The Grey NATO – 236 – The High/Low Watch Collection Challenge

Published on Thu, 27 Apr 2023 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

This is episode 236 of The Graynado podcast, where Jason and James discuss topics related to travel, adventure, diving, and watches. The main topics in this episode are:

  1. A discount offer from Giant Mouse Knives for TGN listeners during an upcoming watch show.
  2. Jason's new Marathon Navigator GMT watch and his impressions of it.
  3. A "high-low" challenge where Jason and James pick one high-end watch around $10,000 and one low-cost watch to make a two-watch collection.
  4. Jason's final note recommending the stand-up comedy special "Hello World" by Nate Bargatze.
  5. James' final note recommending the book "The Apollo Murders" by Chris Hadfield.

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 236 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're interested in supporting the show directly, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. Hey Jason, how's it going?
Jason Heaton It's going pretty well. According to this I think well in advance of its actual go live date. So, um, yeah, a week early, you know, we've gone from, from snow to heat back to snow and now it's warming up again and, and who knows what it'll be by the time this goes up. But, uh, I will be in Scotland, uh, by the time this one, um, hits people's ears. So pretty excited for that.
James Yeah. Like you said, you know, with us recording this one a week early to cover for some of that travel, it kind of changes the intro, not much use for the weather and, and that sort of thing. And really no kind of distinctive news or or whatever, roughly around the time this episode comes out, there'll also be a Q&A coming out. So if you're on the supporter side of the equation, expect to see the March Q&A shortly. We got some really great questions in there. So definitely looking forward to recording that and having it up roughly around the same time this goes out towards the end of the month. Yeah, I guess we've talked about you prepping for the trip over the last couple episodes, and at least as people are listening to this, you're already there. So I'm sure Scotland is, of course, lovely. Right. We do have kind of a cool offer. It's not something we do that often, but a friend of TGN and a supporter of TGN reached out to us with sort of a deal on some cool stuff and some product that you and I really like. You want to fill people in on that?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Jim, who works with Giant Mouse Knives and is a avid TGN listener and a good member of our Slack community, et cetera. He told us that giant mouse is exhibiting at the windup show in San Francisco, which, um, as this episode goes up, I believe on the 27th, um, we'll be starting, uh, the very next day and kind of in honor of that and, and, uh, in honor of his, his love for, for TGN and our community, he's offering a pretty substantial discount on any giant mouse products. either at wind up in San Francisco, if you happen to be going for it or if you, if you're ordering online. And, um, so kind of the details that Jim provided to us, and we, we thank Jim a lot for this. This is, this is really generous and really great of him to do. It's a 30% discount code that will run during the same days as the San Francisco show. So that's April 28th to April 30th. So I believe that's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And, um, this is open to any TGN members to use. And also then if members attend the show, the wind up San Francisco show, you can mention that you're a TGN member and you can get 40% off at the show. So 30% online or 40% if you buy something in person that at the windup show. Nice. The discount code for the 30% off of the online orders, which is at a giant mouse.com will be, um, get your, get your pencil ready. W U W F S F dash TGN all caps. And again, it'll be valid from Friday, April 28th at noon Eastern through Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And we'll put that code in the in the show notes and we'll we'll pop it up on Slack maybe the day after the day of this episode going live. So, Jim, again, thanks so much. We're both big fans of Giant Mouse and really happy to have you part of the TGN community.
James Yeah. And the other thing to make clear is we're not getting a cut of any of this, just in terms of disclosure. There's no kickback from Giant Mouse to us. Jim is, like Jason said, an active member on our Slack, a buddy of ours, and we both have been given knives from the brand. I've actually used mine a ton. It's probably the nicest knife I've ever owned. We're more than happy to support Jim and we like the product, so check that out. Again, that's W-U-W-F-S-F-T-G-N. So I guess that's Windup Watchfare San Francisco-TGN is the acronym there. Hit the show notes. That'll be easier. But a nice discount and like Jason said thanks so much to Jim and giant mouse for offering that Pretty sweet when we can offer a deal on on something we like. Yeah. Yeah, amazing All right, you want to dip into some wrist check?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do it I'll go quickly because you have a pretty interesting one today. I've got my titanium Blancpain 50 fathoms the the big boy that I got for the Polynesia trip. I'm wearing that today. I'm still Still in my test driving mode for which watch or watches to take to Scotland. And by the time this goes up, that'll be a done deal. And we'll actually find out what I actually did take. But this is in the running. It's kind of an adventure waterproof watch because it looks like a lot of rain over there. But you have something new and interesting that's kind of breaking news, I guess, these days.
James I do. Yeah. So I was actually tempted to hold episode 235 one day because this watch, it was announced like 7 a.m. Friday the 21st, and so that's a day after, but we didn't end up bothering to do that, but I'm actually wearing the new Marathon Navigator in steel. Nice. So this is a watch that for a long time, not from its start, from the start it was in steel, but for a long time has only been offered in that sort of nylon, sort of a plastic style case, and a great watch, one that we've talked about on the show before, a good value quartz watch with you know that you have to keep in mind that marathons business is supplying governments and and like contracts. Yeah, but I got I picked one up. I had a meeting with them recently and so they're by this point there will be a review or an introducing with some live pics that sort of thing on Houdinki. So I'll put that in the show notes if you haven't seen it, but now you know the better part of a week after it came out. I've been wearing it for four or five days now. It's 41 millimeters. It's 11 millimeters thick 20 millimeter drilled lugs. sapphire crystal, 100 meters water resistance with a screw-down crown, and it has the tritium tubes on the dial, the hands, and in the marker at 12. It's a bi-directional 12-hour bezel, really easy to use, nice light click. I am super impressed by it. I already really liked the standard one as like a not too expensive, subtle, military-adjacent sort of design, you know, from a Canadian company. You see a lot of these that have sterile dials, don't even say Marathon on them. They've got government contract codes on the back. There's some cool stuff when you get into the Marathon world. I've owned a T-SAR and an M-SAR in the past, both of which I really liked, especially the T-SAR. Pretty cool dive watch with, in my world, connections like Canada's Coast Guard. And with this one, just exactly a steel navigator. The case shape has been fine-tuned to sit a little flatter on your wrist, so the lugs are a little bit more curved than they were on the original Navigator design. But seeing the two right next to each other, it does look like a subtle but higher-value evolution of the original, and they're selling for $800. Now, a week after they came out, I have no idea what stock will be. Marathon said they're very serious about having the ability to fulfill as many orders as people are actually keen on, because this is a watch they've been asked for for a long time. And certainly it leaked at some point or elements of this watch have leaked at some point in the past couple of months. So there were rumors circulating as to what it would be and what movement it has and what it would cost and all these sorts of things. At $800, the thing to keep in mind is you're getting an FO6 at a quartz. So specifically the FO6 412, which is 10 seconds a year. For someone who might want a quartz tool watch, this... I would say this very quickly jumps into the running next to the CWCs and that sort of thing. Yeah. And I just really like it. And the other thing that I'll add is I totally forgot how much I kind of love tritium tubes at night. I don't... I'm not crazy about the way they look on watches generally. Yeah, right. Versus something like Lume. But I think after a few minutes with this watch and the sort of balance that they've struck on the dial in terms of text and the dates at 4.30, everything's very legible. It's very clear. You can see how there's like an intent to this watch that is to tell time before necessarily checking all the boxes of like watch enthusiasm. But that's also part of the enthusiastic like cycle is that it's a tool first and the rest second. But at night, man, like middle of the night, this thing is very easy to wear to sleep. It sits nice and low on the wrist. There's no real like sharp edges. It's a really nice grip on the bezel. It's another thing I was impressed by. But the luminous element is so good for low light. It's not too bright where your eyes are trying to adjust to it, it's just right. It's been a long time since I had a watch with tritium tubes and it's fun every time I go to check the time in the middle of the night when I wake up or whatever and go like, that's so comfortable. There's zero eye strain in figuring out what time it is, even against something like the Pelagos, which is what I've been wearing constantly since I got it. It is a an entirely different solution with an entirely different level of performance. You're not getting a wrist shot coming in from a sunny day outside necessarily with the big glow like you can with the Vertex. I mean, the Vertex is so bright. I think my wrist shot, the loom shot was a wrist shot for the hero for that story, which is not something I can commonly do with any watch, maybe a Seiko here or there. It's much less luminous, but in actual low to no light scenarios, it's so nice.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it doesn't have that initial burst that then fades. It's like this constant sort of not even low level, sort of a medium level. Yeah. If I remember, does it have different colors for the different locations on the dial? I know that the SAR watches did or do like, I think the 12 o'clock was different color.
James Yeah. The 12 o'clock is orange and the rest are green. Oh, sure. Yeah. All the touch points are great. It wears really well. I've got it on a, on a gray NATO. It comes on a black NATO. So you know how long that lasted for me. And I just really, really like it. And it's another like solid everyday watch that you could buy, especially if you're, if you dress up more on the casual side where like something like a military looking watch would suit your style. Yeah. And I think if you, if you like the vibe of a Hamilton khaki or something like that, but maybe don't want a mechanical, and you wanna go quartz, then this one gets you really nice accuracy and the tritium tubes for really not that much more money. You're still well under a grand. Obviously, it's, I think, a khaki field mechanical, something like 550, but it's nice stuff and it just kind of does exactly what you want from a watch like this, which is like it's subtle, it's easy to wear. I like that it's all kind of bead blasted, like very satinated sort of finish. Yeah. Drilled lugs. It does all the good stuff. I'm looking forward to putting some miles on it maybe putting together a larger story about kind of the back catalog or the history of the Navigator and how it got us to here.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's a neat watch. I've had, I owned one of the kind of the nylon cased ones for a short time. And I've had marathons in the past and they're great high quality watches. Of course, now I have the Benris type two, which is a very obvious sort of ancestor, if you will.
James Absolutely. The asymmetrical case and 12 hour bezel. Yeah.
Jason Heaton there has to be some lineage there that I'm not aware of. I know that I suppose if I dug deeply on the military watch resource site, um, forum, I'd find that whole history. Cause it went through Benres and Stocker and Yale. And then, um, and then for a while, and I think this would be a really cool if they did a limited run of, um, when they put, uh, add a knack on the dial kind of Canada spelled backwards. I don't know. I'm not sure what the purpose of that was, if that was the name of a subsidiary or the company at the time or whatever, but it'd be neat if they, did a small run of that for you guys up north.
James Yeah, I would also love... They've done a nice job recently of doing white dial SARS.
Unknown Oh yeah, yeah.
James Then a white dial steel Navigator would be really cool, even with the black bezel or with a different color bezel. I think they could do a nice job with that, but it'll be interesting to see if this is something that sits in the lineup with the other Navigators or kind of goes in its own direction. What do you think of the price point? I think the price point makes sense. I think so too. I mean... Because what do you... A CWC is about $650, $700? Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton I mean, I think it's all kind of that same... That same stratus. You know, when you're talking about a steel, well-made steel watch with a quartz movement, I think that's... I would not hesitate to pay that.
James It's on the higher side. Like, obviously, you can get a Timex for $100, $150 or something. Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. The momentum's a great point. Yeah, the C quartz... The C quartz definitely offers a different sort of value than this, where I think if you're more in the vibe for the military, want the high accuracy, the tritium, then it makes sense. But otherwise, I mean, that C quartz, if you can buy it, that's a lot of value there too. And from another Canadian company, which is fun.
Unknown Yeah.
James Very cool. And a big thank you to the folks from Marathon for making sure I could get one before the story came out. And I had a really nice kind of chat at their office. They're about 30 minutes north of me. I met a bunch of their team and had kind of the backstory delivered about the brand and their connections and the fact that, you know, they're a lot of their manufacturing and connections are in Switzerland, but they're very much, you know, Toronto based brand and you know, and you got to see more of their sort of fulfillment and service and shipping and all that kind of stuff, which operates out of, out of a large area in Toronto here.
Jason Heaton It's cool that it's local. It's nice.
James Yeah, it is. It's kind of fun to have, and you have to state some sort of bias, right? Like it's cool. There's a cool factor for me that it's Canadian that may not apply to someone who's not, but I dig it. And, you know, that's, that's probably what brought me to marathon in the first place was some of the Canadian watch forums or the dive watch forums and people going nuts over TSARs, you know, early Canadian and US contract TSARs that were, I mean, talk about a good bezel, right? Oh man. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Top five for sure.
James That's what I've got on my wrist. You know, a different vibe than the Blancpain, but I think a very TGN sort of watch. Perfect sort of dock jumping, summer, camp, in the field, doing all the sort of stuff and never bother taking it off sort of watch. So I think that's how I'm going to kind of use this one for the summer while I've got it. And yeah, kudos on Marathon for, I think, giving people what they're asking for. At least, you know, Marathon has sort of a cult following more than a generalist following. And I think the cult side of it, this is a watch that they wanted, so good on them. We're big fans of when brands give people the watches that they wanna spend money on, so cool stuff.
Jason Heaton Speaking of spending money... Yeah, I was gonna say, it's kind of an appropriate... Actually, both the watches we're wearing are sort of along the lines of the high-low challenge today.
James Yeah. We're trying to figure out something that would be fun to fill an episode. With Jason being away, we're not gonna be covering up-to-the-minute news. Obviously, we're a week behind on the marathon stuff. And we really like the sort of challenge episodes, whether it's a financial challenge or a brand challenge. And the goal here is it's called the High-Low Challenge, and we'll have $10,000 hypothetical TGN dollars, which is one-to-one with USD. And the goal is to pick two watches with the widest possible delta in price. So it's a two-watch collection. One of them should be the majority of $10,000, and the other one should be as little as you could figure it out. is sort of the ideal. So again, to make it very easy, if you spend $100 on your inexpensive watch, you should try and spend as close to $9,900 on the other. And I actually learned a few things in the process of this, one of them being how few $10,000 watches are on the market that I really want.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I found the same. There really is only one that kind of hit the mark for me and everything else was like either a lot lower or Actually, most of them were a lot lower. There just aren't a lot of watches around that price point that I really covet or am keen on. I'm curious to see where you settled. I know you kicked around a few ideas, but you can go first.
James Yeah, we'll see. What do you think? You think we say our cheap ones first so people can kind of dream on, or we start with the expensive ones first and people have to figure out what we've got, what we might get with the other side. I'm not quite sure, but It's interesting because that this little thought exercise highlighted just how strong like the one thousand to five thousand dollar category is right now for especially for sports watches. Yeah, because if you're spending a grand, then you're kind of like in some ways you're over the delta is starting to narrow between one. I mean it's still pretty wide delta, but like spending a grand instead of spending two hundred dollars on the inexpensive watch. Yeah, I mean there's a pairing there and I hope there's some logic to our pairings, not just the The finances, which I think kind of keeps this fun, but it's insane just how good say a 5000 could, but there's no way like I couldn't buy my Pelagos 39 in this challenge. It's right in the middle, right? Right. At least you'd want something like a thousand and 9000 or maybe even deeper than that. I guess we'll see. How do you think it? What's the most fun in your mind? Start with the big watches and leave the whatever's left for the guessing or the other way around?
Jason Heaton Given the difficulty we both had choosing the higher end piece, I think it's probably more interesting to start there. I actually personally found it a lot easier to choose the kind of the low end piece in this one. There are just a lot of good, like inexpensive watches. I mean, you mentioned a Timex early on and even the Navigator. I mean, it's a little high. In the running, I think. It is in the running, probably maybe on the high end of that, on the low end or on the high end of the low. But anyway, why don't you start with your high pick? Because I'm just dying to know.
James I'm worried that you and I may have the same one and it'll change my second pick pretty substantially. So how about you go first on the high pick and I'll follow up with mine. I want to leave some options on my table because I've got a couple moves and they're all kind of wild.
Jason Heaton All right. Okay. Well, this one probably shouldn't come as much surprise, but it's the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M the No Time to Die edition.
James Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if you'd go that way or Ploprof, because a Ploprof is like nine grand. I couldn't find a nine grand Ploprof, but I still... Oh, I found two or three on WatchRecon.
Jason Heaton Okay. I went brand new right off of Omega website. I could click the... Okay. Well, I guess you have to contact a boutique. You can't click buy now, but like it's right here in front of me, like 9,500 on the mesh. We've talked about this watch a lot. It's a great watch. I've been on the fence about this piece for ever since it came out. Like one day I look at it and it's like too heavy on the Fotina. I don't like the, kind of the, the broad arrows, a little too on the nose, et cetera, the case back, whatever. And then like I've tried one on and when I see pictures of it on different straps on people's wrists, I'm like, that is, that could be an awesome, just an awesome watch. Awesome wearing watch, good looking watch, you know, no date. Um, you know, the ties to Bond, I think. Yeah. Once I kind of zeroed in on this one, it was like, there was no doubt. And I was hoping you wouldn't pick it because I didn't have a second choice.
James So I had five watches on my possible high list. Okay. And that was the only new one. Oh, everything else is second hand. Sure. Yeah. I think that's my favorite Seamaster. It's easily in my top favorite modern Omegas. Yeah. I really like the new bond, the anniversary piece as well.
Jason Heaton The 60th anniversary bond one. I love the blue. I love the anodized aluminum bezel. There are little niggling things I don't like. I don't care for the kind of gimmicky movement animation. I also prefer, I don't like the 60 on the bezel. I mean, I get why they did it, but no, it's gotta be the no time to die one. And I think, you know, sometimes we, I think we're probably all guilty of it or a lot of us are. you, you hyperanalyze a watch and you start to look for things to critique and things to make fun of or roll your eyes at whatever. But in the end, like who cares if it's heavy handed on the bond tie in who cares if it's got, um, you know, overly tan, uh, Fotina, you know, I mean in the end, like you see this watch and you're like, that's, that's a cool watch. Like if I wasn't as ingrained in the, in the watch industry for so many years and have looked at hundreds and thousands of watches and, find little things to nitpick. It's just a cool piece. It's just a cool watch. And in this case, it's like the perfect choice for the high end, because, you know, I think in a challenge like this, the temptation is to go, the high end one is kind of a nicer watch that maybe you don't wear as much. And the low end one is the beater that you wear most often. I almost think with my picks, you'll find out, I think it kind of goes the other way around. So.
James Yeah, I think that's a good pick. A great watch, definitely one that was on my list and I guess I gave away that the Ploprof also was. My worry is that if I were transitioning into my pick, when it comes to the Ploprof, it is gonna be too big for me to wear frequently and if we're going to two watches, it needs to be... Both of them need to be basically everyday watches. And my goal was to buy two watches with the $10,000 that would seldom need to be worn in the same scenario. Oh sure. Yeah. But both could be worn 365 days a year. Yeah. Which is kind of a tough, a tough marker. Yeah. Yeah. It's good criteria though.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Man, like this is funny because it'd be easier if it had been three watches. It would have been way easier at 15 grand. Yes, I agree. Yeah. Like the 10 really got me, you know, you can't get, what else do I look at? We get into this, the other options after when we, when we close out the two picks, I won't, I won't belabor that point at this moment. So I'm going to go with, and I found two of them for $9,800 on watch, on watch recon. Yeah. And it's a sixteen seven hundred GMT master. So the last of the single GMT masters, non twos. Wow. That's a good find. Yeah. Yeah. So there's not just one. I found two of them in the the average price between the two is ninety eight hundred bucks. Both were being offered with boxes and papers. Wow. One was serviced and one wasn't. So this originally comes from because in my mind, if you like even up until up until the everything bubble a couple of years ago, If you really wanted a Rolex that could do everything, it was a 16, 7, 10. Yeah, yeah. You could dive with that watch on, you could explore every part of the world with that watch on. I mean, obviously the blue red bezel being a Rolex, there's maybe areas you don't wanna wear it, that kind of stuff. Yeah. We all know that, but those are like a largely a perfect watch. But those right now, the floor on those is about 12, 8, which is the cost of a new GMT mask. Yeah, right. Which that's gonna lead to some consternation for some folks. but a sixteen sixteen seven hundred, not the not the fifty or the sixty, both of which are, you know, because there was a weird overlap where they made the GMT master and the GMT master to until one thousand nine hundred nine. Yeah, when the sixteen seven ten came out, they the thirty one eighty five, which does the local jumping. So for those of you keeping score, James me did just pick a GMT master that doesn't even have local jump. You have to use the bezel. It essentially has a locked twenty four hour hand. Yeah. And you reference everything against the bezel. That wouldn't bother me. This would be a watch that was probably made from the late 80s into the 90s, so it should be serviced and capable to be worn just like any sports watch. I have... My Explorer 2 is only a little bit older than that. Sorry, a little bit younger than that. It was important to me that, like I said previously, you could wear this every day. This is a watch that could be serviced, would still be 100 meters water resistant. I'm more than happy to use the bezel to do my GMT timing. I love the way they look. I like the size. it, you know, it's a proper five digit Rolex. It's not the ideal GMT master, which would be in my mind, a 16, 7, 10, but at $9,800, that leaves me $200 from an X watch. And, and the other thing I wanted to make clear is, uh, I didn't, I really didn't want to pick the Explorer too. Cause it felt like a boring pick. I have that watch. Yeah, true. People kind of bring it up to me a lot, um, as a kind of fan, a big fan of the 16, 570 polar. I have one. I just let it be boring. obviously there's a it's hard to imagine a world where I wouldn't want that watch right, but I wanted to be a little bit more interesting with my picks and and they're still a little bit tough to find under ten grand not impossible these days. It looks like you know, I joke that five-digit Rolexes should be four-digit prices. We're not there with every five-digit reference. Yeah, but that's an option and I found a couple other cool ones that we can talk about once we get through our kind of cheaper picks as well, but What do you think of a 16 700? Is that just a cop-out so I could get a Rolex in under 10 grand?
Jason Heaton No, I think, I think it's a huge win, especially, I mean, if you found one with, with box and papers, I think I was, I was tempted to say when you announced, I was like, Oh, he wins this round. You know, I just thought like, that's the winning pick. I think, um, the, the kind of geared 24 hour hand that, that you'd have to use the bezel. I think it feels very old school. It feels like proper, like original GMT design. you know, those are, those are great watches. On the other hand, I think, I think I win under different criteria. I think kind of, you know, modern loom and materials and that sort of thing. So I think they're both really good picks for, for that money. I think we've really like maxed out. Um, you could argue the Omega's, you know, potentially even overpriced, but like, but that feels like a good value for a Rolex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but think about what you're getting.
James Yeah. I did really want something that I genuinely believed that one wasn't an explorer to kind of boring, like I said, and on the other side that I feel like I would wear and own and really enjoy. And you know, these are, I think the, the 16 700 started in 88. So I can't get like a birth year one, which would have been kind of cool having been born in 86, but then any of the early GMT master twos all crack into five digits for the price. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that this gave me the blue red bezel or the black bezel, both pretty hot watches. And it is kind of cool that it's the last reference of the original layout and function of the GMT Master. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But a cool piece and that takes me to, we're gonna say $9,800 and Jason, you're at $9,500. Yeah, yeah. Boy, you got a lot more to spend. Yeah, I do. On the second one than I do. Let's get into your quote unquote low pick. What'd you go with?
Jason Heaton Yeah. So, so I was tempted to go with, um, you know, this is the, this is the realm of the, in my mind, I could have, you know, aimed for something Timex, Citizen, Seiko at a very low end, but I kind of like the micro brand level, um, where you, you, you kind of get to know the people behind the brand and, um, and, and they're kind of building their, their passion projects and offering a really good value. And so, uh, I was kind of split between getting something like a Scurfa, you know, given our, our connection with Paul and, and our deep love for Skirfa watches. But I hit, I didn't want anything left over. And so I went with a, a Laurier Gemini series two. This is their, um, their hand wound, uh, chronograph. It's a, it's a seagull movement. So, you know, I know some people have their reservations about that, but this is a $500 watch and, and we know the folks from, from Lori. I'm sure if anything, you know, went wrong with it in the first year or two, they, they do right by me. And, and I think it's a super handsome watch. It has, you know, kind of vibes from, you know, old Hoyers and old, uh, old Daytona's it's it, you know, having seen their watches in person and met them at, at wind up and other places. Um, I just really like what they're doing. I think they, they have a real sort of eye for, for some of the small details. I think they, they make an amazing watch and, and this is, uh, Let me think here. It's a $499. So I have a dollar leftover. I mean, $1, not bad. $1. Okay. There's no tax and shipping and all this. We'll have to figure something out there. But, uh, yeah. Um, and I think, you know, my, my logic with this one was if I go SCRFA, you know, it's another dive watch. It's it's, if I'm having the Seamaster, chances are that's going to be my dive watch. If, if we're talking to two watch collection, I need something fairly different from that Omega to kind of wear on the other days. And I think a hand wound mechanical panda chronograph on a bracelet just kind of hits the right mark for me.
James Yeah. And I also think it's a nice compliment because it has a 12 hour bezel. So this gives you, in a scenario where maybe you're traveling and not diving, the other option of an additional time zone and a watch that's a lot more subtle than an Omega on your wrist. Yeah. Cool pick. I mean, these are gorgeous watches. I don't think I remember seeing the Gemini wind up last year, but they had a couple others and they were all really, really beautiful watches. And like you said, nice people. And there is a value to buying into that side of the business where it is a quote unquote mom and pop sort of shop, one guy, one gal sort of business. And I've seen the Neptune and the Falcon in person, and they're just really impressive, beautiful watches at a fair price. And yeah, I think that's a good pick. Super fun.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And that gets me right within a dollar of our $10,000 limit. So I'm pretty pleased with that.
James So a dollar. So I think I have $7 left.
Jason Heaton I'm curious what you got. Cause what do you have to spend? One something? I have $200 left. $200 left. Okay.
James Yeah. I have $200 left. And so I, you know, I, I consider things like, yeah, the Scarfa, I don't quite have enough for, As much as I enjoy something like a Timex Q, not something I would wear over the Rolex, right? Yeah. I really wanted something that was like in a scenario where I didn't want the Rolex, I wanted the perfect watch for that scenario. And I went back and forth a lot and realized what I want is a Garmin Instinct, $193. Wow. Okay. Kind of a perfect two watch solution if I don't want to pick up and set the Rolex.
Unknown Yeah.
James the Garmin will do all of that for me. If I'm having if I want to go and, you know, you know, do some big physical challenge or or, you know, measure something on the by like it just it fills in all the blanks that the Rolex doesn't do. Yeah, the Garmin does and everything the Garmin doesn't do the Rolex does in spades. Yeah, in my opinion with an old GMT master. There's not a scenario in my life where I would need a dress watch. That was my other concern was like do I want a sports watch and a dress watch? Right. At this point, if all I own is a 16 700 and a Garmin Instinct and I get invited to a black tie, your boy's putting his Rolex in his pocket and I'll just go proper with no watch on my wrist. It really has come down to when I have the watches that I look at that I constantly bounce between, it's between a high quality sports watch, the Pelagos, the Explorer 2, The Mito, depending on what I'd picked for my other for my expensive watch, I was considering going kind of weird and spending $1400 on the Mito. Yeah, but I think this is like the yin and yang of how I approach day to day watches, a really nice steel sports watch and a really good multi sport smart smart watch. And if I could get a Garmin with maybe Like if I could get a great sale and get my way into a last gen Phoenix. Sure. Fine. But the instinct really doesn't leave anything on the table for me. Right. Right. Just a good product. I like the company. They're really comfortable on wrist. And if I'm traveling somewhere where you wouldn't want the Rolex, the garment's perfect.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's a good pick. It's a surprise pick. I didn't see that coming.
James Yeah.
Jason Heaton I want to keep it interesting. But I do think that as you were talking, I was thinking like, that's kind of my approach. Although I don't wear smartwatches beyond doing activities, But I do activities almost every day. And so I'm always wearing a Garmin. And, and I think I remember years ago I was selling a Sunto dive computer that I had. And I was thinking to myself, I think this, this dive watch quote unquote has been on more dives with me and adventures than any watch I own. And you could say the same about a Garmin. Like you go so many miles, you do so many interesting things with a Garmin. Um, it becomes that sort of go-to and, Yeah. This, this exercise does really speak to like what, if you're especially not so much the price element of it, but the, the two, the fact that it's a two watch collection, it really does say a lot about how you wear your watches and make your choices.
James Yeah. And I think for me, these hit the mark because, you know, let's say we consider that the Rolex was nine grand. So I had a thousand left and let's say I spent 800 some odd on a CWC. Yeah. They're almost too similar. Right. True. Yeah. Like if we're only thinking of two, I want like almost polar opposite watches. Yeah. So for my $200, it was either like, could I get a dress watch? And I couldn't get like a Seiko Dolce, the SACM 150. So a little bit more than that. So I bounced back and forth and finally I was like, well, the heart wants what the heart wants. If I already have what's essentially a perfect everyday watch, then the only thing that would be missing would be the multi feature watch for when I was, yeah, biking, hiking, rowing,
Unknown Yeah.
James You know, had a really busy day and wanted notifications on my wrist, wanted some sleep tracking, wanted the heart rate stuff. You know, maybe I want to share stats for a hike from something or, or, or you go on vacation and you want to bring one watch that does it all. That's the one. you don't have to worry about leaving a Rolex in the hotel room or always having it on your person. It's like, I admit, it's maybe not the most glamorous to watch solution, but I mean, you've got to steal Rolex. Like it's, it's kind of perfect. And if, and if you don't want the 16, 700, then sure, it could be an Explorer too. But the, the, the balance for that for me is definitely something like the instinct. I just, I'm a big fan of the platform and yeah, I like the idea of a sort of everyday tool watch being the fitness tracker and having that kind of data if you wanted the compass, the this, the notifications, the rest of it. And for me, that would be the two watch solution. It leaves a dress watch on the table, sure. But with the high low, I think that's pretty high and pretty low. Again, in terms of value, not in terms of cost, not in terms of value, I think the Garmin's an excellent value and a great watch for the money. $193 for an Instinct. Amazing. Apparently. Yeah. I didn't realize they had come below $250, but they've got them.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're great watches. My only quibble with my instinct is, um, depending on what I'm doing, um, it's, uh, I find it slightly hard to read the display. If I'm running and my arm is kind of swinging around and I'm bouncing up and down, it's a little harder. If I'm on a bike, I'm more steady. I can see it. But, uh, so for that, I like the Phoenix, but yeah, the instinct's a great, great watch. And I think in essence, you've almost, you know, you've almost done, some people would consider this almost even a one watch collection. I think they wouldn't consider the instinct like, an alternative, you wouldn't wear it as you do a watch like something like the Rolex. But, um, so you've sort of accomplished that as well. I think, you know, you've got this like one masterpiece steel icon, and then you've got this, this other one that you sort of wear for, for, you know, rugged duty and kind of sports and kind of very functional stuff.
James So, yeah. So I'm, I'm curious then what else did you have on your high list?
Jason Heaton Uh, I really didn't. I, I, as soon as I found, I was like, I knew that for that price point, if I, if I looked at something like, if I looked at tutors website, like I wouldn't come close. Like the whole goal of this, you know, just to remind the listeners is like, we were trying to get as close to the high end, as close to 10,000 as we can get leaving just enough. And so to do that, like you, you can't look at, um, I mean, I guess I could have looked at Seiko or Grand Seiko or something, but I looked at Grand Seiko. Yeah. None of those really kind of light a fire in me. So I think, you know, and then of course I love, I love Tudor, but you know, there's nothing there that's going to like tickle the $10,000 range. And you know, so that left Omega. And I was like, as soon as I went to Omega and I knew Rolex, the one watch I did consider, but it was nowhere close to the 10,000 was just a straight up 36 millimeter Explorer. But I think those are 7,000.
James And it's not enough. It's the same problem with the Pelagos. Yeah. Yeah. And so I also went in Yachtmaster 37 millimeter. It's only a bit over, I think it's like 11 something, 12 something. So that was out. I also thought for a moment, oh wait, is there a way to do a steel sky dweller, which would be such a fun watch to own especially, but you can't get the steel on the rubber, which I think makes the watch a lot more fun. And it's like 15 or 16 grand. So yeah, it's a different zone.
Jason Heaton But as soon as I went Omega, it was like, okay, This is the big, this is the big piece. I'm not going to get as much as I like Speedmasters. I'm not going to get a Speedmaster because the straight up Moonwatch is well under 10,000. Yeah. And it's also not a watch that is as versatile as a dive watch, especially, you know, given the stuff I like to do. And so at 9,500, it was a no brainer. As soon as I, as soon as I latched onto the 007 Seamaster, that was, that was the choice. What else did you have?
James You had the Plo Prof. I had the Ploprof, I had 38 millimeter Bathyscaphs, they're like seven to eight grand all day long, blue or gray. Sure. I don't love the date placement on those, but they are titanium. It felt like in the same size range as the Pelagos, pretty good watch. And I mean, if you wanna talk a realistic two watch collection, one of those 38 millimeter Bathyscaphs and the Medo would have you at like... You'd have like 500 bucks left-ish. Wow. which I think would be an okay, but again, I wanted to try and conform as heavily to the conceit that if you had a budget, you'd spend as much of it as you could on one of the watches, I think, especially if you've been around the block for a decade. You wouldn't split hairs in the middle. If we said five grand, I would have spent... I would have found a watch for $12, so I could have gotten a Pelagos 39 or whatever.
Unknown You know what I mean? Right.
James It would have been that and a Casio F91. Yeah, yeah. I also had... I searched around, And for less than nine grand, you can get a 16 600, like a Z serial C dweller. What thousand? Really? Yep. Wow. I found two of them for about 80, like one was 92 something and one was 89 something. So this isn't the most desirable generation, but that's still an incredible. And like, so at that point, if I went, here's another fun to watch that again, I don't think conformed as heavily to the conceit as possible, but that C dweller, the 16 600, along with the Mido, and you'd be at like 10.3. So if you said, I bought the Mido used, there's a few of them on Watch You Seek in our own slack around a grand. So yeah, I think that's another option. I'm trying to think of what else I looked at. Yeah, the little Yachtmaster, too much money. It was kind of a fun thought exercise more than anything else, and I would say that if you're confronted with ever resetting your collection or going... You're saying, I wanna go down to two watches, This is the methodology I would actually use. Spend as much as you can on one of the watches and then get the strongest possible value out of the second one. And I really like my two picks. I mean, there's a weird world in which I would wear both of those around my house at the same time. I'm also super curious to see what people will put in the comments or slack. because this isn't like man with the automotive episode, we gave like eight questions and people were still filling them out on the slack. I'm learning what everybody's first car and their their tickets and their crashes and the rest of it. Yeah, it's awesome. I love reading them. It's how I've been kind of finishing my phone time in the evening lately, but this one it's a little bit easier like like tell us the two models and the two prices. I don't know if anyone can get closer than than Jason with his $1 left and I guess I'm about seven bucks seven bucks shy, but but I hit a wider delta. I think it's going to be really fun, whether it's the comments on sub stack or if you're in the in the slack group, you know, go to the episode chat sub go to the episode chat channel. You can search for that in the channels. There's a lot of channels that people may not realize are available. There's more channels than you're just automatically added to when you when you jump into the slack. And if you're keen and you want to be part of those sorts of conversations, it's five bucks a month gets into the slack, gets you the Q and a that kind of stuff. So Uh, consider checking that out at the grain editor.com if you want, but I'm, I'm excited to see what other people come up with. Cause I guarantee we're missing. Oh, maybe not something obvious, but we're missing a ton of options, uh, for, for how you could spend nine to $9,900. Right. Yeah. And especially when you open it up to pre-owned and the pre-owned especially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. fun little challenge. It was fun.
Jason Heaton I like these, you know, we kicked around some ideas for this episode, you know, how to reset your collection. And if you do a two watch challenge and then you mentioned this high low thing and it was like, okay, that that's a unique angle. Um, and I think it, it adds this little bit of a twist and a little bit of a, of a added challenge to just picking two watches for, for a certain amount of money. Cause if we'd said $10,000 pick any two watches, like we could have split it anyway.
James And it would have been the natural inclination to split them down the middle. Right. Right. Yeah. Loosely? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty fun between Omega and Laurier and Garmin and Rolex. A good spread. Not what I expected for your second watch, but I think a solid pick for sure. All right. All right. You want to jump into some final notes? Put a bow on it?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do it. I just finished a book by a guy who's probably well known to a lot of people, Chris Hadfield. He's the retired Canadian astronaut Um, who was kind of well known for, for taking a lot of photos when he was on the space station years ago. And he published a book with all of his photos that he took. And then, and then he developed some renowned for performing space oddity that Dave Bowie song, uh, in the, in the ISS. And he's kind of done that on his book tours. And I had a chance to meet him when he was in town for a book signing years ago. Anyway, he wrote a, a fictional novel, a thriller actually called the Apollo murders. And I listened to an audio book version of it and it's, it's superb. Like he, he can, I kind of knew he's a, he's a pretty articulate guy. So I knew he'd be a good writer and his nonfiction book of photography has some of his writing in it and it's good. And he's a witty guy, but a, he's a good writer and B he knows his stuff. I mean, obviously as an astronaut, um, and, and as the title suggests, this book is, it sort of has a fictional Apollo 18 mission. um, to the moon. Um, and, and there's all sorts of intrigue involved with, um, an orbiting Soviet spacecraft. Um, as well as some shenanigans that happen, you know, in, in Houston and in Florida and in space and on the moon and it's, it all sounds very farfetched, but when you read it, his, his attention to detail, um, and his knowledge and obviously his research. Um, is so good as well as his ability to kind of write this cliffhanger thriller with a very believable plot. Um, and a lot of it is grounded in, in a reality that I didn't even know existed about the Soviet and American space programs. So yeah, if you're looking for a good thriller and you're a bit of a space nut, um, I highly recommend it. I think it's a, it's a tremendous book, whether you get the audio book or a print version of it.
James So check it out. That sounds awesome. Yeah, very cool. I think, and I could have him confused with a different Canadian astronaut, but I think Mr. Hatfield lives like maybe a postal code over from me.
Jason Heaton Oh, wow. Yeah, I believe that. I know he's got a cabin somewhere in Ontario as well. So maybe we're cabin buddies too.
James I don't know. Look for him on the lake. Man, that sounds fascinating. Very cool stuff. I'm always pumped to see him pop up in interviews and kind of give the perspective. Had quite a career, certainly. Yeah. All right. What do you have? Yeah, mine this week is a stand up special from a guy named Nate Bargatze. If you like stand up, you'll know Nate. He's been around for quite some time. He has a new special for Amazon Prime called Hello World, and I don't typically talk a ton about stand up comedy simply because it's really easy to talk about a comedian that somebody finds offensive these days. Yeah, and my range of comedy, like my taste in stand up is pretty wide, and I definitely don't mind, you know, comedians that are, you know, kind of crude or, you know, bad language, the rest of it that doesn't really face me so much. But Nate has a clean show. Hello World is a is a, you know, a family friendly stand up. It's done in the round. It was filmed in Arizona, and it's really good. It's just super fun. He's very funny. I mean, he's been funny for a long time. This isn't new. His other specials are great as well. But in case you missed it, Nate Bargatze's new stand up special for Amazon Prime. If you're not a Prime person. It looks like at least according to their website, you can get a 30 day free trial. So conceivably you could see this and like, I don't know, some Yellowstone or something like that for free for a bit. I watched this and while I was watching it, my wife came in and sat down and and chuckled along with it. He's very funny and and it's, it is nice to occasionally have one of these that like I don't have to be worried about the volume being too loud and like the kids catching something they shouldn't hear, you know, especially with stand up comedy today. It's not so much like they'll hear a swear word of their kids. They hear swear words. That's fine. Um, but you know, some of the more challenging topics that some of these guys are attempting to handle both successfully and unsuccessfully. I'd rather them not form opinions based on some of these people's, you know, takes that that will exist over time. But this is, this is a good one. Um, you know, if you're a gaffigan fan, I think you'd really like bar Gatsy and certainly he's been on a pretty solid rise for the last decade. Yeah,
Jason Heaton It's a good special. Nice. I've never heard of him, but sometimes I get in the mood for some good comedy and that does it for this week's episode. I will be away next week. Well, in reality, I'll be away next week, but also as you're listening to this, I will not be on next week's TGN. James, you're going to be bringing in an as yet unnamed guest to take the chair.
James Yeah. Special guest. Do be excited about that. A genuine TGN sort of guy, a recent kind of new friend of mine, and I'm not even sure how to approach everything that we could talk about, so it should be a really fun episode. We always try and go high value if we can't have you on the show, Jason, of course, but I hope you... Again, it's always ridiculous to talk about these sorts of publishing timelines. I hope you're having a lovely time in Scotland as this episode comes out. And by the time the next one comes out, I believe you will be home and I will be on the other side of Canada. So we're working on working on that as we go. But all right, we're on the move. And anything else that you need from us, you can do it via slack or via the comments on the greynado.com. And 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, please visit the greynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzer via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Epictetus who said,