The Grey NATO – 226 – Pitching The Watches We'd Love To Make (And Buy!)

Published on Thu, 09 Feb 2023 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

The episode begins with a discussion about the changing weather and the onset of spring. The hosts then provide updates, including James announcing he will be traveling to Geneva for Watches and Wonders and apologizing for his controversial comments about babies on flights. Jason shares that he received a Momentum C Quartz watch and will be traveling to French Polynesia for a trip with Blancpain.

The main topic is the hosts pitching their dream watch designs. Jason proposes a 300m titanium "Monanesque" dive watch called the "Sweetwater" with a removable bezel for cleaning, powered by a Grand Seiko 9F quartz movement. James envisions a 200m titanium GMT watch with a unique bezel or pusher function to quickly adjust the GMT hand when traveling, potentially in collaboration with a brand like Braymont or Zenton.

For the final notes, Jason discusses an article about Lakpa Sherpa, a Nepalese woman who has climbed Everest 10 times but works at Whole Foods with little recognition. James recommends a video about driving the Morgan Super 3 car in Scotland.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason 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 226, 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. James, good morning. How are you doing? Not too bad, yourself? I'm doing pretty well. Yeah, it's very melty here. I feel spring coming. Yeah, I think we're getting about the same here. Chilly week last week and then now it's like, yeah, sun's out till 530 and it's a lot of puddles.
James Yeah, puddles, the last layers of ice, that sort of thing. Finally, you know, the Jeep, I came back from that trip and it was just like, you know, inches of pretty hard, heavy ice. The kind of stuff you don't want to remove because it's also going to take paint with it. Yeah. So I just haven't been driving very much, just leaving it there. And it's almost now gotten to the point where I can just brush it off with with a broom or whatever. But yeah, that's always kind of fun. Yeah. With weather out of the way, let's get to the other updates for the show. We will not have an episode on March 30th, which is right during the middle of Watches and Wonders. Actually, it's the second last day that I'll be in Geneva for that. If you're feeling like you absolutely need podcasting with my voice about watches during that time, I highly recommend you subscribe to Hodinkee Radio as we'll be doing daily podcast from the fair, starting on the midday in this time zone, but the evening of the 27th. No episode on March 30th for TGN. We'll be back on April 6th with a Watches and Wonders Megasode. Jason, I'll, you know, kind of dig into anything that we found appealing, interesting, the rest of it. There was some fantastic sort of TGN-esque watches last year, and I'm basically expecting the same for this year. But, oh, the other thing to bring up is, you know, my literal sincere apologies to anyone who I angered With my take on babies in business class, I would say it was like 90% meant to be entertainment. My rants are never that serious. They're never about anything that that important. You definitely don't need my permission, but please, you know, do whatever you want with your baby, including to bring it on business class or first class or whatever you prefer. It was mostly meant to get a laugh out of people, but definitely a few people kind of sought out to set me straight. So, you know, crow eaten as it were. How about you, Jason? Any updates or you want to get into just some more general stuff
Jason I think the day of or the day after you received your Momentum C Quartz, I got one in the mail as well. Oh, nice. And I got it here on the desk and it's kind of what I expected, kind of what I was hoping for. It's a cool watch and, you know, we see a lot of kind of traffic or questions on our Slack group like, Hey, you know, if I just kind of want to grab and go Quartz beater, you know, something affordable, like what do you suggest? And Skirf has always been kind of our default. kind of still is for me, but for sure, this is a strong contender. I mean, for, for full price at 260 bucks, you can't really, you can't really go wrong with it. And it's funny, you know, it, it, it occurred to me too, that momentum is a brand that's been around for a very long time. And, and I see them at the, in the case at the dive shop, every time I go in and I just don't pay much attention to them and the watch, it just sort of struck me that the power of like good design or like nostalgic design that appeals to people's, you know, memories of, you know, in this case, like the Magnum PI show, um, It's so powerful because here's a brand that I would guess a lot of watch enthusiasts haven't really paid much attention to. And suddenly it's like the hottest release, one of the hottest releases of 2023 so far, judging by our Slack group and, and what I'm seeing on social media and how quickly they kind of sold through their, their pre-orders. And you know, it's, it's, it's just kind of funny how that works. Uh, but it's, uh, it was, it was a, it was a stroke of genius for them to release this.
James Yeah. I think it's a winner. I've been wearing it basically since we recorded the last episode. It's been my, my go to for the last several days. I think it's great and I think it's fair to put it in the same sort of realm as the scurfa. I think I would lean towards the scurfa on maybe a sizing and just general how it hits my wrist. But it'd be a really tough pick one between the other, especially if you kind of prefer the look of the momentum over the scurfa, which is, yeah, a little bit more of a late 70s, early 80s vibe, whereas the scurfas are pretty modern. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah.
Jason You're about to head out on a trip, eh? Ghoshani and I are actually leaving tomorrow morning. I'll be halfway to Seattle by this time tomorrow. Um, we're recording this on a Tuesday. Uh, and then from Seattle off to, um, Papiat in French Polynesia on the Island of Tahiti, and then a little hopper flight over to Rangaroa, which is a, it's the, it's the largest coral atoll in, in French Polynesia and a very well-known dive destination for people because of the huge, congregation of different mega fauna, uh, that, that take advantage of the, the tidal flow in and out of the lagoon. And, um, so I'm, I'm really excited. This is a trip, uh, that I kind of hinted at that I'm going on with Blancpain, um, that's taking place next week. I'm flying out a little early. Um, and, uh, there should be plenty of diving going on and then they're having an event, uh, that they're going to be streaming to their boutiques and they're releasing a new watch and there's going to be a lot of Kind of old, you know, old block pond friends to catch up with on the trip. I, I'm not sure who's going on the journalist side of things, but, uh, um, I'll, I'm looking forward to meeting our old TGN guest, Lauren Ballesta. He'll be there with his very nice crack team of modern Cousteau kind of Calypso guys in their red caps, doing some cool stuff there and diving and really excited to catch up with him. And then they're offering a chance to try rebreather diving, which I'm really excited about because, uh, I think, I think rebreathers are kind of, cutting edge kind of the future of diving.
James Black magic as far as I'm concerned. Yeah.
Jason Yeah.
James Sorcery.
Jason I'm excited to try that. So yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm super excited that Gishani is able to come along as well. She's going to be photographing the event and then, so yeah, stay tuned to check out my, my Instagram for, for photos. There'll be a lot of sharks, I'm sure a lot of cool watches. And so I'll be gone next week. You'll be, you'll be having a guest in my place. in my chair, so to speak, for TGN. And then the following week, we'll be back to kind of recap the trip and hopefully maybe run an interview or two from Rangaroa. So that'd be great.
James Yeah. I'm looking forward to this trip for you. Sounds incredible. Uh, certainly, uh, you know, I, I think they, they make an incredible product and, and the ocean commitment stuff's obviously a very successful longstanding program for them. So I'm excited to see it all come together. I'm pumped to see what the new watches. I have no idea. Maybe, maybe you've seen under NDA. I'm not sure. uh I'm pumped to see what whatever is coming up and you know a new Blancpain dive watch is always something to be excited about.
Jason Yeah and it's their 70th anniversary of the 50 fathoms so I'm sure they've got a lot of cool stuff in store for the for the whole year. The other bit um to to tag on to this is that since I'm going to be gone for a little over a week now uh there will be no shipments of TGN kits so if you order well today Tuesday being Tuesday is kind of the last day that I'll be able to get stuff out so if you order Straps or you've signed up for for TGN and you're waiting for your supporter kit It'll be slightly delayed but on the on the good news side of things We do have some new merchandise coming into the oh, yeah TGN shop in about two weeks So stay tuned for that stay tuned to the show where we'll be announcing that probably within within two weeks So I'm pretty excited about that.
James Yeah Yeah, me too some good stuff that we've had in the works for a little while These things never kind of go as quickly as you expect always give you a date and the date kind of moves around and, uh, but we're pumped to have that set up for sure. So stay tuned for that. On my side, the truth is man, since we did the last episode and then it was late because of the trip. So it went up later than it should have. But, uh, since then I haven't really done anything. We've, we've, we've had this kind of a bout of a nasty cold rip through my house. So everybody's kind of recovering from that. And, and so that kind of took the spice out of the weekend. It was kind of a low key weekend for the most part. And then since then just a ton of work getting ready for Watches and Wonders and the rest of it with Hodinkee. So not kind of a ton of fun stuff to announce on my side. I haven't even been rowing as much as I wanted to just because I've been a little bit too congested for it to feel comfortable. But I'm hoping today, but granted my voice may sound super weird on recording, I'm not sure. I think it sounds mostly normal to me, but I'm hoping today I can get back to it. So I've been kind of missing that and enjoying some really good rowing up until just a couple of days ago. I think that's about all I got. All right.
Jason You want to get in some risk check? Yeah, mine's simple. I've still got the 50 fathoms on. You know, I got it a couple weeks ago, took it ice diving. And then of course, it seems like the logical choice for a trip I'm going on with Blancpain. So yeah, that's what I've got on.
James How about you? Yeah, I'm actually just wearing the CWC Royal Navy Diver, the one that you gave me. I'm not super sure why I picked it specifically, but it actually informed something we're going to talk about later in this episode, our sort of hypothetical, you know, pitching our watch ideas out into the world, but I guess mostly I've just been wearing that C quartz 30 for the last little while, and I kind of assumed you would have had that as your pick for today. So I switched, but I wanted to switch to something kind of in the same vibe. So it's quartz. It has that moment style case. I don't know, like as far as like a footprint for a watch, this is like pretty close to perfect. It's great. I have no complaints about it. It's the right size, awesome bezel, great loom. I really do like that it's quartz. I like the fixed bars. It's a good package. Obviously, you can save some money by going with something like the the C quartz, but depending on how kind of into the vibe you are, I think this sizing, this aesthetic and this bezel, uh, do offer a lot of value even at the increased price. Yeah.
Jason Yeah. That's a good pick. You can't go wrong. Such a, such a cool watch. Definitely one of my top fives.
James Well, you want to dig right into a main topic then?
Jason Yeah. I'm excited about this. We were trying to come up with a topic and when you suggested kind of pitching, pitching a watch, you know, as something we would, we would build or we would, you know, hope to buy. We would buy one or the other. is a really fun idea and I kind of sunk my teeth into it, so I'm excited to see what you came up with. We didn't share ahead of time and I wonder how much overlap we'll have. I have some suspicions about what you'll include, but yeah, let's dive into it.
James Yeah, so the idea is pretty straightforward. We have done several different sort of comments on the show or even past shows about dream watches or things that we would love to see a watch brand do. this is more like if a watch brand was like, oh, we'd like to make a watch, you have carte blanche, put a deck together, come in and talk to us about it. This is sort of the audio side of that equation, and it's something that we would like to see, but also something that we would buy. It's a watch that doesn't exist, that if it was announced today, we would be reaching for the credit card, so to speak, right? So that includes everything from maybe an ideal brand that could be the name on said watch, or maybe not so much, but things like specs, design notes, strap choices, things like that. That's all part of the package. So Jason, you want to kick off kind of our first hypothetical pitching our watch ideas pick?
Jason Yeah. It's always been a bit of a insecurity of mine when it comes to, you know, people are like, well, what's your perfect watch? Like I realize how difficult it is to be a designer or like a watch designer. Like I truly have a lot of respect for people that come up with really truly unique watches. And so Mine has some derivative features, but, um, I think I kind of collected, you know, a lot of the specs that are important to me and hopefully introduced some, some new stuff. So assuming this is kind of my micro brand that I'm launching, I came up with the name, uh, this is going to be called the Sweetwater dive watch. Um, Sweetwater is happens to be the name of my, my forthcoming novel, but it's also a alternative term for freshwater or like kind of lakes and being on the great lakes, uh, kind of resident or great lakes region resident and diver. Um, it seemed appropriate to kind of come up with a dive watch that would be well suited for kind of great lakes, wreck diving. And in terms of the specs, so this is going to be a 300 meter dive watch. I mean, you'd expect it would be a dive watch. I'm kind of, that's what I'm into. And, and you know, probably isn't a great surprise to people. I don't want to go crazy in terms of water resistance. So 300 meters is more than enough for anything I would do or most people. It's going to be, so I'm curious how, how this is going to land with you because of a comment you just made a few minutes ago. It's going to be in, in a Monan style case or an MRP style case like the CWC. So that shape. All right. Okay. I considered the skin diver style. I considered kind of the Tano or C C C style case like a Doxa or an old Seiko or something. But, I really, really like this Monin style case that's kind of curvature that they have for the crown guards. So it's going to be in that style case, but it's going to be titanium. Oh man. Yeah. Titanium Monin case, which I don't think I've seen. I don't think one exists. I could be wrong. And if I'm dreaming here, it would have like a hardened coating. So titanium with a hardened coating, um, just to kind of resist some scratching solid case with plenty of space for engraving. So, you know, you want to make this kind of your special watch. You want to put your name or a date or whatever. Um, it's going to have that space, no, no see-through case backs on this one. Um, and just kind of the specs around the outer rim, um, and maybe some kind of a slogan or something, you know, don't hold your breath or, or whatever it might be flipping it over on the front side. Uh, it's going to have, uh, in terms of a bezel, I'm going with I was thinking a coin edge, but I'm actually going to go with kind of that, I guess I would call it like a castellated bezel, almost like what you see on the marathon dive watches. Sure. I know what you mean. Which is kind of similar to what CWC is doing with their, their bezels, but a little chunkier, a little taller, a little more spacing between the grips, but I don't want it as tall as the marathon bezels. I find them a slightly too tall anodized aluminum insert. Um, I want something that'll fade over time. I love the way aluminum bezels kind of fade. You know, as much as I like sapphire ceramic bezel inserts, I'm very happy with kind of an aluminum one. And I'm going to make it a kind of a ghost dark gray color with fully hashed timing scale, a count up bezel, um, with numerals at the quarter hours. And then if it'll fit and I'm all right, we're dreaming here. So it's going to fit a small 12 hour scale for a second time zone. So we've seen these kinds of combination bezels that have the 12 hour scale track a second time zone and a count up scale as well. And my bezel is going to be bi-directional and ratcheting 60 click. I like bi-directional bezels, um, with a good ratchet. I think it's more than, more than adequate. So, okay. Okay. We're on the front of the watch. Um, it's going to have a matte black dial with a bit of a texture to it. Last week, when we talked about your trip to APU, you brought up this Tuscan dial or the, this sort of textured dial. And I was looking into that and, um, it doesn't have to be that, Obviously, but something with a bit of a grain to it, a bit of that sandy sort of rough texture to it with matte black, I think would look super sharp. It's not going to have numerals on the dial. It's going to have kind of a type one Benruth style markings like or like, I guess, Submariner or the Nageur to combat special edition that Blancpain did, you know, that the triangle at 12, the hashes at three, six and nine and then dots for the others. And they're going to be blocks of Superluminova X1. what Vertex is doing. So standing out from the dial, um, with just the slightest hint of tan coloration. So kind of what Tudor did for the LHD, not overly, you know, kind of faux patina, but like just a hint of color to keep it from being too stark and white. Um, and then they should glow bright green, uh, in, in the dark, kind of my value proposition or my unique feature to this watch is going to be that the bezel which I described is going to be removable for cleaning. Ah, okay. So, you know, if you, if you take a watch diving, you know, you can get sand in there. If you're doing it in the ocean, you get salt, uh, salt crystals that dry in there fairly quickly and can actually seize up a bezel. And then you spend a lot of time soaking it or rinsing it to try to clear that out. My bezel is going to have either a bayonet mounting system where you kind of press and turn and it pops out or Uh, a threaded retaining ring. I haven't decided which, um, like I said, I have to talk to the engineers about that. Um, something that you could spin off a retaining ring to pull the bezel off to, to easily rinse it and clean off the bezel and put it back on. So that's kind of my very dive specific, uh, feature to this. It's going to have drilled 20 millimeter lugs with those 1.8 millimeter shoulderless spring bars, kind of like Rolex spring bars. So sure. Not fixed bars, but. as close as you can get and yet still easy enough to kind of swap straps. And the strap I'm going to fit with this watch is going to be a kind of a supple rubber strap like what Omega is doing on the latest generation Seamasters, that nice soft rubber. But I want those expansion accordion vents that kind of Seiko is known for or Citizen that you can stretch out to take up slack over a wetsuit sleeve. Sure. And then I'm going to package it with an extra long tail section that you can swap in for diving with a, like a dry suit or a thick wetsuit. So you can just swap the six o'clock side to get that extra length if you need it. And then of course I'll package it with a gray, I'm going to do a gray ribbed NATO strap with titanium hardware as kind of a second, second strap in the box. Okay. No date. Uh, in terms of the hands, they're going to be, kind of a modified sword, sword slash ladder hand. So kind of what, if you look at the S 302 that Braymont does sort of that style, a hint of elegance to it, but very, very legible, very, you know, very visible hands. Uh, the watch will come in a Pelican ruck case with a separate little neoprene pouch for the watch so that you can reuse the ruck case for your, you know, save a dive kit, your tools and things that you want to take on the dive boat. And then the all important, the movement. So this watch, I've worked out a deal with, Grand Seiko to provide their 9F85 quartz movement. So it's gonna be a Grand Seiko 9F quartz movement, uh, which is rated for plus or minus 10 second per year accuracy. Okay. And it has an independently set hour hand. So you can quickly change time zones as you're flying or traveling. And the movement is going to be held in place with a rubber movement holder. So, you know, good shock protection, high accuracy, very reliable. And then also in the package, I'm putting in a spare, like a second five-year battery, spare battery, a case opening tool and a case back gasket. So, you know, you can, your first kind of battery change, you can either do it yourself or take it to a watchmaker and you've got the correct battery and a spare gasket. And, uh, and you're good to go for, you know, 10 years out of the box with, with this watch. So, okay. And I'm hoping to come in with a price of $1,999. Okay. So you've got a GS quartz.
James Going in a titanium Monin case. Yeah. How big is the case? The standard about 40?
Jason 42 by 48 lug to lug. Okay. And 11 millimeters thick. So pretty much dead on with, with kind of the CWC or the C quartz kind of size.
James So, okay. And the dial is black with a texture and a gray bezel. Yep. Yep. Hands are all loom matched off white.
Jason Yeah. Yeah. That kind of same slightly tan off white, um, as the markers, which are three dimensional.
James Okay. And the watch brand or the watch is called the sweet water.
Jason The watch is called the sweet water. I'm not sure what the brand is going to be. And it's going to be a sterile dial. So no, no name on the dial. I mean, my idea is that if this is a micro brand and I'm all for people taking pride in their names, but you know, name recognition will be, head-scratching anyway, so why even bother putting the name on the dial? I don't need people to see the name. They can kind of know what it is.
James I love it. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool, man. I think that could be really fun. I think the quartz angle with the high-end quartz and then with the service kit is pretty cool. What does Grand Seiko sell that movement in? Around two grand, three grand probably?
Jason Yeah. I mean, their, their court stuff yet generally goes for about three grand, I would say maybe four between two and four, I would say. Um, maybe my price is a bit optimistic, but I really want to, you know, as a, as a unknown entity, I'm, I'm, I'm going to kind of keep pricing down at least for my first offering, kind of get people in the door.
James I like it. That's a cool idea. And it would you make, um, just a few of them or you figure it'd be, this would be something to sell in production.
Jason Um, I think, you know, pending my, uh, my, my seeking out of investors for this. I think we could probably just do a first run of, you know, maybe let's try for a, for 500, 500 pieces. I like it. I like to see where it goes from there. Maybe do a second run with a different color. Maybe it's a Navy blue or, or something like that.
James Yeah. Navy blue and titanium is pretty hot. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, that's cool, man. I can't, I can't argue with any of that. And if you want, we can jump into mine. We'll get a giggle. Cause I don't think people will believe that we didn't talk before this. Oh really? Mine's pretty similar. Okay. So I'm gonna make some adjustments as we go, but I'll let you guys know what I'm adjusting so you can. I do swear on the show that I told Jason to... I gave Jason the pitch and told him not to put it in the Google Doc that we share, and mine is also not in the Google Doc. The first line of mine is 39 millimeter titanium Monin case. No way. Yeah. So yeah, mine is a riff essentially on the CWC, but in titanium. unbelievable and in more of like like imagine if you took the ccwc rural navy and crossed it with a pelagos yeah yeah that's kind of the core of the aesthetic you can imagine i don't really at this point i the dial could be gray it could be black it could be white yeah none of that really bothers me i think it would work for all of those but like the the core structure is like it's a slightly smaller moaning case in titanium still nice and thin yeah it's a 200 meter dive watch I think if we, if you guys want some variety, so we're not both talking about titanium moaning cases as clearly we're drinking the same water or whatever. My alternative, the one that was also in my mind the whole time is imagine just a slightly massaged, you'd like Benris case. Sure, yeah. So a little bit thinner, a little bit shorter lug to lug and a little bit not quite as wide. So do that in say 39 and still do the drilled lugs and the nice simple finishing and the rest of it, that would be great. So take your pick either of those. Overall, a very MOD looking watch. So it'll be matte, nothing especially super shiny about it. You're not gonna have applied numerals, it'll be painted numerals, simple sword style hands, but everything again, like super matte, think the first Pelagos, but kind of crossed with a CWC Royal Navy or like an MOD style diver. Yeah. I'm gonna go no date. In my mind, it's kind of a gray on gray on gray being titanium. So the bezel's a gray, the dial's gray, but like I said, that could be a white dial, it could be black, not that big a deal. Yeah, it's going to be a 60 click dive bezel loomed, fully graduated with a ceramic insert. Again, that's Matt. So again, very similar to what we have on any of the current Pelagos. And in the past I've and it's a watch that I still very much like, but like for I didn't want to rehash GMT Pelagos two, which is what I hypothesized or dream dreamed of last year from Tudor. Yeah, but this is sort of an expression of a similar thing, but we're about to get to the kind of The crux of yours is the 9F movement, I guess, and mine has a little twist as well that I'm not even sure is possible. I mean, I'm sure anything's possible, but I'm not sure it's actually possible. So the idea here, it's a 200 meter water resistant watch with the goal of being as thin as you can make it. So I said, ideally, the ceiling would be 11 and a half millimeters so that you could wear it on a NATO and it wouldn't wear any thicker than a slim Seiko diver and feel So that would be, again, on titanium. Take your pick whether in your mind's eye it's the Monin or the Benris case. It's up to you. Yeah. Yeah. It would come on a NATO, again, with titanium hardware, but the spring bars wouldn't be fixed. So if you want to switch it to another strap, you absolutely could. And I think if it was something that wasn't just a limited edition, I would offer a bracelet as well. The Monin, I would want a sort of probably like a mesh, maybe with a fitted end link of some sort. Oh, yeah. And if we went with the like the Benris style case instead, I think I would try and do like a recreation of the Orphina bracelet that was used for like the Porsche design chronograph, because I think that would kind of line up in the era correctly, aesthetically. And then we'll get to the fun part. So we're talking hypothetical, and it's definitely hypothetical. I have it designed so that this is a GMT, but it's a GMT more in a travel timer, similar to what you have in the Aquanaut. So rather than having another 24-hour hand, it's another hand with its own day-night indicator. That's meant to be more about how easy it is to set. Yeah. And my dream is a GMT watch that you don't take off your wrist to set. Yeah. So in this one, obviously the bezel, you rotate it one way and it changes the elapsed time. Yeah. But if you rotate it clockwise, it advances the hand forward. Wow. One click for one click. So you wouldn't have to rotate it very much to do even 48 wouldn't be a full turn.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
James right? So if you want to circle, you know, or 24 wouldn't be, would be, you know, a very limited 24 clicks would be 24 minutes, right? Right. So there's no date to account for. So I think I like having a date on GMT, but if I could have this functionality, I wouldn't care. There'd be a little indicator that would go from black to white or whatever to show you a MPM of the additional hand, but it would be like the aquanaut where you can just leave the hour hands on top of each other if you want to hide it. So you'd, so imagine this, this is how you're using it. It's a beautiful, simple, not flashy titanium dive watch with a dive bezel and you land in another time zone that's five hours ahead. You click the bezel five hours for or five clicks forward and the hand leaps five forward and you're done.
Jason Wow. The bezel controls the GMT hand.
James The second hand. Yeah. Wow. So one direction changes turns the actual bezel for the dive elapsed time. Yeah. But if you go clockwise on the bezel, you advance the hour hand. Sure. So sure, if you wanna reset or let's say somehow you're... It was actually just a couple hours behind you, you'd have to go all the way around, but if it was one click to one click, who cares? It's not that much work. Yeah, yeah. You're still not turning the bezel all the way around, that would be 60 hours. Sure, yeah. Of advancement. Yeah. So maybe you could split that up, so it'd be two to one. So full rotation would be 30 hours. You click it twice, maybe one to load, one to execute the actual mechanical function. Oh yeah. But this is kind of something I've dreamt of for a long time. There have been watches in the past that used the bezel to change the time zone hand, like most recently the IWC time zoner. Yeah. But that was... I don't wanna be unfair to IWC, I believe that watch was like 17 millimeters thick. Yeah, big one. And it still tried to be a world timer where it had to account for DST or not. I wanna remove all of that. We do live in a time where you know what time it is where you're going, either your phone tells you the clock at the airport tells you whatever, or you know that, you know, it's GMT plus one. So it's six hours ahead. Yeah. And this way you're just doing the six clicks. Sure. Yeah. Watch doesn't come off your wrist. You don't affect the timekeeping in any way. The second hand doesn't stop and that sort of thing. And obviously if you want to change what would then naturally become the home time, you can do that with the crown if you needed to. And at that point the hands are matched. Yeah. So similar functionality to the, like an Aquanaut travel time or 5164. but you can't go in both directions. You don't have a date. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a, I think it, it limits some flexibility, but what you gain in simplicity, you know, it's a trade off, right? You get, you have one or the other and this way you're not integrating buttons or the rest of it. But like I said, yeah, you're able to control it via the bezel when you land in a new time zone.
Jason Yeah. Yeah. And who's making this movement? I mean, who do you, who do you see, who are you going to approach to develop this for you?
James I mean, I think the watch could be a Braymont. Yeah. and they now have the capacity to do things like this, so maybe that's an option. I also think the watch could be quartz. Yeah, yeah. And this function is customized, so maybe it's a citizen that you make with Miyota, right? Right. And they manage the quartz or the mechanical side of it. I do like much to what you said, if it was gonna be... What I have written here is if it's gonna be my own brand, it's just not gonna have a brand.
Unknown Yeah.
James I'll find a name for the watch, right? The Easy Flyer or whatever, some cool kind of late 60s sort of thing that connects to the idea that like it's, you know, go and use it and it's just meant to be easy. But I want, I see this as sort of like the skin diver version of a GMT master. It only shows one time zone. It doesn't really do 24 hour time, but it's meant to be so much easier and lighter and out of your way. And in my mind, it would probably be, you know, like two to 22 Zen could probably be another host brand for something like this. Right. And then at that point, then you have access to a bunch of other cases. like I could be flexible, the Monin one, I think you claimed it, so I shouldn't, I shouldn't. So let's say we go to the Benris. Yeah, yeah, but I think, you know, Zen, then you could go, you could go titanium, you could go with with the heart. I didn't even think of having it hardened. So I think if it was quartz, realistically, it'd be like in the two thousand to three thousand range. Yeah, because of this weird complexity and then I think if it was if it was mechanical, I think unfortunately you'd still be looking at it, at least in the range of a Black Bay GMT. So let's call it between five and six thousand dollars.
Unknown Okay. All right.
James I'd like it to be less. It's just it's one thing to make a dive watch and put a movement in it, even if it's a cool Grand Seiko movement. It's another thing to be like, hey, I made up a sort of weird complication. That's probably not that easy to engineer. Yeah, right. Let alone make it thin and the rest of it. But this is what I'm pitching and man what I wear that watch. I would just, I would play with that function too. One way for the dive bezel, one way for the GMT.
Jason So I'm thinking about this. And when you mentioned this complication, I thought brilliant. Love it. I'm picturing that, that, that 24 hour hand or, or sorry, that second hour hand. But I was envisioning, you know, and I picture the Monan case, I was envisioning the, you know, we've talked about the Kronosport UDT where it had the pushers were at like the bottom of under the crown. Absolutely. I thought, I was imagining you saying that you could operate that hand with a pusher.
James I think that's an option too. I love the idea of it being on a bezel, but I think the pusher... It might be cheaper to develop, maybe.
Jason Oris does it with a pusher. Yeah. Like you could do the pushers at the lower, like as a little homage to the UDT, you could put the two pushers at the bottom, like at what would it be, seven o'clock and five o'clock, like the UDT.
James Yeah, like how Oris does it. To go forward and back. Yeah. And then, of course, like Glashutte original, they did the Sport Evo GMT, which our buddy Paul Hubbard had one, and that was push button GMT with a big date, and I think it went in both directions. Don't count me on that last one. Paul will correct me on Slack, I'm sure. Wow. So those sorts of... The push button does make it, I think, even more possible. And obviously, like you just talked about having a dive watch and wanting to be able to remove the bezel to clean it, so putting a mechanism under there, is it smart? No. Yeah, it's really dang cool. I think yeah, yeah, but no it could it could be a button I'm my preference again wouldn't I don't know that I don't know that in my mind And I have a lot of experience with GMTs are my favorite Yeah, I don't know how much I care about how much work it is to bring it back home. Oh sure It's about how easy it is to when you land and go to the new time zone. Yeah You know if I have to reset a watch back to home time I probably come home and take it off and it winds down right right right? It's for me. It's that first. It's it's it's leaving home and getting somewhere new and how easy is it to just get it to that time zone and keep moving? Yeah. Can you do it in the in the minute that you have where you're taking your headphones off and you're just finishing packing up whatever you had out for the flight, but you can't yet set stand up and get your bags and the rest of it. Yeah. Yeah, but I agree. It could definitely be on a button. I definitely there was a side of me that wanted to go into what I would do to make a new Kronosport UDT, but really make the exact same thing again. Yeah. Yeah, I freaking I love those hands. I love that the little screen yeah in that case with the pushers. It's great. So yeah, I mean, I think that could be an option. I also don't know like there's probably a world in which that could be a court's movement. Like imagine you did the same thing, but you tied it to like the kinetic GMT movement from the sake of that the s u n o two three have yeah, but made the hand on a pusher and gave it to that's a twenty four hour hand, which would be fine. I suppose right sorry, the GMT function on that watch uses a 24-hour hand. You'd still be adjusting the local hand. Right, right. I'm derivating at this point, digressing as I do, but I would love to see that movement in more watches as well, that one that Seiko makes. But yeah, so I mean, both of ours have local jumping for hours, which is nice. I think, I don't know, I mean, I think both of these are pretty cool. Yours is probably the more realistic, more possible sort of thing, maybe with the exception of the GS. I don't, I have no idea if they sell that movement to others. Yeah. Like, I don't know if there's an NH version. I'm almost certain there isn't, but I'm not, I'm not sure that there isn't a, that there's a NH version of the 9F, but maybe you could get the quartz that's in that Dolce I have.
Jason Yeah. I think the reason I, you know, that was almost an afterthought, the grand Seiko part of it. Cause I was thinking, I want to make this watch this really, I wanted it to be kind of a rugged do anything watch with some, levels of interest to it. And I knew I wanted to have a quartz movement in it. Um, and if I didn't go with grand Seiko, I'm sure my price could come down. But yeah, I think if you're talking courts like the, I was going to say, Oh, Rhonda Swiss or, you know, a bright link super courts. Yeah. But, but then I was like, if you're really, if I'm aiming for the moon here, like grand Seiko courts is just the, and the fact that it has an independently set our hand and then that incredible accuracy, but you're right, they probably don't provide that. In which case, a good, a good high torque quits, you know, Swiss movement or something would be just, yeah, just fine.
James But I also think that this is a little bit of the fun of the format, right? You know, it's one thing to, to offer up like what we do with Hodinke, where we offer a guest at what might come out and do a little Photoshop and it kind of has to be possible. Yeah, this doesn't, this is just our pitch. I mean, I would definitely wear yours. That sounds like fun. I'm assuming my little GMT function doesn't get gunked up with sand. Like the first time you use the watch at the beach. Yeah. Uh, then cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason That's fun. I had a good time with that. I think it's cool that, uh, that we both ended up with, with titanium Monin cases. And I think, Hmm, if anybody's listening to this and they want to do it like a TGN, they want to pitch a TGN collaboration, watch, you know, come to us with a, with a titanium Monin case. And you're, you're halfway there with us. I think that's a, it's a neat idea. What a neat concept. Cause I don't think one exists in this case in titanium.
James I love the idea of the Monin in titanium. I would definitely like something like that. would just blend so many good elements into one watch. Yeah. Yeah. I am interested. We have a few minutes here and it's something that comes up on the TGN Slack now with some frequency, the idea of us doing like a collaboration. And I'm genuinely open to your opinion. You and I have talked about it a bit. And I think I've said in the past, like, I don't know that I want to see TGN on a watch dial. I don't think it'd be cool. No. Right. Yeah. No. Yeah. Like I'm not saying I wouldn't want to make it or like have some design input on an interesting watch that could sell to a few people. Yeah. You know, the slack crew, the rest of it, I would want to go the opposite direction in terms of branding. Like, yeah, leave it on the buckle on the NATO. Right. Right. Right. Or maybe on the case back or, or maybe as an Easter egg or something. Yeah. I do love the idea of being able to do something like that in a very limited sort of product. I like it less as soon as it's like, it has, it's like the TGN watch or something. I don't know that that feels deeply on appealing to me.
Jason Yeah, I agree. I mean, I know the Domino's Rolex appeals to people, but you know, TGN Rolex would just, I don't know that that logo on the dial is just, it's, it's over the top. It's too much. I agree. I don't want a gray NATO watch. I think if, you know, I know we've had a lot of folks on Slack and certainly we've talked up Skrfa a lot and I had chatted with Paul and you know, we briefly kind of floated this idea of like, Hey, let's see if we can make something work. And he's like, you know, can't do it. Just, I don't know the bandwidth, but. Yeah. Um, you know, never say never, but I think, uh, that would be the route to go rather than like develop something from the ground up and call it the gray NATO watch. I think that would be, yeah.
James Yeah. Or, or even take it. Imagine if you took a scurf and just put the TGN logo on the case back, like, yeah. Why? Yeah. Like Paul's already made a fine product. Why would we put our, you know, like it's nice to talk about it. It's a different thing to be like, right. Oh, we have to have our logo on that as well. Like it's, you know, a t-shirt or a sticker or whatever's cool. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I'm weird about that. Maybe it's a sensitivity from how popular the idea of like the collabs are these days, you know, obviously work with her dink. You know, he does a ton of them and I think that's a very high bar. Yeah, the ones that they do, but I also think it's different when you're talking about like the economy of scale between a plucky podcast and something like her dinky. So right. I would like to see either of these watches become a reality or maybe it's a blending somewhere of the two, but I think yours is probably the more, the more realistic and possible. So who knows? Maybe someday we'll, we'll be, uh, you know, yeah. Taking pre-orders for a hundred sweet waters. Yeah.
Jason Right. Right. I'm thrilled with, with how this turned out. I think, uh, I think people are going to have fun with this and we were, I can't wait to hear some of the feedback in the comments. I I'm, I'm sure this is a, a late night insomniac musing, that most watch nerds have had. Oh yeah. You know, you just start to cook up your, your dream watch.
James So good times. And it's definitely become like a recurring topic in the Slack where someone says, Oh, if only this was the changed about this watch, I'd be there. And then, and then, you know, it is that another one of those sort of like sitting around the bar conversations of, well, if you had a unlimited budget, what three cars would you buy? Or, you know, what part of the world would you live in? Or, you know, where would be the first 10 places you would travel or whatever? And it's, it all just kind of plays into that kind of stuff. So I, I definitely find that it's the sort of thing that I'm doing a lot when my brain is in a passive mode. I'm just like looking at a watch or I glance at my watch and go like, Oh, I like that case.
Jason It'd be cool in titanium. Yeah. And I remember, you know, in conversations in the past with, with people like Don from Vertex or Rick from Synchron, you know, slash Aquastar, like when they're kind of in those gestational phases of coming up with ideas, how I truly have such respect. As I said at the top of this, for people that, that come up with this stuff, they have a blank sheet of paper and they're like, here's what I envision because it's, it's much easier said than done. And then you throw in something like a complication, like my, my hypothetical removable bezel. I remember I had the auto Zilla from citizen years ago and it had that, it had a threaded retaining ring that you could take the bezel off to clean. And I thought that was such a neat idea. It was this neural, ring that you just unthreaded and then the bezel lifted off. But something like that, you know, I can dream it up, but like to, to find, especially at the micro brand level, a manufacturer that'll be able to make that a reality or your complication, your movement complication is just like, yeah, imagine. Yeah. So yeah.
James Good times. It's unlikely, but that's, that's what, maybe that's why they don't exist already. Yeah. Right. Right.
Jason All right. Final notes. I came across this article and I, I, I'm suspecting it'll be paywalled for, for a lot of people, but maybe people have a subscriptions to the New York times or can come across it in another way. Uh, it was an article called the queen of Everest trains while working at whole foods. And it's an article about lock by Sherpa who is, uh, uh, a Sherpa woman, uh, who grew up kind of in the Manaslu region of, of the Himalayas and, uh, ended up uh, immigrating to the U S uh, and settling in Connecticut through various, uh, sort of twists and turns in her life. And, and she ended up, you know, working as a stock person at whole foods market there after working as a, as a house cleaner and, um, her ex-husband and she had a roof, a roofing business and she was, you know, maybe appropriately climbing ladders with shingles on her shoulders to like re reroof houses, et cetera, but an entirely unsung person who has struggled to get any sort of sponsorship. In fact, she doesn't have sponsorship and yet she has climbed Everest 10 times, which is the record for women. Wow. And I, I vaguely recognized her name, but she's truly like a legend when it comes to Himalayan mountaineering. And she actually guides clients, uh, to, and she takes the money that she makes from doing that and, and puts it into a college fund for her daughters. But in terms of her own income, I mean, she's, she's kind of living paycheck to paycheck, uh, you know, stocking shelves at, at whole foods market and was laid off for a while and, and it was kind of between jobs. And there was this sad and ironic bit in this article about how she was cleaning someone's house. And one of her clients was like, Oh, your last name is Sherpa. Do you know anybody that has climbed Everest? And she's so humble that she was like, yeah, I know a few people like my cousin or whatever. Like, I mean, this woman's climbed it 10 times. Yeah. Um, It's, it's just a remarkable story. And when I think about the, I don't want to be unfair to people like, you know, Kristen Harla or NIMS or, you know, any of these, these people that are getting a lot of attention for, for climbing mountains and doing extraordinary things. But it's just seems like a crime that, that Lakpa Sherpa is not getting the same level of attention. And hopefully this article, which is a fairly long, well-written piece with some photos, uh, will result in some, some attention for her because, uh, truly an amazing person.
James Yeah, this is an incredible story. I saw it linked in the show notes and clicked into it. I didn't hit a paywall for what it's worth, but maybe I had one of the freebies or whatever that, uh, that it works. And I got about halfway through it before we had to record. So I'm looking forward to finishing this story. And, uh, it's both, it kind of really runs the line between inspirational and kind of like, wow, the world's definitely not a fair place.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. Right. Because you think if somebody could do Everest 10 times, somebody would be sending them back for an 11th time pretty quickly. A watch brand, 20 different brands, whatever. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. But maybe it's just not necessarily the way it works out, and certainly the mountaineering world has always, in its past, slanted towards wealthy, white, male adventurers, right? And it's kind of has been the core that's changed more and more recently, which of course is a great move. And then there's this whole sub story to talk about in for the world of the Sherpas and how they relate to mountains so much differently than any of us ever will. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting to see the whole foods angle kind of play into that. It's this is a kind of a fascinating story. I highly recommend it for sure. And I agree if if there's brands out there looking for an inspirational way to attach yourself to what seems like a pretty safe bid. On Everest 10 times, right? Goodness sakes. Yeah, she knows what she's doing. And maybe look up Lakpa Sherpa. Yeah. All right. Mine is a video from the Collecting Cars YouTube, which I've really been enjoying because they've started doing video versions of their car podcast, which is currently being called something like Collecting Addicts or Car Addicts, something like that. And those ones are fun because it's Chris Harris and four other guys just kind of talking on Zoom. Yeah. And if you really enjoy the car market world and car enthusiasm, I think that they always have a great conversation, but they also do some pretty good videos. And Jason, I know you must share this with me, but I have a soft spot for the Morgan three-wheeler.
Jason Oh, I love it.
James Yeah. And so I've read just about everything that Alex Roy has ever written or, you know, said about his three-wheeler experience. He, you know, famously it was like a sixth or seventh car for him and he would occasionally drive it around Manhattan and it never completed like any journey. Yeah, but it was always you know the sense of occasion. He said you could park it anywhere pretty hilarious for those of you who don't know. Morgan is a kind of old world car manufacturer based in England and one of the cars they make is a three wheeler and it kind of looks like a Spitfire with no wings and a kind of enlarged front, you know landing gear that wraps around and a semi exposed engine, the engine and they recently made the Morgan Super three, which is kind of the first major update to the to the three wheeler. And the super three is a little bit more refined, a little bit more modern in terms of it's not it's a couture months. It's still like a it's a roadster. It's a two person that uses a little tiny Ford three cylinder motor and the transmission from a Miata. And of course, you have three wheels. So you're kind of there's two in the front and one in the back. So you get the stability, but also there's no way to get around a pothole if you think about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think these are hilarious. I absolutely love them. I have to presume that, you know, the joke that I've heard online, whether it be from Alex Roy or smoking tires, like these are great six, seventh, 10th cars. Nobody's using one of these as their daily necessarily, but I do really enjoy these. I think they're super funny and really, especially when it comes to the super three, really good looking car. Yeah. And so for this video for collecting cars, they took the car for a drive up into the area around Edinburgh, which is called the Beacons. I think it's just... I looked on the map, so I'm fairly certain that where they went in this video is just west, maybe northwest of Edinburgh. Yeah. And they took out this car, which has no roof, no option of a roof. I'm not sure that it has a heater. And they took it out in winter and they did a road trip up to the Beacons to try and get a photo for Instagram. And it's the story of their host, whose name is James, kind of showing you how he packs, because there's obviously not a lot of storage in the vehicle. So showing you how he's packed his various things, and then some of the experience of driving it in bad weather, in the rain, in the sleet, in sub-frozen temperatures, and the rest of it on this trip. And I really enjoyed this video. I actually watched it twice when I realized I could talk about it on Final Notes. It was really cool, a fun mix of like a road trip and a car review and a vlog. I love the car. It's in this really cool color. It's got kind of a French treatment for the lamps and the visors. So they're yellow. Yeah. I'm, I'm very much about it. And I hope that collecting cars keeps making videos like this. It was, it was super watchable.
Jason Oh, I can't wait to see this. I love the, uh, I love the Morgan three. And, uh, I remember Henry Katchpole did a nice video driving one of these, uh, last year at some point. And, um, Oh, for sure. I like Morgan in general. I just think it's such a cool throwback company that, yeah, me too. Um, I can't get enough of, so. Yeah, that's a that's a definite watch for me.
James They had two or three different names for it, but Morgan Super 3, find it in the show notes from Collecting Cars YouTube and then Jason's The Queen of Everest trains while working at Whole Foods. Definitely start there and then hop over to the Morgan Super 3. It was kind of a fun pairing for sure. Good story and a fun video. But, as always, thank you 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 yourself a new TGN signed NATO, or hop into the crew slack, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
Jason And we leave you with this quote from Adam Judge who said, The alternative to good design is always bad design. There is no such thing as no design.