The Grey NATO – 212 – The New Watches We've Been Thinking About

Published on Wed, 19 Oct 2022 03:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

This episode covers a wide range of new watch releases and models that have captured the attention of the hosts. They discuss their initial impressions and thoughts on watches like the Monta SkyQuest GMT, Serica 8315 GMT, Seiko Prospex Cave Diver, Nomos Club 37mm Pneumatic, ZRC Grand Fonz 38 Heritage, and the new Bremont H1 line featuring the brand's new in-house movement. They also touch on more affordable GMT options like the new Seiko 5 Sports GMT and the Miyota 9075 GMT movement being used in some microbrands. The hosts share their excitement for the potential growth in the GMT watch category, especially at more accessible price points.

In the final notes, Jason reviews the documentary "The Sound of 007" about the music behind the James Bond films, while James discusses his recent purchase of the Anker 736 charger to streamline his travel gear and charging needs.

Transcript

Speaker
James Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 212 and it's proudly brought to you by the ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. Hey Jason, you make it home from Bonaire okay? I did.
Jason Heaton Yeah. We got home, uh, boy in the wee hours on Sunday. Um, and speaking of the supporter crew, uh, thanks everybody for your patience. I actually spent, uh, the wee hours of this morning because I had a little insomnia packaging up, um, gosh, a whole raft of, of new, uh, TGN supporter kits for, for a bunch of folks that signed up while I was away. So, uh, thanks for your patience and thanks for the support. That's excellent. Yeah, we, um, we, we flew in, it was a long travel day. Uh, you know, it shouldn't, Shouldn't feel that long, but it always does coming home. Um, uh, you know, uneventful baggage all arrived, no cockroaches crawling out of our suitcase. Like happened one time before. I guess since we spoke last week between recording then and now we had almost another full week of, of diving and it was a, it was a good one. I mean, we, you know, we've been there so many times, but we hadn't done a couple of things. We, we took a trip over to, in fact, just hours after we talked last. We drove over to the East coast of the Island, which is, uh, kind of the windier, wavier, rougher side. So you don't do any shore diving over there and hooked up with a small outfit that, that takes people out in boats out past the reef break. And, uh, and we did kind of a really nice dive there where we saw about a dozen turtles on a bunch of mores and, um, just, uh, some cool, very cool, cool new reef that we hadn't seen before. That was fun. And then we did a couple of nights. of night diving after that because we happen to time our trip right where there's a crustacean called an ostracod that mates three to four nights after the full moon every month and they're bioluminescent. So when they kind of embark on their little mating ritual, they kind of rise up out of the coral. and emit a glow that looks like beads of light, uh, heading towards the surface. And you have to time it within 45 minutes of sunset down to the minute almost. And then they all lift off and it's about a 20 minute display. And then that's the end of it. So we did that two nights in a row, tried to get some photos, which didn't turn out well, but, uh, it was, it was cool. I mean, it's something we always wanted to do there and had a great last dive the day before, you know, within the 24, just outside the 24 hour window before we hit our no fly time before we could get on a plane and saw a couple of squid. It was a mating pair of Caribbean reef squid that were, Oh, cool. Uh, the female was depositing eggs in, in kind of crevices along the reef. And then the male kind of escorts her and protects her, including from, from other squid. And there were like some males that, that were kind of coming down to investigate. And then the, the escorting male would change color rapidly, flare out its tentacles and look as big as it could. And kind of, you know, chase them away. And then the female would kind of go about her business. And we just watched them the entire dive. And while she was depositing the eggs, there were, there was a moray eel that was following them. And when she would deposit the eggs in the crevice, the moray would go into the crevice, presumably to eat some, if not all the eggs. Right. I mean, that's nature. And, you know, we finished the dive at, um, you know, we almost an hour dive and, and We wanted to finish shallow as you would. And conveniently these two squid kind of were gradually moving up the reef. And then by the time we got to our safety stop, they just sort of disappeared. And we found out later that the female squid actually dies immediately after laying her eggs. So it was kind of, it was, it was very poignant. It was kind of sad also, but, but sort of fitting for, for our last dive. And it was very memorable. So it was, uh, it was really cool. Nature's hardcore. It is. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And, and it was, it's funny because, you know, we, we had done a number of kind of photo projects while we were there. And, and so for the last day we decided let's just leave the camera behind and just kind of go and enjoy the dive, you know, kind of like, um, Sean Penn's character in the secret life of Walter Mitty, where he's, he's got the camera lined up on the snow leopard in the Himalayas and Ben Stiller's character says, you know, aren't you going to take the picture? And he said, sometimes I don't. And, and it was kind of like that, you know, we just wanted to kind of experience what we saw in those dives. And it was, uh, it was really special. It was great.
James Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I, uh, this weekend I went to the aquarium, maybe, maybe subconsciously I was missing the fact that you were diving or jealous or something like that. And, uh, I've been several times. We have a membership. So we go pretty frequently and you know, there's good and bad times to go. Sometimes it's busy. This was the weekend, but it wasn't great weather. So it wasn't overly busy. And, uh, I've been several times and I always, you know, take a pause at the cuttlefish tank.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah.
James Probably one of my top three favorite animals and just a really fascinating thing. And it always seemed like they're different groups of them. Like I'm never always sure if I'm seeing the same cuttlefish because the first couple of times we were there, there was this several group of smaller ones, three, four inches in length. Um, but there's, you know, three or four of them in the tank. And then this time for the first time, there was a larger one, six, seven inches, maybe. and seemed to be alone. Although with a cuttlefish, they hide pretty well. There might've been one skulking behind a rock or something like that. But he was, um, the, the, the one that was in there was kind of coming and going from where people could see him and where they couldn't. Yeah. And he would, he would come back and put on a little show, whether it was with a bit of patterning or hit the, the, the surface of his skin kind of had like an electric opalescence to it. I don't know if that means he was in a good mood or a bad mood and occasionally he was doing some weird stuff with his, tentacles and they're, they're just, uh, it, you know, it's so cliche, but it's like watching an alien, right? If you feel like you're watching something totally apart from your existence. Yeah. Uh, you know, they move perfectly in the water. They seem to make eye contact. Uh, they seem to have a lot of character and, you know, I'm standing there kind of in awe of this little animal and there's people next to me just saying like, you know, they went on a 32nd diatribe about how ugly it was. And I was like, yeah, you guys need to, uh, I don't know. appreciate the world around you a little bit better. I think they're fascinating. I'm a big, big cuttlefish fan. The cephalopods in general, for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And so now I guess I'm, I'm, we're, we're back home. It's, it's downright cold here today. I had to go out and get groceries this morning and it was, uh, gosh, it's, it's, it was below freezing. So I'm, I'm bundled up.
James Yeah. It's not that cold here. And then, uh, I I'm about to head out for some travel and I was just looking and it's like, consider I'm going back to central Europe again. But not not to say that's a complaint in any way. It's just I was there. It feels like I was just there. Yeah, just got over the jet lag and the rest of it. So yeah, I'll be back back in Germany for a Leica event, which is the same one that I attended last year. It's the Oscar Barnack Awards. It's kind of their celebration of photography. It's a couple days and some tours and see some new cool new product and all that kind of stuff. So I'm looking forward to that. It's a fun relationship between Hodinke and Leica. And and of course, I've been using my Leica's even more than I have previously. I've really fallen in love with the M10 over the past year. So I'm really excited to go do that for a few days. And then I get back from that, I'm home for a little while and I go in the opposite direction out to the West Coast for a very short trip, I guess next week. So before you get to episode 213, I'll be back by the time 213 comes out. you know, work, working on, uh, working on, you know, accumulating those, uh, status qualifying miles and such, but yeah.
Jason Heaton And using that 10 by that you talked about last week, quite a bit. Yeah.
James It's a, it's, I literally had to take a couple of things out of it, just the cables and stuff that I use for this, for when we record, but otherwise it's loaded for bear. I'm about 50% through packing my, my clothes. Uh, sadly this trip requires like a suit and a tie. So it's a different zone for me. Uh, uh, especially, you know, think about the last three years, I think.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James I don't, I don't, maybe I wore a suit and a tie to last year's Oscar Barnack awards. I don't remember. I'd have to go back and look at the photos. So, you know, uh, that, that's kind of on the, on the docket for today. And then we're recording this Monday. There's some pretty big watch releases that'll happen before this episode comes out. Um, nothing I'm prepared to talk about because I've only heard the rumors. Uh, I don't have any, um, hard evidence, but some bigger stuff, some stuff that isn't really in the TGN space, but definitely is kind of in the general mind share of watch enthusiasm. So that should be exciting. Uh, but also it's a ton of work. So yeah, it's, it's a lot of, uh, travel and, and putting, putting the stuff together and that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, on speaking of travel, I mean, I'm, I'm guessing I know which watch you're wearing. Well, I can see it in the notes, so I'm cheating here, but, uh, yeah, it seems fitting.
James Yeah. With us back to being fall and that sort of thing. I'm, I'm, you know, digging back into slightly less sporty watches, you know, fewer divers on rubber and NATO and that sort of thing. And jumping a couple of time zones, cause I'm not going directly to Frankfurt. I'm, I'm stopping off. Well, I'm going to Frankfurt and then flying somewhere else and then going back to Frankfurt and then moving on. So I'm moving time zones a little bit. And so I picked the Explorer two for this trip. It feels like a little while since I actually put it to like proper travel use. And the last time that I jumped time zones, I took the Seiko, the SKX003. And as much as I love and I think this would be a comment that we can dig into later in the episode, given what we're talking about. But as much as I do love a collar GMT, and I think they can be very handy. Uh, when I landed in Switzerland, you know, a few weeks ago, uh, and had to essentially reset up the entire watch rather than just jumping the hour hand a little bit, you do go like, Oh yeah. Like one's amazing for when you're sitting at home and want to know what time it is and wherever a coworker is or, or your offices or whatever. And the other one's really just perfect for, I landed somewhere new. I'm kind of, tired and out of it. And I just have to make one small adjustment and not like pull my phone out and do any recalibration of my mental state and that sort of thing. So yeah, we're doing the, um, the Explorer two for this trip, which I think will be good. Uh, I had, I had another watch coming in and it'll be one that we're talking about, uh, later in the show as well. Also a GMT. And at this point, because my travel plans changed several times while the watch has been in transit, uh, I think it's actually going to arrive a couple hours after I leave for the airport. Oh, that's so frustrating. Uh, yeah, it's the, the schedule has just been, I mean, insane. I thought I had, you know, the Leica thing has been on the docket for a while and now there's this thing before, which is shuffled around several flights and timing. And that's why we're recording on a Monday and not a Tuesday. And we had other special recordings, uh, stay tuned early November for that. Um, but we had another special recording that was going to be today, tomorrow, and, uh, that had to be moved. So yeah, it's, it's been, I, again, I don't mean this at all as a complaint, but it's been a week that has. Uh, in terms of just trying to keep all the strings like so one doesn't fly away and you lose track of it forever. Uh, yeah. So yeah. How about you? What are you wearing today?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, well after, you know, kind of shuffling through some working dive watches, uh, for the past couple of weeks, I came home and put on something decidedly vintage, uh, you know, still a dive watch, but one that, um, I'm fairly convinced is not watertight. judging by how it looked when I took the case back off when I first got this. This is a vintage Aquastar Benthos that I don't wear often but it's just such a cool watch. Every time I take it out and put it on it's you know it's such a classic and then I've got it on this Olongapo cuff band so it's that custom steel cuff band that I had made by Jaffe Girado over in the Philippines and You know, this definitely isn't the kind of band that's to everyone's taste, but I feel like it's very fitting for this watch. It's kind of this rugged old, you know, kind of beat up diver and from the era in which these bands were made and used by a lot of the soldiers and divers and airmen and whatever in Vietnam that when they were on leave in the Philippines, they had these custom made for them. So it's a lot of fun. It probably won't stay on my wrist too long, but it was fun to pull out and put on.
James That's super nice. Yeah. I saw that on your, on your Instagram this morning and it looks great. Yeah. And it suits, you know, you're in a vest and a sweater. Cause again, you mentioned it's cold. Yeah. Different vibe than bone air certainly. But hey, things change, right? Right. Yeah. Those seasons they get, they come after you every year, but yeah, it's a, I think that's a super fun watch. I think those are kind of, I don't know if underrated is right, but they're still kind of like sleepery. Yeah. I think people forget about them, right? Yeah. The, the Aqua star stuff especially, but anything that's not a deep star. Right. And the bentos is pretty rad and certainly a cool design for sure. Well, yeah, I mean, speaking of cool designs, this episode kind of follows one like we did last year, where we realized that there were six or seven watches that we just never found a specific show topic to host them. So it's just kind of a main topic today about watches that are on our minds, stuff that we've noticed, stuff that we're kind of excited to see at some point in the future. And stuff that I think is kind of noteworthy, but also maybe not getting the amount of attention either specific to TGN or otherwise that you might expect. So I think that probably covers the impetus for the next list of watches we've got, right, Jason?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. And just a disclaimer, at least on my end, is none of these watches in the list are any that I've handled personally or seen in person, at least in this current generation that we're talking about. So Um, I'm kind of in the same boat as, as probably most of our listeners is, is reading about them on blogs and through press releases and kind of, uh, websites and things, and then just sort of doing an armchair, um, first impression of these. So, yeah.
James Yeah. Yeah. It is, it is very much an on paper on paper.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Uh, I think maybe a couple of these I've seen in some form in person or will even by the next episode. Um, Uh, sadly, but you know, stay tuned for those stories. If I, if it's a watch that I ended up putting my hands on and we do a story about it, certainly there's just a big line of, uh, of watches to get through these days. Uh, so where do you figure, where do you want to start with this?
Jason Heaton I don't know. I mean, you know, there's one that keeps kind of popping up in my, in my social media, whether it's through an ad or because I follow them and I can tell that they're justifiably excited about it. This is the guys down at Manta. Um, they've, they've kind of redesigned and, and, um, re-released or refreshed their SkyQuest. which is their GMT watch. You know, you talked about traveling and GMT watches. And I guess we have, I guess this is one of two that we're going to talk about GMTs in today's episode. And you know, Monta's kind of become the, I don't know, they've kind of risen to this level of, of kind of a benchmark in for, for micro brands in terms of their attention to quality and, and, and kind of getting the little details right. And, you know, their SkyQuest GMT was a watch that, Definitely follows the formula of a Rolex GMT Master. I mean, if you squint, that's kind of what you see. And people would certainly comment on that from a distance. They might say, oh, is that a rope? No, it's not a Rolex. You know, they've managed to kind of carve out a space and a loyal following. And the SkyQuest is kind of one of their core collection, along with the Ocean King. It's kind of based on the same kind of design as their dive watch. And indeed, it has a 300 meter water resistance. So you could take it swimming, diving, whatever you wanted. But apparently with this one from, from what I've seen and read, they've, they've redesigned the case. It's a, again, it's like a 40 millimeter or slightly more than 40 millimeter case. And then there's a new bezel action that they've got three patents on apparently. Okay. And, and then the bracelet and you know, James, you've handled the bracelet and you've spoken highly about the bracelet. I, I don't know how they've improved this one. I mean, from what I've heard from you, it's a, it's pretty good or it was pretty good as on its own.
James Yeah, in my experience, the touch, any touch points of Amonta I've come across have always been really good. For whatever reason, the SkyQuest has never spoken directly to me. Maybe it's the proximity to Rolex. Maybe it's how much I really just like the standard Ocean King or the Atlas, which is their kind of GMT with a more of a field watch, a little bit smaller. I've had those in for review before, but this new one looks solid, you know, definitely in my mind, I would go with the black bezel, try and get some distance from the Pepsi Coke sort of look. you know, if you're going to compare this to something like a GMT master, even just other GMTs, one, you know, you have to go do the collar flyer thing and decide which one is important to you in the way that you use it, uh, to, you know, there's a big Delta in prices here. We're looking at a little under $2,200 for a SkyQuest currently, uh, in, in their pre-order. And then of course, what's a BB GMT pushes you to about 5 grand or maybe a little less than that right now, maybe it's 4,400 bucks. And then I don't actually know what, you'd pay for a GMT Master II these days, you know, a multitude above that. But I do have a strong soft spot for the Atlas. And the thing to know with Montes, you're getting a watch where all the little, like I said earlier, the touch points, the kind of fit and finish is really tidy. So the other one that's in my list as far as GMT, which is the one that I'm pretty excited to talk about, and I think I will actually miss by just a couple hours this afternoon, is the new Serka 8315. which is a chronometer GMT with a collar style movement. It's basically a development of the Serica aesthetic. I saw a sort of render of it back at Watches and Wonders, and I just think it's absolutely gorgeous. It's super cool. It has its own sort of look. It's 200 meters water resistance. It's a steel case. It's 39 millimeters wide, 12.3 millimeters thick, 46.5 millimeters lug to lug, and they use 20 millimeter lug width, so you can put a bunch of different straps on it, of course. And then this one uses the Soporod C 125 caliber. So it's a four hertz movement, it's cost certified 40 hours of power reserve, etc, etc. You get a ceramic bezel. And this gives you an am pm 24 hour radiation to kind of do a day night with a nice kind of ceramic inlay on that. It's an enamel dial sapphire crystal oversized crown, And if you look at the bezel, you might immediately like I did think, well, it's a 12 hour bezel. Why would you use a 24 hour GMT function for that? But then if you look again, the AM PM delineates on two, six o'clock. So there's actually, instead of showing you 24 hour time, there's sort of roughly something like 12 hours in daytime and roughly something like 12 hours in nighttime. And it's kind of clever that way. It's a neat design. It kind of stands out in that, in that metric. But for me, you're, you know, with these, it's, it's a great price point. It's a, 1575 euros. And you know, your Swiss made two year warranty, it looks like they're going to start delivering in January of 2023. If there's one that you're interested in, you know, they're, they're essentially in, in order. Now you can do a left or right handed crown, which, you know, was a kind of cool thing that they made available previously. And it's nice to see it included on the 8315. Jason, this is one I'm excited about. I think these are stylish. They look different than other stuff. In my mind, these guys kind of managed to do what Unimatic is doing. but with an entirely different aesthetic. Like they're making something that anyone who likes watches can kind of get in on because it's a different avenue and it doesn't cost a fortune, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think so too. And I like that it obviously pulls from a number of influences. I mean, I'm looking at the case and it has those definite Seamaster vibes with the lyre shaped lugs and then this kind of oversized crown and some of the dial markings. kind of feel Rolex-y, but obviously not. They've tweaked it a bit with the way that they've oriented the dial markings. I think two things about this that when I look at it, my eyes go crossed when I'm looking at that bezel. It would take a little bit of getting used to kind of the way that they've got that laid out with the AM and PM as opposed to 24 hour. And then they've done a lollipop hand for the 24 hour hand. I think that would get, it's not quite as clear or legible, I guess, as a nice big arrow. I think to be different, they did the lollipop, but I think, you know, in terms of kind of legibility, I would prefer an arrow, but these are just, you know, quibbles of, of, of mine that I would certainly overlook if I owned a watch like this. I think it's, I think it's beautiful. I think the size is great. The price is fantastic. Yeah.
James Um, yeah, no, this looks awesome. Yeah. I mean, again, this would, this would be a great, great sort of option for someone who wants to track another time zone, but maybe only travels to a different time zone a few times a year. Yeah. Right. Stay tuned later in the show for a development in that space, which many of you already know about, but it's something I've had on our list to talk about for a little while. But as far as the Serica goes, not unlike what they're, what they've done with the SkyQuest, you know, good job on both sides. I, the, the, the look of the Serica really, I kind of attached to it. I love the fact that there's no brand on the dial. It kind of does vintage in a way that doesn't necessarily feel like too much of a gimmick, especially with the ceramic, um, bezel insert and that kind of stuff. So yeah, I, uh, I'm impressed by these. I'm looking forward to get a chance to play around with one. I'm hoping that DHL shows up while we're recording and it can come with me to, uh, to Europe. But, uh, at this point I'm not so sure. So, uh, stay tuned. Eventually. Uh, I'm, I'm very excited to put a story about these out in the next few weeks. So, uh, what else we got on the list?
Jason Heaton Let's, uh, let's jump from the tiny brands to, uh, to one of the biggest, uh, Sure. Pretty interested in these Prospex Cave Divers, they call them. For lack of a better term, they're made for the U.S. market. They say that they've taken inspiration from cave diving. The reference numbers for these three new watches specifically is the SPB349, the SPB351, and the SPB353. These are watches that keep popping up and I keep seeing them and I'm more and more interested as I look at them because this is not a a Seiko case shape that I'm normally interested in. I think collectors used to call this the Shogun case. I believe it's a bit more of an angular modern looking case as opposed to kind of what we're used to with sort of the turtles and the SKX style stuff, which, which, which, you know, admittedly look, uh, uh, dated, I guess you'd call the word, you know, deliberately. So, um, this, this watch case actually looks more, you know, planted firmly in the 21st century. I think it's just got some more angular aspects to it. And what Seiko has been doing a lot lately, and I think this has kind of trickled down from Grand Seiko, is they're playing a lot more with dials and dial colors, which is something that a lot of brands, short of just changing a color, I think Seiko has been trickling down this idea of kind of texturing dials on even some of their Prospex dive watches. And I think they've done a really nice job with these three examples. 6R35 movements with a 70-hour power reserve. It has a date at three, so that might or might not make people happy. I think there's a Cyclops, if I'm seeing that correctly. Yeah, there's a Cyclops on the date. Again, a bit divisive. I think, you know, personally, I think that would be just fine with me. But of the three, I kind of like the mossy green color with that bit of texture to it. I think it's a nice looking watch.
James Yeah, I agree. I think these look great. You know, for me, I've become such a nerd for the the kind of SPB 1, 4, 3, you know, the 20 mass or 22 mass or whatever we're calling them. I do really like these. I just don't know if there's a world in which I'm going to go back to a non cushion case Seiko diver that's bigger than 40.5. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They're big. I know how like almost silly and picky that is because I'm sure these are lovely. I love the idea much like you kind of pinpointed. I love the amount to which they've drawn in a little bit of grand Seiko. with the dial texture and coloring and finish and that sort of thing, while still being kind of nice, two-ish modern dive watches. I could see these being super popular. I'd just be really interested to see how they wear, because 43.5 is the size of a 777, right? Granted, that's what the four are. And those wear really nicely, but I wouldn't say they wear like really small. They just wear really well for their size. But I've owned a Samurai or two, one that was titanium, and it wore just fine. Visually, it looked a bit big for my wrist in a way that the 777 looked intentional. And this simply looked like I was wearing a watch that was a bit too big for me. Yeah. If you know that, like, that's such a subtle derivation. Yeah, I think these are clever. I do like that they're doing more of the limited edition stuff that's available to the U.S. and isn't just Grand Seiko SBGWs, as much as I love those and would like to own one at some point. These are like accessible. They're $1,500. Sure. That's a little on the higher side, but that's also exactly where Seiko is operating these days with the prospect stuff. So I don't think the price point is surprising. And of course they still have a ton of, and we have more in the list, but they have a ton of interesting stuff at the Seiko five level as well. Little special editions and, and mark a special market stuff and that sort of thing. So I think these are pretty promising.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The only, the only thing I can't get my, I can't grow to like about these and it's just kind of a general thing that I have about this handset. Does your Monster have this handset? I've never warmed to this with that kind of really big arrow hour.
James Yeah, it's a different arrow and spear tip hand, but they're not dissimilar. Yeah. Especially when it comes to the hour hand. Yeah. But the original Monster and ones like mine, the SKX Monsters, have sort of a very exaggerated two-sided triangular hand. and then a spear hand, but I would say they're similar to this, but different. I know that's not necessarily helpful, uh, but I'll put both in the show notes and you can click from one tab to another and see what I mean.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think also Seiko, you know, I don't, I feel like we don't see a lot of titanium from Seiko and this, this, these are made from titanium. So I think that should mitigate kind of the big size in terms of wearability should help for sure. Um, you know, we tend to see titanium a lot from citizen these days, but I'm struggling to think of kind of a core collection Seiko that, gets a lot of attention. That's also titanium. And I think that will be a bit of a differentiator along with the dial colors in this. So yeah, cool. Interesting new launch.
James Yeah. And then the next one I wanted to talk about, and we can stay on the Seiko run is this new Seiko 5 Sports 55th anniversary Ultra 7 limited edition. And I'll go right out on the edge here and say, I don't know what Ultra 7 is. I've not seen it. It's a Japanese television show. I'm not sure that would stop me from buying this watch. it's it's referential to, you know, some very early Seiko five models. It's a limited edition of 3400 pieces. It's a standard Seiko five. So it's a SKX effect. But if you go in, it has this very beautiful vintage silver and black dial, a fully marked elapsed time bezel with what looks like a flat sort of crystal on it. And then you have a NATO sort of gray and white and black striped NATO that must make some sort of connection to the show.
Jason Heaton Would you wear that one? Terrestrial defense force.
James Yeah. I don't know if I would. I mean, why not? It's kind of cool. I mean, it's not, I would say it's not, not cool. Yeah. And they have a, yeah, they have a TDF UG on the, on the dial, which I think is actually subtle enough that again, it wouldn't bother me that I don't know what that necessarily references. Yeah. It's just kind of a cool design. I really liked the bezel is what stands out for me on this watch, the dark bezel with the silver dial and of course the steel case. I think it's about 410 bucks is what I'm reading online. But I do rather like the watch, you know, for the money, we're now a third of the cost of those previous ones. You know, this is sure it's a 4R series. It's 100 meters of water resistance. It's a little more casual of a watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah, can't go wrong with kind of that SKX style case. I think that's, Seiko's just pure fun. I mean, when you get to this level with that price, I mean, it's, yeah, that's cool.
James Feel free to check that one out. This is mostly like, I mean, those Seiko 5s are like a known quantity now, even up to the point of the GMTs. So this is more about the dial, the bezel, that sort of thing. And I think they did a nice job making something that stands out while still referencing some early Seiko designs. So yeah, a cool piece for sure. Next up, you want to talk Bremont? Because they've got a handful of exciting new stuff.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it kind of almost feels like the biggest news of the past at least week, I would say, right? They've launched the H1 line, three new watches, as well as Mark Strong as an ambassador, which I actually think found more exciting than anything. I think I love, uh, I love that actor and, uh, I love that little intro video you did for them. That was really cool.
James I agree. Yeah. Mark Strong's awesome. It's kind of the first time that they've put the ENG 300 or a movement based on the ENG 300 into production watches. And instead of putting it back into MBs and, and solos and supermarines, it's three new models, uh, that kind of go up level for a Bremont in terms of a price point. It's three new models, like you mentioned, Jason. And so it's the Supernova, which is their 40 millimeter integrated bracelet. It's kind of like their, I guess, Royal Oak, their Nautilus, but I would say it's more like their Ingenieur. If that makes sense, the IWC Ingenieur, which of course hasn't been around for several years at this point. And then they have a new sort of pilot's watch with a polished case. It's called the Fury, also 40 millimeters. They do it in blue and in black. And I think both of them are kind of gorgeous. like if you wanted to take a solo and go in a more elegant direction. In many ways, these look a lot like some of the work that they've done on the LEs, but in a production model, and then you get this movement. And these are using a movement called the ENG 375, which is the manufacture movement from Bremont based on the D plus K1. You can read more on, I'll include some stories if you want to go into the background of this movement, but they're producing the movement. Um, they've modified the original movement enough that it's considered a different caliber. And it's one that they're making from making an assembling from the T zero level at the wing in, um, in England, we had them on, uh, you know, back when this first announced. So I'll include that as well. And you can hear their technical director, uh, chit chat about how the movement came together and what they've changed and that sort of thing. Anyways, in, in these ones, depending on the spec, it's a date and a power reserve. or a Grand Date and a Power Reserve is what you get on the Supernova as well. And then the third model is the Oddly, which is kind of even dressier than the Fury. And I think it's also a very handsome watch. I think I would lean more towards the kind of more casual Fury or Supernova than the Oddly. But those are the three new ranges. They're all 40 millimeters. They all still use triptych cases. And now they're kind of the first production series that are coming out with uh, this, this movement, uh, that, you know, Bremont spent the last several years getting ready and it originally launched in the longitude. And now we're seeing it in, in some of these, uh, more or less production watches. And, and Jason, what do you, what do you think of these three? How do they hit you?
Jason Heaton You know, at first, um, kind of the first one that I saw was the supernova. And I thought, Hmm, you know, it, it feels a little too kind of me to, um, Royal Oak, but once I kind of dug into it and looked more closely at, at some of the details, I think that the fact that they, are still using the triptych case, which I think is, is just such core kind of Bremont aesthetic. Um, I think it kind of saves it from that. And I think your analogy or your comparison to, to an engineer is, is a little better. I think it feels more burly and, and, um, less precious looking than a Royal Oak. And I don't mean that in a negative sense. I think it just feels more bold. And so I like that. But the one for me is, is the fury. I mean, I, I like more, Classically styled watches and this one just hits the right mark. It's got that kind of onion crown and Right. Yeah, this this really big oversized power reserve Sub dial at the bottom, which I think is really cool. I think that'd just be fun to watch and and wear and and I think It'll go well in a number of different straps. The oddly looks fine and certainly a nice dress watch doesn't hit me yeah, but you know nicely done, but
James It's even dressier than some of the Aircos they've done, which I do really like those because they have just a little bit of casual left in them, whether it's in the dial color or the hand choice or something like that. These are, as far as Bremont goes, very traditional English sort of dressier designs. But if we go back, one thing to be clear is I said that they're all ENG 375s. That's not accurate. The Supernova has the 375 with the big date, and so it's a two-digit date and a power reserve. The other two use the three, six, five, which has a standard date window, like a conventional date window, which is a single aperture, single wheel or single aperture, single disc, and then have a, um, uh, power reserve like Jason mentioned. So for those keeping track, the supernova is black, silver, or blue, a dark blue, and they're $9,000 us. So like I said, it's a, it's a step up for Braymont from the four or 5,000, $6,000 that we'd see common to. uh, these sorts of things, but you're getting a complication, the new movement and all that kind of stuff. Uh, fury is about 6,795. I want to say 6,800 bucks. And then the oddly, it depends on what you pick the steel oddly is, um, is also about 6,800 dollars, 6,795. And then there's a version of precious metal as well. So, uh, I I'm excited to get a chance to see the supernova in person because I think it's one of the stranger watches to come from the brand recently. And I don't mean strange in a bad way.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James I just mean strange, like unexpected is probably a better word, but I'm excited to get a chance to take a look at that. I should have one, you know, in the, in the next couple of weeks to take a closer look at. And, uh, I've seen a prototype of the watch. I was pretty impressed by the overall like fit and finish and how it worked on wrist. Uh, but I'm, I'm excited to see a production one at this point and put a story together. So if you're curious about that, I mean, a $9,000 Braymont is probably going to strike up some curiosity in, in most people, right? Yeah. Because the brand is just so commonly worked. um, kind of one level down from that in terms of their, their price point, especially when we're talking like non, non chronographs. But when you factor, I think when you factor for the movement, especially when you see some of the complexity in the case and then the additional complications, I don't think it's that surprising of a price point. Um, but I think it's when you combine that price point with an entirely different sort of silhouette on wrist, a different risk presence than any other Braymont. It is a brand that's I so commonly, and we've definitely talked about this in the past, but it is a brand I so commonly, attached to a leather watch. Yeah, a leather a leather strap.
Jason Heaton Yeah, same here. Yeah, I think it just looks good on leather on NATO. I mean, I've got my s 2000. I have it on a bracelet occasionally, but it always goes back on rubber or NATO. It just feels right for it. But yeah, you know what I just noticed to on the on the supernova, the black and the white dial have Arabic numerals and the blue has just kind of hash markers, which are markers. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious to see how these take how they'll do. I'm sure they'll do fine among the kind of the Braymont Um, faithful, you know, they have, they have a strong following, uh, around the world, specifically in England, certainly, and also in the U S but, uh, yeah, this is a big move for them.
James Yeah, I would agree. And I think the, the fury in the oddly feel within their normal lane, whereas the supernova feels like they, like they wanted to try something and, and, and also kind of hit on the trendiness of the integrated bracelet thing, which you can't blame them pretty much. Everybody's taking a swing at putting together such as that. So yeah, I think it's worth taking a closer look. Swing by the show notes if you want to see those.
Jason Heaton Where do we go next? We've got, we're kind of all over the map here. We've got inexpensive, expensive, small, big.
James Yeah, there's actually just a brand that I want to shout out because we saw them at Windup Chicago and that's SO Labs. This is one where you really are just going to have to go to the show notes and click on it. You know, their watches are based around these sort of plastic style cases. Jason and I have seen these in person very briefly, but it's a brand that's been on my mind since we saw them back at Chicago. So with Wind Up, you know, starting essentially within a day or two of this episode dropping, I thought we'd get a chance to show them out. You had a chance to see a couple of these. Most of them are limited in some way.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, it was just fun and nice guys that run the company. And I think, you know, look, these watches are not in my wheelhouse at all. You'll never see one of these on my wrist. Just not out of any dislike for them or for the brand or anything like that. They're just they're not my style. I do like their take on it. I think we need more kind of watch brands taking chances, you know, whether it's these guys or brew or, um, you know, like, like the, the, the affordable watch that, that MB and F produced the mad watch.
James Um, yeah, the mad one.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The mad one. I mean, I, I just admire, you know, when brands kind of take a bit of a step, cause this, this is a bit of a risk, right? I mean, it's, it's the colors, it's the time display. Um, it's kind of their general vibe.
James It's very much not starting a watch brand to make a vintage effect diver that looks somewhat like a Submariner. Yeah. Right. And also what they have on their website currently is 175 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a question of getting one before they sell out. It looks from what I can tell, they make about 500 pieces. At least that's what they're showing of, of any given color version. And at $175 in my mind, this falls into like a swatch territory. And that's the exact same mindset where the way I might wear a swatch would be exactly how I'd want to wear one of these Solabs.
Jason Heaton Right.
James Yeah. Super fun. Yeah. So one, one to at least get that on the radar. Uh, but Jason, you can pick our next one from the list if you like.
Jason Heaton I think we both had this Nomos Club 37 millimeter pneumatic. I, I actually had the wrong one listed, but I'm glad you, you put this one in here because I think this is an interesting new release from Nomos. And I think, uh, You know, it used to be a brand that used to pop up more. I think we used to talk about them more and somehow they kind of slipped away. And then this one caught my eye. I liked the look of the bracelet. This blue dial version is just beautiful.
James Yeah. I love the idea of a club with a bracelet. Right. And obviously to go club with a pneumatic, you're jumping up like a club is like $1,400, $1,500 back in the day. But it was also one of the last ones that used a sort of not in-house movement. Um, and, and the interesting thing, I think there's a few things to note about this. One, the case thickness is 8.4 millimeters because the pneumatic movement is so thin. This uses the DUW 3001, which has been in a bunch of stuff. Um, but the movement is only 3.2 millimeters thick, despite being an automatic. Uh, it's a three Hertz movement. These are $3,500, but on a bracelet, I almost think this does something that other Nomal's don't. Like it's, it's a completely different take on, on the, on the format. You're still getting 200 meters of water resistance. I can't decide. Jason, do you think, Jason, do you think that the bracelet looks at home on, on the Nomos or am I so tied to the, the sort of Nomos, again, almost like the Braemont thing where the bracelet almost looks a bit weird?
Jason Heaton It does look weird. It's a little jarring. I mean, when I look at it, I feel like, did someone like try to fit a, you know, Submariner bracelet on a Nomos? Exactly. Although it works, it looks good. But my, it's like my eyes are playing tricks on me when I look at that.
James Yeah, I think these are definitely within the zone, though. You're paying a lot, you're paying up for the movement, like you might be with a Bremont. So you're paying up for the movement, but it's a great size at 37 millimeters, super wearable, it maintains what the what the club was kind of about. You know, I still have such a soft spot for that club with the silvery dial in the orange accent, and in sort of the Cali dial look, and always kind of thinking like, Oh, maybe that's the kind of thing I would buy. And then maybe get the case brushed. I always have a thing about polished cases, especially on like, um, casual watches. And I always thought like with a brush watch, it might settle out a little bit. Uh, but I like these are definitely, definitely on the list. When I saw, you know, Logan did a story for Houdinki and I was kind of like, wait, what am I looking at? Where'd they get that bracelet? Right. And I think, I think they're handsome for sure.
Jason Heaton I remember years ago, Ghoshani had a 36 millimeter club and We both love the watch. She loved the watch. But strangely, even the 36 millimeter fit my wrist better than hers. It just, it had that, those really long lugs. They're always a long case. Yeah. This one, you know, I don't know whose wrist it's on in the photos in Logan's article. Maybe it's his own, but. Yeah, I think it's Logan's. Yeah. You know, 37 millimeters seems right to me. It looks like the lugs are still long, but on the bracelet, it kind of mitigates that because it sort of softens that effect, I guess. Yeah, it's a cool watch. Like I said, I particularly love the blue version, but NOMAS has always done a nice job with color.
James Yeah, I agree. The other one, if we're talking about watches that you're not really sure how they're going to fit, we've got to talk ZRC quickly because I had a chance to experience one of their watches earlier this summer when we were out doing some diving and a project that has yet to be released with our friend, Asha Wagner, and she had a special edition ZRC dive watch. on an Erica strap. There's a photo in my Instagram. You can check it out. And so I've become kind of enamored with this brand over the last several months because it does that doxa thing where you look at it and you make your mind makes all these assumptions about how it will fit. And then you put it on your wrist and it just kind of disappears. Yeah. And you have like a singular experience because they're kind of weird looking. They have dots on the bezel instead of numbers. They come in a few different versions. They actually come in several different versions and a few different sizes. But the one that Jason, you put on the list, thankfully, because I would have put it as well, is this new GF Grand Fonz 38 Heritage. It references a 38 millimeter size, but it's actually 39, the new one. So these are the GF 38163 and 38263, two different dial designs, basically one a little bit more traditional dive watch, very early 60s, I'd say, maybe even very late 50s in terms of a dial design. And then the other one, very classic ZRC with the the big, um, sort of 12, three, six, nine, and then bar markers and dots and these giant hands. And I really find these to be exciting. Yeah. She's just such a cool watch on wrist. Like I put it on and I didn't want to take it off and I took way too many pictures of it and that kind of thing. It's like I said, it's on my Instagram so you can see how it works on a seven inch wrist, the kind of flat bony seven interest, but they wear really, really like surprisingly well.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned Doxa because I think it has that, that same weirdness to it. Um, and it slots into this, this territory of, of brands that were doing things radically different than kind of the Blancpans and Rolexes and Omegas of the day, at least till Omega hit the 1970s. Um, you know, the, the Tritons, the ZRCs, the Doxes, the Aquastars, you know, there were, there were just, these were like hardcore nerd dive watches. And I think that that is, it's just core TGN. It fits right in with us. And I, I, tried one of these on, I think at Basel years ago, someone had one. I don't know if it was at their booth or whatever, but I just remember kind of falling for it. And I think there's so much that's different about this watch that it's, it's incredibly appealing. I mean, the, the, the bracelet itself, um, kind of expands to kind of take up, uh, slack, um, the crown at six o'clock, the, like you said, the dots on the bezel, the lollipop seconds. And I mean, there's, there's nothing about this watch that looks like anything else. And, For that, I think we both love it.
James Yeah, I agree. I mean, they're a little bit more on the expensive side. A little over 3000 Swiss francs is what we're looking at. But if this is a brand where you're like, I have no idea what you're talking about with ZRC, swing by their website and take a look. They do several different versions, some much more modern takes in titanium and a larger size by larger 42 is their big size from what I can tell. And then it comes down to something like 39. I think I think anything any of those sizes would probably wear pretty similarly given the case shape. Um, and I think if you see them, you'd know what I mean, but you know, lots of water resistance, automatic movement, Swiss automatic movements, um, and, and an interesting history that connects back to the French Navy and several like sort of cool, cool other elements. So I think there's a nice little rabbit hole to go down on their website. Uh, they, they responded to my photo with a bunch of emojis. I didn't quite know what they meant. And I said, Hey, you know, if you guys have a review, like a loaner unit or something, let me know. And, uh, and they read the message, but, uh, left it on red. So, Uh, if I can hook up a chance to borrow one for a little while, I'd love to do a story. If it could time out with some diving, maybe early next year or something like that, that that would be even more fun. I think they'd be probably pretty cool to see, uh, underwater and with dive gear and that sort of stuff. So fingers crossed you make that happen.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think Cousteau was our guy. I mean, when, when you look at, I mean, this was a watch that popped up on his, on the Calypso as well as, you know, Doxa, Aquastar, you know, plow profs. I mean, he, he, he kind of, uh, he had the zone. Yeah, exactly.
James And yeah, I think that's the majority of our list. I don't want to, I don't want the episode to be too long as I do have to edit it in a rush on an airplane and all that kind of thing. But I did want to get into one more thing, which I think is maybe the crux of what I'm really talking about is we are right on the edge of what I believe to be, and I hope, let's say we're more hopeful than belief, but what I hope to be kind of a new generation of GMTs. So we now have Seiko, of course, offering in the SKX00 whatever, and I'm sure several other models in the future, offering a solid collar GMT for about 500 bucks. And the other thing I wanted to mention, and several people have written in, I've just trying to, I've been trying to be as patient as possible in waiting for watches to start using it, is this new Miota 9075, which is Miota's answer to an inexpensive or more accessible level of GMT movement. But in this case, it's local jumping. So you have a flyer GMT that's currently in watches right around $1,000. So from what I could find, and you may be able to find some other ones. That's cool. I searched around for a while, the bull of a Wilton, which is a 43 millimeter dress watch, not really my zone. It's 875 bucks, but it uses the movement, the Boulder Odyssey free diver, which I was very excited when I saw the story come out. And then I realized it was 44 millimeters, which I don't think is necessary. Like, Boulder, by all means, make the 44 millimeter. You would know your market better than us. Yeah. But maybe consider making a 39 with the same movement, because I actually think the aesthetic of the Odyssey freediver is pretty cool. It's kind of modern, a little bit of an angular case, nice and legible. I've read lots of good stuff about Boulder, but that's a brand that I've literally never seen like on a table at a red bar. And then the other one I found was this Lipnotic ski. So it's about 925 euros. It's a 41 millimeter, kind of like a super compressor style aesthetic. a 41, like I said, wide 15.5 thick. Those are, those are the ones that I could find, you know, so we're talking all around or in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. The movement itself is a automatic 42 hours of power reserve. It's rated for something like negative 10 to plus 30 seconds a day. So it's a pretty wide Delta, which of course is not uncommon to movements at this price point these days that aren't from say Etta or Salida. You know, in, in some ways this is kind of maybe their yin to Seiko's yang, when it comes to GMTs that could be at a pretty reasonable price point, let's call it under $1,000. And then the reason I'm getting more and more excited about it is not only do we have these two movements, but we also have the ETA CO7 system, which I think we've already started to see Mido start to use again in larger watches, but to a very promising effect. And I'm hoping that we're just a generation or two away from an Ocean Star at 40 millimeters with this movement from you know, some of these more exciting things to kind of come together. And I would love to see the nine Oh seven, five, you know, assuming that micro brands, smaller brands can buy these, how exciting would it be to have a, a Hallios, a Baltic, a Laurier, a CWC, a Scarfa, Raven, Ferrer, like we, I could, we could list 20, 30 brands that could all make a really solid GMT that would just kind of offer a lot for the money. Like you, you remember how big a deal it was when Tudor launched the black Bay GMT. at half the price or even less than that of a GMT Master II. And finally, you could get this movement in a sporty watch that people really wanted to wear with a great aesthetic and a brand that people liked and a good warranty. And I think now we could be talking about most of those things, depending on how you feel about a specific brand. The ones I listed, I'd be thrilled. We might be hitting $1,200 for a great dive watch that could also be a great travel watch that has a nice, reliable Miyota movement And it looks like the movement can fit into the same sort of stuff that other 9.0s fit in. So that's a pretty decent range. That's kind of my pseudo rant, but my rant has one more stanza. I've read every story about these that I could find about this 9.075 and I need to put it out to the industry of other people who write about watches to stop calling these things a pure GMT or a true GMT. I think you're doing your audience a disservice. You know, I see it on Reddit. I see it on forums. I see it in a lot of other trade writing about GMT watches, about travel watches is this idea of those that have a flyer GMT are true GMTs. But the truth is that if you're not changing time zones that frequently, let's say you wanted to use an Explorer to a quote unquote true GMT. Let's say you wanted to use that to follow another time zone. It's actually a bit of a pain to set that up to do that much like it is to do the inverse with a caller GMT, they just, they serve two different purposes. And there's not one that's more true than the other. That's ridiculous. You either need to think of them like, yeah, there's travel or flyer. Sure. There's callers sure. Or office GMTs. I think they've, they've also been referred to in the past or simply you have 24 hour independent GMTs, that being caller or an office, or you have local jumping GMTs, those being flyer. travel style ones that are better for jumping time zones but less useful for quickly adapting to another time zone in the background. That does actually finish my rant but it bugs me that there's one idea that one's true and one's not simply because one's more common to a higher price point. You have to know what you want that function to do for you. In doing some due diligence for the 9075 I saw it referenced so many times and there's so many better ways to promote this to your audience than calling one a true versus the other one not.
Jason Heaton Yeah I mean I think the original um, function or, or need that was addressed by the first GMT watches, GMT master, um, the Glycine Airman, et cetera, back in 53, 54, um, was for pilots that needed a constant reference to actual GMT time, because that's what aviation that's, that's what pilots use. They're always referring to that no matter where they are in the world.
James Yeah. And that's why the bezel on a GMT master spins.
Jason Heaton Well, I mean, I think, you know, this idea that, that when you, when you travel or if you want to track a second time zone, you have to manipulate the GMT hand is not accurate. I mean, if you have a watch with a rotating bezel, use the bezel. I mean, that, that's why it's there. Like if you're always just fiddling with the hand, unless it's a watch like, like your Explorer two, where the bezel doesn't turn, then you do need to manipulate that hand. But other than that, use the bezel. I mean, that that's what they're designed for. And this idea that you can have a, a, a independently adjustable GMT hand, and a rotating bezel, and then you call it a three time zone watch, unless you have a 24-hour scale on the dial, it's only still only tracking two time zones. There's nothing it can point to that has a third time zone.
James Yeah, exactly. I guess in that case, like with a GMT-Master II, if you had the fourth hand set to UTC or GMT and started rotating the bezel, you would have to go backwards from the bezel display if you couldn't remember plus minus what you were from UTC. I do see what you mean by that. They don't have independent scales. It's a, it's a complicated thing, but no one, no one is more true than the other. Right. Yeah. Uh, otherwise like a world timer is what the most true, but then what about the ones that can't do 30 minute or 15 minute offsets? Yeah. Right. So there's only like three watches that are true GMTs. Like it's kind of just silly. All right. Well, rant over. And I think also the main topic of the episode is so that that's a handful of new watches. I'm sure we didn't get to everything. This is just everything that we could, um, we could kind of collect, uh, that had been on our mind recently.
Jason Heaton All right, let's zip through the final notes so you can, uh, you can pack and get on the plane.
James Yeah. Yeah. Better do that for sure. Uh, you want to go first?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, I can jump in. Uh, so I watched a movie last night, um, called the sound of double Oh seven. Now this is, um, it was a fairly highly anticipated documentary, um, kind of in the, in the James Bond nerd community. Um, there's a lot going on these days because it's the 60th anniversary of the first Bond film, Dr. No, 1962. And, uh, Amazon actually, of course now owns the rights to all the films. And, uh, if you're, in need of a 007 binge, um, all of the 25 films are now available for streaming on Amazon prime. That's just an aside. But, uh, if not, you definitely should watch the sound of 007, which is a documentary about kind of the history of bond music. So everything from the theme songs to, you know, the, the score of the movie, um, kind of the composers that some actors, uh, give their feedback. Um, a lot of the singers and performers, you know, everyone from, John Barry, Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, Jack White, all kind of chime in about this. Daniel Craig gives some of his impressions. It's really a fun kind of crossover documentary that kind of crosses over from kind of the music documentary genre and film genre. And I came away from it, I mean, you know, obviously a big Bond fan, but, you know, with an even greater appreciation for the role that the music plays in these movies. Um, you know, there, there were some, there's some great old footage, um, and, and just a lot of. Kind of inside baseball sort of talk about the development of a lot of these songs and, you know, they didn't pull any punches, you know, Barbara broccoli and who was one of the producers of the bond films and the daughter of cubby broccoli, who, who brought, uh, James Bond to the screen, um, you know, talks about, you know, talking to Amy Winehouse about doing a theme and, and, you know, hits and misses when it comes to different performers and that sort of thing. And it just makes for a really interesting documentary. There was one tidbit in there that I enjoyed. And that is that, um, back in, in the early sixties, Michael Caine, the actor was roommates with Terrence Stamp, another British actor. Um, and stamp apparently, um, did a lot of entertaining at their apartment and, and didn't want Caine around all the time. So Caine went and crashed at John Barry's house. John Barry is the legendary composer who scored something like, you know, over 10 Bond films and helped orchestrate the original theme song. Anyway, he was staying in his apartment. Barry was actually composing Goldfinger and Michael Caine said he couldn't get any sleep because Barry was at the piano all night long. And by morning when he got up to make coffee, Barry was still at the piano. He said, listen to this. So Michael Caine was the first person to hear the Goldfinger theme song, which I thought was just fascinating. And Michael Caine actually relates that story in this movie. So that's super fun. Yeah. It's, it's a really great, uh, great film, uh, the sound of double O seven. And I've gotten a number of direct messages and emails and things with people saying, Hey, you should check this out. So I hear you and I did watch it and it's great. Yeah. So check it out. Sound of double O seven on Amazon prime.
James Yeah. Like you, so many mentions, uh, between, we got several into the inbox, uh, several DMS saying we should check this out. So it's on my list. I haven't gotten to it sadly, but I'm, I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it. That, that allows it to move up my list. Yeah. So for my final note this week, it's actually a product I bought recently. I've been on a bit of a tear of late trying to really perfect the amount of gear that I take on a trip. I'm doing more and more travel now, and I'm finding it more stressful than I did before the pandemic to travel. I never quite feel ready. I just feel like I'm out of practice with some of it. And so I really wanted to focus on the stuff that I could minimize to the extent that it would only remove stress. by bringing less stuff. And that for me really comes down to things you plug in, in a hotel room. Oh yeah. Like having a, as, as simple a system as possible. I wanted to get to the point where I pretty much had a, you know, one wall adapter. If I was going to Europe, one little extension cable and then one charging brick that could do everything from camera batteries to my phone, various headphones and my computer, the core of this, after a lot of research and consideration and looking at the different options is the Anker 736. So I think this would be kind of perfect for anyone doing the home and travel thing for your, the second location, your home. If you have a desk where your laptop goes, that's probably where the OEM charger will be. And tons of other cables if your life is like mine, but when you're maybe next to your bed or next to a chair where you like to work, you have another one. I think that's where this would live normally. And then when I go travel, I just unplug it and take it with me, but it's a hundred watt travel charger. has enough juice to charge up a modern high-end MacBook or other USB-C device. It has two C ports, one USB-A port, so if you end up with an older cable or something that just doesn't do the USB-C thing, you've got that. It's not very big, and it's about $80. So you can spend more money for more juice, 140 watts up, but they get quite a bit bigger, and size in a bag matters. Size and weight when you want it to fit into one of those ones on the airplane without falling out immediately. That also matters.
Jason Heaton And this will store a charge. So like it doesn't have to be plugged into the wall to like do charge on the road kind of thing.
James No, this doesn't have the battery built into it. When I bought the 736, I also bought a fast charge capable 10,000 milliamp hour battery. Um, so that can be charged by the 736 and then I can leave and still speed charge through, uh, two devices actually at the same time. Oh, nice. That's what, that was like a no name thing. It just took a lot of, work to find the right one that could charge and discharge on USB-C, which is convenient. And it fits right in that one of the little interior pockets of that alpaca thing. So you've got a new charging solution. If you're nerdy like me and a little bit stressed out about travel, it's actually kind of maybe more exciting than I've made the last few minutes sound.
Jason Heaton Nice. I mean, it's all coming together. You've got your anchor inside your alpaca, inside your temba, and
James Yeah, we're going put put it all together. But yeah, I got I definitely like got to Austria recently and realized like, oh, I have three travel plugs for different things that all have to go into different parts of the room. And then now you get hotel rooms that only have one or two plugs. And it's a whole thing. And I was like, all right, I need to rethink this. And maybe there's a couple other people in the audience who who are thinking about the same thing. I like it when you don't have to buy something specifically for travel. It works just as well at home. And then it adapts nicely for travel. So good use. They're not too expensive.
Jason Heaton That was a good episode, a real heavy-duty watch talk, a couple of solid final notes. You've got a trip to go on, so without further ado, as always, thanks so much for listening. 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, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout a siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James And we leave you with this quote from Marcel Proust, who said, The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.