just, I don't know, like give me the traditional stuff, but I like the direction of IWC going that they're going like, I don't disagree. |
| James | I got to see that 41 millimeter, um, pilots chronograph top gun in serratanium. Sadly, they didn't have the full serotonin with the bracelet, which I think would have been really fun to check out. But that watch in person, when I wrote it up for Houdinki, I was really worried that the kind of phantom, you remember this whole trend? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Poor eligibility was cool. Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. A black dial. And then sometimes there's a black dial with black markers, black hands, and then like a tinted crystal. So you had to like turn the watch against the sun to figure out, to divine the, And I was worried that might be the space, but no, there, I mean, it's IWC legibility is something they do really well. And this is a watch where like, they, they just, it was like a tastefully tinted car. You know what I mean? Like where it's not so dark that you're like, you're going to get pulled over, bro. Like you're, you're up for a time. It was just right. And that watching person was really nice, a nice size. You know, I'm a big fan of the, the, the 41 millimeter Spitfire. I did a week on the wrist for it a couple of years back, a beautiful watch. I think a great price. the serotonin doubles the, uh, more than doubles the price point. So you'd have to be like a real IWC head or, or have the budget for something like a Daytona and decide to go this direction. But I thought I was really impressed by it. So I just, I want to see IWC is one of the few brands where I want way more than what they're doing. Yeah. And new engineer, I want a new Aqua timer. I want to see like a return to the GST. We've talked about this on the show several times, but like they're there, they should really do a new GST line for us. |
| Cole Pennington | Well, I mean, It's up to two people in this room right now. Yeah, we can. |
| James | Oh yeah, you and I, yeah, for sure. The IWCs, they're always calling, so they're taking our calls for sure. Look, outside of Watches and Wonders, let's talk Watches in the Wild before I let you go, because that's kind of the last kind of like really big thing. It was a huge move for Hodinkee to finally move, in my opinion, and I'm editorializing here, to finally move more into a documentary methodology of storytelling, something a little bit closer to, uh, the stuff that everybody talks about are no reservations, uh, you know, some of, some of the top gears that were more exploratory rather than scripted. And, you know, you opened this first episode with, um, with, you know, going to Thailand and talking about monsters. And it was the same, same week that you helped me get my monster, which I just held up on our zoom call to tell me about how, what it took to kind of make that, make this happen and sell the idea. Cause it can't, It can't be an easy thing to try and launch a new type of media into a space like Hodinkee, because I've tried. |
| Cole Pennington | So very interesting. So there'll be a little bit of inside baseball here, and this is TGN, not Hodinkee. So we can talk about Hodinkee as our jobs and talk about, you know. |
| James | A job that we're both exceedingly grateful for, and we're huge fans of those that we work for, and couldn't be more grateful and thankful for having the job. But it is something where, quite smartly so, there's rules in place to make sure that audience expectations stay where they need to be and are fulfilled. |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. |
| James | And trying to break the mold, especially it's easier to break the mold in text, in photos. Once you get into video and you have to have an editor assigned and a sound guy and this and that, and then suddenly things can cost way more money than anyone on this podcast is expecting. That's true. And it can be hard to kind of sell the idea. So how did you pitch it or pilot it or how did it go? |
| Cole Pennington | So here's how it happened. And I don't think I've actually told this story to many. I've never told it. in a formal setting. So January 2021, my girlfriend and I are sitting in a bar in Hawaii in a place called Hanukkah on the Northwest corner, Big Island. I, as you know, I'm a strong believer in no office. Office can crush creativity and You and me both. We're sitting here thinking, okay. And you remember these days at Hodinkee where it was like, is it return to office? Is it not? I know you've never experienced that, but for me it was like, yeah, I was New York based and I could have gotten called back to the office and so forth. So we thought at the time, like, Hey, if this returned to office thing, if all this talk becomes a reality, how can we really maximize the opportunity of not having to be chain to a desk in one place. And I said, well, why don't we work from Thailand for a little bit? Like I have a network there. Love it. I know people and she was totally on board. And then I thought, well, let's jump in the gun a little bit. Like I'm not going to, I'm not going to just do this without clearing it with her dinky and maybe they're not going to go for it. So how can like one of our boss, Nick Marino, awesome boss. And I will say like, Absolutely. I have to give him so much credit because this would have never happened in quote unquote, the older Houdinki. Right. So it was a little bit of what I was leading you towards. Yeah. |
| James | Well, it's true. I mean, this is literally so, so many incredible changes with having, having somebody coming from a different space in the media world and being willing to take chances. |
| Cole Pennington | And yeah. The other thing is too, like I, even inside Houdinki, I have a reputation of, Oh, well Cole's off doing something or whatever. Like they actually didn't know they had no idea. So I, |
| James | It's a good reputation, though, if you allow me to cut in, because you can skip any phone call and people don't try and call you into the call. They just go like, well, he must be away or on a plane or in the backwoods somewhere or just off the grid. |
| Cole Pennington | Sometimes it's true. So keep them guessing. So basically I pitched this thing, but pitched it very much like, and I will tell you, it's uncouth to say numbers, but I said I can do this for very cheap, right? Because I also know Thailand. |
| James | That's what you have to do. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And it's true. So I said, Can I give this a shot? I pitched. So here's another thing too. It was originally going to be five episodes. Um, cause of COVID during while we were there, two episodes got cut. One was an amazing Patek collector. Uh, the owner, you've heard of Singha beer, Sing beer as it's called. Yeah. Thai beer. So the former owner, he passed away of Singha beer was one of the foremost Patek collectors in the entire world. Like crazy stuff. Fantastic. one-off pieces, Grandmaster Chime. That and his daughter actually inherited and is an absolute expert and so passionate about Patek. And we were going to sit down with her. So that got cut. Additionally, this really good story, which I will go back and do these. And if someone listening steals my story, let us just be known that it's my story. But the Gold Rado, much like in India, and I'm sure you know this too, like elsewhere in the world, a lot of the developing world, Rado is kind of like our Rolex, like you hit a big professional milestone and you buy a gold rata. So for rice farmers in Thailand, so it's going to do a really good story on that. But, uh, those got cut, but basically said, okay, I'll do five episodes and kind of sketched out the idea loosely and said, just let me do it. Right. Didn't, didn't say, didn't give any sort of, uh, form to the story, so to speak. And just went off and did it. No one knew anything, right? Like I, I filmed and worked and Katie did a lot of the production stuff. And then two guys, you grit and David Humpa were on camera and also like helping and so forth. And so during the day we would do all this stuff and then stay up from like, get on the computer at eight or 9pm until 4am and sleep like from maybe 5am to 11 or 12 for a while. Like, months at a time. Actually, we were gone for months and I stayed longer than I was supposed to. So I can't say how long, but longer than I agreed initially. Allegedly. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, basically it was off the radar, like going and doing this thing without any oversight. So this is a good lesson for everyone. Like the more oversight there is, the more opportunity to get things wrong. Compromise. Yeah, exactly. So there was zero oversight, brought it home, Then it came down to who's going to edit it and so forth. And, and I have to say like Davey, who's dearly departed from Hodinkee, one of the, one of the best dudes on the team, unfortunately left. Love you Davey. Miss you. |
| James | He added a strong- Dave is fine to be clear by anyone who didn't understand the dearly departed part. He went on to another job. He's an incredibly talented dude. Lots of love for Dave, but he's okay. Him and his beautiful family are doing just fine. |
| Cole Pennington | He kind of added, the structure, like all of this was intuitive to, and maybe it's because I've watched Bourdain or whatever, or, or it's just simply people are going to compare it because it's somebody doing something in a location. It's an obvious comparison, but it was never the goal at all. It was more just like, okay, well, how would I do a watch show? Like, how, how would I go about doing this? And just did it. It was very much shoot first, ask questions later. Right? So like go film, get, get whatever you can filming. Like there was a zero script. Very little structure, I will say. That's the honest truth. In fact, like no structure. It was just go do it. Right. Come back and we'll figure it out in the editing process. And that's what happened. |
| James | I love it. So for people who might have missed it, and I really hope nobody missed it. We mentioned it when the first episode came out. Give everyone like the elevator pitch for the three episodes that are live so far. So I alluded to Thailand with the monsters. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So it's basically looking at All right. The premise is looking at horology and enthusiasm, like the intersection between culture with a capital C, right? And horology in unexpected corners of the world. Like places that we don't usually write about on Hood, Inc. or whatever, right? So not the U.S., Switzerland and so forth. Right. And looking at the people who are moving the scene forward in one direction or another. |
| James | I really love the series. I can't wait to see how it develops, how it goes forward, especially now that the hardest part, which is that proof of concept, Um, and, and audience validation is kind of has been, those boxes have been checked. And it's just a question of finding the other zones that the camera needs to point at and telling the story in an appropriate fashion. Right? |
| Cole Pennington | Well, I, uh, which is a big task. Well, hopefully it's a task you can help me with at some point. |
| James | Yeah, we have some plans. I mean, we're definitely not talking about that on this episode. We have some cool plans. Uh, so it's definitely a watch this space sort of scenario. Uh, look, Cole, I don't want to take you forever. I also don't want the, you know, the, the episode to go on so long that I'll be up all night and then just click publish just before I go to sleep. Uh, like, like you might have in, uh, in Thailand. Uh, how about we get to some final notes? |
| Cole Pennington | All right, I'll go first. So there's, I've talked about this podcast here and there, I think mainly to friends. I don't think I've ever recommended it publicly, but something called voices from DARPA. So DARPA is, I mean, all right. So GPS, uh, what else? Tons of stuff that you use every day has trickled down from, from DARPA. And Voices from DARPA is their in-house podcast where they interview project managers on things like, okay, next generation supersonic flight or nano drones, or, you know, crazy stuff that we haven't even thought of yet. And they'll, and we think here, here's what I like about it. It really demystifies DARPA. We think that it's like, you know, like, The skunk, uh, you know, uh, uh, you know, camp acts sort of, but it's not, they're, they're very open with a lot of the stuff that they work on. And here we get to hear from the people who are running the projects. And oftentimes they're, well, all the time they're brilliant people. So it's, it's great to get to borrow someone's mind for 40 minutes or whatever, who's working on something incredible. So voices from DARPA is, is the podcast. |
| James | Very cool. So for anyone who's listening, who's like either, uh, hasn't dug into this or maybe isn't North American-centric or even America-centric, DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And they're essentially a very well-funded, correct me if I'm wrong, Cole, a very well-funded branch of the American government that's dedicated to the advancement of deep research in terms of science and technology. They've come up with an incredible list of solutions to given problems, which is kind of the space in which they work. And so if you even just look at the titles for some of these episodes, they're 55 episodes in, if I'm looking at the correct page, but Sensorized Prosthetics, Climate Tipping Points, Cybersecurity Sleuths, the Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative. |
| Cole Pennington | Now they would very much like their one goal is to hand over the project to the private sector, right? They're like an incubator, an accelerator. |
| James | Yeah. My guess is this podcast is rad. So give it a listen for sure. |
| Cole Pennington | You should too, James. You'd love it. |
| James | Yeah. No, I'm, I'm always up for another podcast. Um, uh, these days and these days, uh, to, to get out of the space of cars or comedy is, is a nice refresher. That's kind of the two worlds I live in for the most of my podcasts. So great tip on voices from DARPA, the podcast. Uh, we'll certainly have that in the show notes. Mine is also a podcast and, uh, I actually think it might've been the last episode or the episode before. So in the last couple episodes, I recommended the Hagerty YouTube channel because they're just like, Anything they touch seems rad, literally rad in some cases, but they just do a really good job. They've got a lot of great talent and they have a very specific, seemingly a very specific dialed in perspective on production quality, which I really like. Everything they put out feels very finished. The audio is always really great. The video is always really great. The script is good, the rest of it. And then Combine that in with a show that I've been listening to for some time, which is called The Car Mugin Show, which is Jason Kamisa, who I've talked about on the show several times, one of my favorite kind of voices in the automotive industry, and Derek Tam Scott, who works for a company in Northern California called ECME. I believe they are like a dealer of kind of rare cars, to my understanding. I could have that a little bit off. Anyways, they've been doing The Car Mugin Show for some time, and it was one of these podcasts that like it was be published to YouTube or whatever. And it would kind of go a week or a month or whatever without. Well, now they've been picked up by Hagerty. They have their own YouTube channel and they're recording them face to face and they're doing it weekly. So for me, this is a huge bit of news because I really like these two guys sitting. It's very much. It's very loose. It's full of bad language at times, you know, but these guys both know a ton about cars. And I learned a lot from from both of them. Uh, so these are two of my favorites in the game and now we get a weekly show. It's free. Uh, but I guess it's kind of another shout out for Hagerty. Uh, maybe they want to buy TGN. I don't know. |
| Cole Pennington | I'm just kidding. |
| James | We're not for sale. Another big shout out for Hagerty. I think they're doing a really nice job with, um, uh, kind of expanding their, their portfolio. And I, I've just been a longstanding car margin fan, like probably since episode one. Um, and at this point the previous episodes will live on, on their one channel. I'll put both of these in the show notes and then they have a new channel where the new ones will be. So I'm thrilled to see this continue on. It's one of those things where you're never really sure. You're never really sure whether or not content like this continues if someone doesn't actively support it. And in this case, Hagerty is actively supporting it. So pretty thrilled to see that. Have you, have you caught any of these episodes? |
| Cole Pennington | You know, the honest truth aside from 99 PI TGN and Voices from DARPA. Sometimes I do the Donut Media Podcast. Oh, yeah, for sure. Past Gas. |
| James | Those guys do a fantastic job. |
| Cole Pennington | I need to expand my repertoire a bit. So I will. This will be the first one in a while that I'll be like, OK, I'm going to do this one. |
| James | The first episode under the new feed is all about luxury because Jason recently posted a video again under Hagerty kind of comparing the perspective of luxury from 20 years ago with, say, an M5 or an S-Class. to a lucid air now. And the idea that like a luxury automobile, the point of the luxury part of it is that it does everything better than any other car could do one thing. It's like the most complete single option, um, which is kind of an entry. It's one way of considering luxury. I don't disagree with that aspect. I think it's narrow, but to the point of being describable, which is helpful luxuries indescribable at times. So I really like this. I'm thrilled to see it happen. And that's my final note for the week. The Carmudgeon Show has a new home and a proper channel. And you can find all of that in the show notes. Well, Cole, thank you so much for being on the show. It is a treat as ever. Like I said, the only guy to ever three-peat on the show. I'm already looking forward to Cole Pennington 4. And to everyone listening, thank you so much for that. If you want to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, visit TheGreatNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzer via the free music archive. |
| Cole Pennington | And we'll leave you with this classic quote from Yogi Berra. You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. |