The Grey NATO – 263 – Watchmaking's Watchmaker Problem With Rhonda Riche And Jason Gallop
Published on Thu, 30 Nov 2023 06:00:00 -0500
Synopsis
The episode begins with an update on The Gray NATO's supporter system and a goal to reach 2,000 subscribers to start producing video versions of the podcast. They discuss James' recent trip to Dubai Watch Week and a standout talk by watchmaker Steven McDonnell. The main segment features a conversation with journalist Rhonda Rich and watchmaker Jason Gallop about the shortage of trained watchmakers and the challenges in meeting the demand for watch production and servicing. They delve into factors contributing to the shortage, such as changing industry dynamics, the decline of local watchmakers, and the need for more awareness and training opportunities. The episode concludes with final notes on various topics, including music, automotive media, and a video about life on a tall ship.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nato, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 263 and it's proudly brought to you by our 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 thegraynato.com for more details. James, how's it going? Speaking of subscriber crew or supporter crew, you've got some, a little update, don't you? |
| James Heaton | Yeah, we've got, we've got a little bit of news. I'm doing pretty well. A little, little fried from a week in Dubai, but we can get to that in a minute. You know, with this episode, I think we're officially into the, what will be the start of our third year of the supporter system. So for those of you who don't support, or maybe, you know, we, we mention it, but not always the specifics through Substack, which is where we publish the show notes and other goodies. You can subscribe to the show for either $5 a month or 100 bucks a year. There's kind of different benefits to each level. And we want to put out a little challenge because we'd like to grow the show enough that we could afford to do video, which will require a video editor. We'd like to be able to publish our conversations as YouTube videos and do that kind of stuff and kind of expand a little bit so that folks who'd rather watch can do so. And so currently after a couple of years of doing this, we're just shy of about 1500 subscribers. And Jason and I have decided that we can commit to doing video, uh, when we hit 2000 subscribers. So if you're listening and you're interested in video, and this might be enough of a value add to push you over into the subscriber crew, uh, platform, uh, check it out at the gray nano.com. Uh, if we can hit that goal sometime in, you know, the next little while foreseeable future, uh, we would like to start publishing video versions of these episodes, uh, which I think could be pretty fun. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think so too. I'll have to comb my hair occasionally and, you know, up my office game. But that's definitely gonna be worth it if it comes to that. I'd love to do that. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, me too. So with that out of the way, a huge thank you to everybody who has been supporting the show for the last couple years. It's always exciting to see the annual subscribers kind of re-up for another year. It's this kind of vote of confidence that we We didn't drop the ball too bad, uh, the previous year, but let's be clear. I have dropped a ball, uh, this year. Uh, so another bit of show news is that we are going to be doing a Q and a December marathon. So currently we're three episodes of our Q and a short, uh, that'll be for September, October, and November, which would bring us to December. And the December episode would come up early January. So I do want to get back on that cadence and get caught up. So over the next few weeks, uh, those of you who have the TGN crew, uh, sort of private, uh, podcast feed, we'll start to see, uh, probably weekly Q and a's on top of the show. So a little bit of extra content for your holiday driving for your, uh, you know, time wrapping gifts and all that kind of stuff. Uh, but, uh, we will, we will make up those three episodes. We're recording one of them right after this. So expect to see those. Really, the first one for September will come up in just the next few days. So thanks so much for your patience on that one. And also, thanks so much for everybody being cool about us taking last week off. I'm not sure I would have put together a coherent episode after a week in Dubai. The jet lag was remarkable and very trackable, thanks to my new aura ring. Oh, yeah. Reminding me just how dead tired and broken my body was. Yeah. But Dubai was a trip, you know, very much felt like... I guess the thing that would remind me most would be like when we did... Or when I did Watches and Wonders Miami years ago, just before the pandemic, where obviously warm weather and all the brands all in kind of one space, in a space that felt loosely like retail environments, but they weren't actually selling anything. It was fascinating, met a lot of very interesting people, saw a lot of the old friend group that you really only see, you know, at either watch events or major trade fairs, that sort of thing. I would say largely it was good. I would also say it was probably too long for me to be in Dubai. Yeah, that was a long trip. You know, that'll be the longest trip of my year at six nights, but I had a really good time and a quick shout out to Romaine for a really lovely hangout. We had a couple of folks on the TGN Slack that were in the area and up for a hangout and when we finally, the dust settled, It ended up only being Romain. So we had a really nice couple of beers at the Waldorf where I was staying and he brought out some really awesome watches and we had a nice chat. So Romain, thank you so much for that. It was a treat to meet you and to have a hospitable sort of face in Dubai. The Slack thing really kind of gives you an instant friend or two pretty much anywhere, which is awfully nice. Uh, look forward to many more hangouts in 2024. Uh, we're going to try and make that another priority for the show on top of eventually hitting our video goal and that sort of thing. So. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, very cool. Yeah. It looked, it looked like quite the extravaganza. I saw, you know, I was following a lot of people that were there, you know, you included, and, uh, you know, there was everything from, you know, some, some really exotic rare watches to some trips into the desert and then the flooded streets. I mean, how was that? |
| James Heaton | Is that just the flooding was wild? I mean, because I woke up in the middle of the night because the window panes in the hotel were moving. Oh my gosh. Um, as the water kind of lashed, the rain kind of lashed against them. And then it woke up that morning. I basically, and I do this when I, when I book stuff in Geneva as well, I don't really start in the morning. The later I sleep, the closer I stay to my home time zone. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Heaton | And with a nine hour time difference, I figured it'd be great if I only had to actually account for say six of it, which would take me about a week when I got home to feel normal again. Yeah. And so I was not getting up early and I woke up at, I don't know, 11. There had been an email several hours earlier saying like, yeah, the show's essentially canceled for today or at least like sit tight. Yeah. A couple of the booths didn't survive the, like one of the rest of the restaurant one of the two restaurants that they'd like pop up restaurants got destroyed. The Bulgari booth took a real beating and they had it right back together by about two o'clock, so the show resumed that afternoon. And it was good, but it was wild to sit... I was sitting with Blake from Worn and Wound and Bilal and Oren and Mark Koslerich, and we were just hanging out on the 18th floor of this hotel, looking down at the main road Yeah. Through this part of Dubai and it was under a foot of water and you're just watching like Ferrari and then 12 G wagons and then, uh, you know, a Rolls Royce drop head, like a phantom drop head, just cruising through pushing a bow wake. And you're like, Oh, this is kind of rad. But yeah, it was, that was exciting to see, see the, the kind of the way that, cause they don't really have road. The roads aren't designed to pull water off of them. So it's just water just goes to the low point. Yeah. So it was remarkable to see how well they were able to, you know, dry the space out and get everyone back up and going and that sort of thing. And then the last thing I wanted to bring up about Dubai, and I wrote a story for Hodinkee, so I'll put it in the show notes, but I witnessed the single best watch talk of my entire time in watches. |
| Unknown | Oh, yeah, right. |
| James Heaton | And don't get me wrong, for years, I have literally just ignored these. If you go to a show where there's presentations or panels, I typically... Unless it's somebody I know and love in the panel or a topic that I feel I need to write about, I just skipped them because I seldom find them that interesting. But I went to this one and it was a one man talk, like essentially a lecture from a guy named Steven McDonnell. And Steven McDonnell is an independent watch movement designer, a watchmaker. And most recently, he's done his most high profile work with MB&F, including the Evo sequential, which won a GPHG Grand Award. and did some stuff that hadn't really been done before. Pretty remarkable piece of watchmaking. And I'm not gonna give the whole tone of the talk away. I just suggest I have it embedded in the video... I have the video embedded in the story on Hodinkee, so just hit the show notes and watch the whole thing. Please take an hour. If you have an hour for TGN, you definitely have an hour to listen to Steven. It's fascinating and you can watch the whole thing streamed thanks to the folks at Dubai Watch Week. They recorded all of them and put them on YouTube. So uh that's there and I really genuinely highly recommend it like as strongly as I've recommended anything in Final Notes recently um I would say check this out and I didn't want to bury it in at the end yeah um of the show but check it out it's it's it's pretty fantastic. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah I really enjoyed that I mean there was there were just so many kind of insights uh you know the watchmaking part was great and all fascinating stuff but like the insight into the mind of somebody that that truly is a watchmaking genius. And his name has popped up over the years, just in various ways. I think he worked with Bremont for a while and of course, MB&F and he's, he's just, uh, yeah, to, to hear him talk was, was, was a rare experience akin to, you know, listening to, you know, like someone like Gordon Murray or, you know, someone, someone, a genius in their space. Uh, just really, really fascinating. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, totally. Had a bit of like a Howard Hughes vibe to a certain part of it, which I found really kind of fascinating, but yeah, Other than that, I got home and then over the trip, I didn't end up cracking into Sweetwater. I had it on my Kindle and didn't start reading it and then had planned to on the plane and then both times I got on the plane, I just had these grand plans of working and reading and watching a movie and I just laid down and fell asleep. I was just very tired. So since I've gotten home and started to rest up a little bit and that sort of thing, I started reading Sweetwater and I had read a portion of it, and then I went back and restarted from the start again, and I quickly realized, because the Kindle tells you how quickly you're progressing, that I was gonna blow through it in two sittings. So I've made it a conscious effort to not speed read the book and just really enjoy the details. I've got about a third of it left, which I'll read tonight. And not only... I'm very excited, that's like... I always like looking forward to some evening recreation, and a book is a really sweet way of doing it. But man, I gotta say, I enjoy depth charge. I genuinely did, but I'm really, really loving Sweetwater. This is a step ahead for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I appreciate that. And I think, you know, look, I mean, like as with anything, uh, professionally or personally or anything, you know, you, you hope you improve with each iteration or everything you do. And, uh, I do feel more confident about this book. I do feel like it was a bit of a step up and, and, uh, to your point about reading it quickly, you know, I think if there's an improvement I want to make for the next book, and some people might not agree with this, but, um, I almost feel like I need to just start writing longer books, you know, just like add another hundred pages and keep people reading a little longer. But, uh, we'll see. I mean, you know, I, the one thing I liked about Fleming's books is they were, they were short. You could digest them in a couple of sittings, whatever. But, uh, yeah, when you, when you got to wait a year and a half or a couple of years between, uh, it is nice to have to spend more than a couple of days reading it. |
| James Heaton | But, uh, well, that was like with, with, with the Kim Sherwood one, I blitzed that one. That was like two sittings. Yeah. Yeah. And now I look back on it and I think like, well, when I go to read the next one that comes out. Yeah. And so the Kim Sherwood one, you can, we'll put that in the show notes is of course it was a double or nothing, a bond world, the sort of bond universe, a novel of which I think she's doing two or three. And we had her on the show recently and it was awesome. But I read that one so quickly. And now knowing that the, you know, the second one is around I feel like I have to go back and read the first one because of how quickly I went through it. Yeah. Uh, I didn't necessarily absorb it that well, so. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it. And speaking of Sweetwater, I just, another reminder to folks listening, uh, if you happen to be in the Minneapolis St. Paul area this coming weekend, uh, so this show goes up on, on a Thursday and Sunday, the 3rd of December, already into December, crazy. Um, at Lake Monster Brewing in St. Paul from one to 3 PM, I'm hosting a little bit of a, you know, kind of a launch party, so to speak, uh, signing some books, selling some books. If, if people are so inclined to buy, uh, I'll have some stickers to hand out and, uh, and there's good beer there. They even have a depth charge IPA, which is, uh, which is just a fun, a fun bit of tie in. And I love that place. So come to Lake monster brewing one to 3 PM on Sunday. And one extra kind of little special thing that's just popped up is I will be doing a special watch giveaway drawing. at the book event. So this is a brand new watch, like unworn, brand new in the box, but also brand new as in just released as of this weekend. So very exciting when we're recording. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I, I can't divulge what the watch is, but I assure you it's a very special piece and uh, that will be, uh, we'll be giving one away on Sunday at the event, you know, via like a ticket handout, kind of a raffle style drawing. So Uh, if, if that's an extra enticement, would love to see you there. I will, uh, just to be clear, I'm, I'm not footing the bill for all the beer, but, uh, you know, it's pretty, pretty cheap thrills there and they do have good, good beer and it should be a good time. So hope to see you there. And you can certainly send me a DM or a, uh, an email or, or hit me up on Instagram or whatever, if you have any questions about that. So anyway, that's the, that's the news on the book. |
| James Heaton | That's great, man. Yeah. I hope everybody that can show up does, and it's a nice outing. I wish I could be there. Um, but we'll certainly make it up at some point in, uh, in the new year. We were working on some ideas for some hangouts and that sort of thing where we might put you and I actually in the same place rather than just on the same zoom. Yeah. Yeah. And then lastly, you've, you've got a little bit of a little bit of news. That's kind of close to our hearts from a product standpoint. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I would say, I mean, I think, you know, uh, you know, being that we're called the gray NATO, uh, it seemed like some fitting news at the top of the show, uh, Phoenix straps, which was a UK maker of nylon sort of G 10 or, you know, military style. pull through straps, uh, is closing up shop. I read about this recently on the military watch resource. I wasn't aware of it. Um, but sure enough, uh, I guess the owner's retiring, he's been in the business for a very long time. I believe they started making straps back in the, in the thirties or forties and were kind of adopted by the UK ministry of defense as their, you know, official strap to go with dive watches and pilots watches and, and army watches. And, uh, you know, there were kind of the, the originator of the Admiralty gray NATO strap. And I have a pile of them that I swap in and out of watches. Uh, you know, they, they go in and out of favor with, with me and with other people. Uh, a lot of other players have come along, you know, we've, we've, we've obviously have our own kind of version of it that we used to get through Ute and now we're buying independently, uh, of course, crown and buckle, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you can get NATO straps everywhere these days, but Phoenix was kind of there at the beginning. And I still love their straps. They're kind of a stiffer nylon with a tight weave, welded seams, and just the perfect Admiralty gray, kind of that bluish gray tint. If you can get your hands on them, I think a few are still floating around, probably get price going up on eBay these days. But, um, if you've got them, covet them, hold onto them, love them. Uh, sorry to see Phoenix, uh, close up shop, but, uh, that's, that's kind of some, some sad news at the top of the show here. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, one of my first NATOs, once I got into it and very quickly, I think somebody just recommended, oh, these are like the actual ones that you would get if you were in the British military or something like that, or at least maybe at some time that was the case. And I still have two or three here. They definitely informed the way that I prefer a thinner, sort of tighter weave, not too shiny. So yeah, that's sort of an end of an era to a certain extent. I'm kind of surprised somebody wouldn't kind of pick that business up. But maybe um, maybe maybe there's too much in the market now for one one ran to kind of shine to the extent that like The name phoenix would be worth something to a watch gecko or whatever, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, just spitballing. But yeah, i'd love to see it I'd love to see that just the exact same strap. He continued. Um, they're just they're they're great. They're they have their flaws, but Um, there's just nothing else like them. So yeah too bad. |
| James Heaton | All right. Well speaking of straps, uh, you want to talk wrist checks? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean, I'll go first just because I'm going to piggyback on that news. I'm, I'm wearing, uh, an Omega Seamaster reference 2254 that I got roughly a year ago from, from our buddy, Chris Soul. Uh, his name pops up a lot on the show, but, uh, yeah, Chris sent me his moderator extraordinaire is a 2254 Seamaster, um, which I wore quite a bit last winter. And then kind of things came up with Blancpain's and tutors and Breitlings and things over the course of the year and hadn't worn it in a while. And, and when I heard the news about Phoenix, I thought, you know what better watch to uh than a an old Seamaster to throw a phoenix strap on so I'm wearing it on actually a kind of a bond adjacent striped phoenix strap so it's it's a darker darker gray with the black stripes which I think looks better than kind of that lighter gray that you see a lot of times and it's uh yeah it goes well with the watch and you know having not worn this in a while and having worn a number of other watches recently, you know, the, the FXD and the Navitimer, et cetera. I'm just so struck by how thin this watch is. I mean, these watches are just crazy thin. You just don't get thin dive watches like this much anymore. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, it's true. You, you, uh, you really don't. And I don't know if we mentioned it specifically, but when we did the, the talk or when we, when I did the hangout and new hope a couple of weeks back, it feels like longer than that pre Dubai. Um, one of the folks that showed up brought a non AC version. Oh, yeah. So that's the 2230.5, I believe. So that's the wave dial, but it has applied markers. It has an applied Omega logo and signature. Wow. And it has like a relief bezel rather than the black aluminum insert. Yeah. Very cool watch. Hadn't seen one in a really long time and it's been stuck in my mind since I had it. So those are always a treat. But yeah, 2254s are amazing. Definitely a watch that Like for me, the Pelagos 39 scratches a similar itch. Yeah. But talk about a golden era in the lineage, in the already impressive lineage of the Seamaster, the 2254, the sword hand, that MOD look. Yeah. Whether it's the non AC or the 54 proper. Yeah. Good ones. Yeah, yeah. Alright, what do you have on? This week, so now with Dubai done, I am actually getting back to catching up on a ton of work that I've kind of delayed for more than a month for that project. And so I'm wearing this Citizen Series 8 GMT. I have six or seven hands-ons that need to be written kind of as soon as possible. So a JLC that I had two months ago, I think that story will be up by the time this episode comes out. That's the Polaris chronograph, the new one, the new version of that one. Oh, sure. Yeah. And then the next on my list was this citizen. So I have the series 8 GMT I think I actually talked about it in a risk check, you know six weeks ago or something maybe even longer But citizen loaned it to me and I keep kind of extending the loan because I haven't gotten around to taking the photos But it's the the steel version with the sort of Pepsi bezel and the blue dial And I'm kind of warming up to it. There's elements of that I really like I think, as I mentioned in a previous episode, I'm not like crazy about the difference in the blue between the bezel and the dial. Oh, right. It's a very bright kind of cerulean blue for the dial, and then the bezel's a deep blue, like you'd expect on something adjacent to a sort of Pepsi color way. Other than that, it really wears in a very nice way on wrist. It's chunky and heavy and feels very sturdy, but all in a way that doesn't feel too big necessarily. Yeah. So if this is a watch you're curious about or wanted to know more, then stay tuned to Hodinkee probably in the next week-ish from when this episode drops. I should have hands-on with the Citizen Series 8 GMT. It's becoming a full-time passion just to keep on top of the good GMT offerings these days. There's so much under $2,500. These are about $1,700. You can really start with almost the exact same movement at like $700, like we've talked about with the Laurier Hydra. Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, so there's, there's lots out there, but, uh, having a good time wearing this one around since I've been home. |
| Jason Heaton | And isn't it, uh, I'd like to think it's, it's related, but it's probably more of a happy coincidence that we're seeing this uptick in really great travel watches, um, kind of in a year that, that everybody's finally sort of getting back into the mode of, of traveling after, after the pandemic and people kind of hunkered down at home for so long and, Um, it does seem to be like it's, it's related. It probably isn't, but, uh, here, here we have a lot of good travel watches these days. And I had just read in the news that like this, like, I think Sunday was, and obviously with the holiday, uh, makes sense, but it was the single biggest travel day at the Minneapolis, San Paul airport recorded in all time. So people are definitely back on the road, back in the air. |
| James Heaton | single largest flying traveling day in the history of it being tracked in the States. I wanna say it was just shy of three million people flew somewhere on Sunday. 2.8, something like that, or at least that's according to a meme I saw on Instagram. So... Crazy. Check your facts if they matter. I think it was a busy travel day as it always is. Right. And yet the other side of it, and we don't have to belabor this, is this is gonna end up being a fairly long episode if I keep rambling, but it Over the course of the pandemic, several people that I work with moved away from the centralized time zone of, say, New York or Toronto. And so I find that having the ability to very quickly reference UTC and then Geneva and that sort of thing can be quite helpful keeping on top of... For me, it's keeping on top of embargoes. Sure. Oh, true. Yeah. 8 p.m. CET, which is 2 a.m. EST, and then depending on who's writing it and where. If I say 2 p.m., but this person's in Chicago, then it's 1 p.m., right? I wore the Explorer II to Dubai and it was perfect. Just a perfect watch for that. I could glance down and know what time it was for Sarah, my wife back home, and the kids and that kind of thing, and it kind of suited the space well enough. I mean, I guess it's as close as a fancy watch that I have. I mean, we're probably walking past multimillion dollar watches every couple of seconds. Yeah, with the kind of stuff that people brought there and the fact that there's almost no crime. Yeah, fairly safe place to say carry a crazy watch or carry several. But yeah, it's a always love a good GMT. But it's it's interesting how useful they can be even when you're not traveling. But I agree that it seems like more and more travels happening. And the GM the moment for the GMT seems to be continuing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of an embargo timer, like, like a complication. |
| James Heaton | Just got to keep on top of it. Right. Right. Like, I can't tell you how many times, cause maybe you don't know you can do this, but I eventually learned that you can just type your time zone question into Google. Oh, sure. Like I can say 8 a.m. CES, you know, CET is what time in LA. And I don't actually have to think my way through the math. It'll just say the two times. Yeah which can be pretty helpful when the embargo breaks the date line like if it's oh yeah right 5 a.m c.e.t is 11 p.m the night before e.t which is you know 8 p.m that same day before and yeah it's all that kind of stuff so yeah yeah regardless like i said rambling uh back on the mic after a week off plenty it seems it seems i had plenty stuff to say um you want to get into the main topic |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. I mean, you know, we obviously didn't record last week, but you recorded and we've got kind of an interesting chat that I think people would be pretty keen to listen to. |
| James Heaton | Yeah. So today's little conversation is mostly about watchmaking, the future of watchmaking. And it comes based on the publishing of a story for Watchanista by a colleague and somebody from our part of the world, a Toronto-based writer and their editor at large, Rhonda Rich. And I've known Rhonda for a long time. She's a fantastic watch journalist, also based in Toronto here. And we cross paths whenever there's a Tudor launch, you end up at the boutique, Rhonda's there or I'm there and that sort of thing. And Rhonda wrote this great story about the kind of impending crisis of training within the watchmaking space. So as demand for watches has exploded in the last 10 years, the training of watchmakers hasn't kept up. And there's several reasons for that. It's a great article. As you'll learn from this chat, there's probably a second part of this article coming. Anyways, Rhonda published that story, and I didn't even see it the day it came out. I got a text message from our good friend, our watchmaking correspondent, the man who answers all of my silly watchmaking questions, Jason Gallop at Rolldorf. He pinged me and said, This is an incredible article. It's something I really am passionate about. Is there any world in which maybe we could do a chat and we could dig it deeper into the topic and kind of talk it through? You know, WatchNista has a huge audience to begin with, but maybe push a few more folks in that direction. And I said, Hey, no problem. Let me reach out to Rhonda. We set up a time. And so this episode is, uh, features a chat about the future of watchmaker training and the possible kind of deficit that we're facing, not only for sales, but for after sales, kind of both sides of that coin. And so we have, uh, Rhonda Rich and Jason Gallop. For those of you who don't know Jason, he is a WOSTEP-trained watchmaker and the proprietor of Rolled Orphan Co., an excellent AD and watch service business in Vancouver, Canada. A good friend of mine has been on the show several times for you longtime listeners, and this is just a topic that was really important to him. So without kind of a further explanation, let's jump into that chat. OK, let's get to it. I'm excited for this. And it's a it's a treat to have on both somebody we've had on the show before and a brand new guest. We'll start with a brand new Rhonda. It's an absolute treat to have you on the Grenada to talk about this, this kind of growing problem with there maybe not being enough watchmakers. |
| Rhonda Rich | Yeah, well, thanks. I'm excited to be able to talk about it because it is something it's not a new topic, I guess. It's it's not a new issue. I think I first became aware of it about five years ago, even before, you know, supply chain shortages that when I went to, you know, enthusiast meetups that one of the biggest problems or concerns that collectors had was who was going to service their watch if they bought it, if something went wrong. And, you know, a little backstory, I, I kind of got into watches through vintage and I've met so many people who didn't want to deal with vintage because there was no one to repair their watch. And also there was the growing thing about parts being available. Um, you had, um, Swatch Group when they, they kind of took over ETA, um, they weren't selling the parts to other people anymore. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Rhonda Rich | So that limited, you know, for a smaller independent, uh, Watchmakers. Well, and I guess this is a question too, that, you know, I, I, you know, talk to, to Jason, um, after the article came out and, you know, how that affects the, the boutiques, the, the stores, um, the, the having the watchmaker on staff and how limited it is, how limiting it must be to be able to perform those services for customers. |
| James Heaton | I think that's a nice synopsis of the topic and something we're certainly going to get into. But next up, obviously, we're here because you wrote that article, but we're also here because my good friend Jason Gallup, who's been on the show several times before, he's sort of our correspondent in watchmaking and watch servicing and silly questions from me and the rest of the audience about, you know, can you do this with your watch? Are you going to break it if you do that? So Jason's been on a few times. He's joining us today because, Jason, you wrote me after this article came out, after Rana's article hit Watchinista. uh, to say that this is, you know, and it's a topic that I know you're, you're very passionate about, but something you wanted to talk about and if you thought TGM would be a good spot to do it. So Jason, welcome back. This has to be third outing for you, maybe fourth at this point. |
| Jason Gallop | Yeah, I think, I think so. Thanks for having me back after that, all of that stuff. So, um, yeah, that's probably a good thing. Yeah. This, this subject is, um, most certainly near and dear to my heart. uh, being a watchmaker and, uh, and a business owner. So, uh, yeah, when I, when I read this article, it, it was very, um, affirming. I was, uh, very, very pleased to see that somebody was paying attention and many people are paying attention, but it's, it's, uh, a very subdued attention, but I, I, I was just wowed by the fact that, you know, there were, there was some, real numbers in the article and stuff like that, which I'm sure we'll get into in a minute. Yeah. |
| James Heaton | Absolutely. So if you listened to the intro, this story went up on WatchNista on the 30th of October. It's called Watchmaking's Watchmaker Problem. And Rhonda, I guess my question starts at a really easy point. You said that you've been kind of tracking this as a generalized concern, both from enthusiasts who actually understand the supply chain that affect their watches, all the way down to, you know, the Swiss in general, and maybe even specific brands. What was kind of the seed that pushed you to put this article together this year? |
| Rhonda Rich | Well, I'd just gone to watch time in New York and the wind-up watch fair. So once again, you know, as a writer, as a journalist, we do kind of live in a bubbles apart from collectors and enthusiasts. We're writing about the business or the lifestyle end of a, of watchmaking. We write about new releases and at watch time, I was actually feeling very overwhelmed about how many watches are being released. They're all great and I love it, but you know, we can't, how, how are all these watches coming out and who's making them? Because at the same time, I was in Glashütte earlier this year visiting the Glashütte Regionale. Pardon my mangling of pronunciations of watch brands. But we were in Glashütte, which is a tiny town, but it has several watchmaking factories. And they all had these big advertisements, like on the roof, wanting to get people to come work in watchmaking. There was such a shortage. So on one hand, they're releasing, you know, tens and tens of, to hundreds of watches every year, it feels like. And at the same time, they're advertising, like they're literally across from the Glashütte factory is like the Tutima factory. And on the roof of the Tutima factory, it's advertising, you know, come work for us. They're, they're trying to get people, they're paying for people to work in, you know, take training and schooling. And it's like, well, how do these, how do these match up when we're told there's supply chain issues, but is it really, you know, sorry, I'm, I'm digressing a bit because there's, there's a part that when you do tour, we're lucky as journalists to get to visit these factories and see how the watches are made. And you realize that it's not like one, you know, wizened old watchmaker sitting at a bench building you know, from case polishing to putting all the things together. It's not one guy, there's polishers, there's, uh, people pulling the, the resin to, you know, make the, the jewels, all these things. It's beautiful to see, but that's a lot of people. And we don't appreciate how many people go into making a watch. And then on the other end, when it goes, something breaks, who's fixing it. Um, sorry, if, sorry, if I'm all over the math, because it is such a wide, wide problem that starts from the very beginning from the, the, you know, conceptualizing the watch, building it. Um, and then on the other end. You want to take care of it. It's a sustainable thing. You have to take care of it. And if you can't get the parts, if you don't have the people who are trained to do it, when I started collecting, maybe 20 years ago. There were lots of watchmakers here and I could take, you know, my Mickey Mouse watch in and get it fixed because I have fun watches too. And now I couldn't, I don't think I could find a watchmaker in Toronto who would touch anything. |
| James Heaton | Yeah. I mean, it's, it's an interesting thing because we saw, we saw a lot of, a lot of these kinds of case studies of the idea of a supply chain or the multifaceted way in which people approach the development, the creation, and then the support of a given product, especially when it comes to, let's say, automotive throughout the COVID world. I think a lot of people realized, oh, wait, if there's no new cars, that puts a lot of pressure on used cars. And then, of course, that pressure means they became very expensive or exceedingly difficult to find, or the ones that were in the market were probably cars that shouldn't have been in the market in the first place and all that kind of thing. I'm wondering if you could bring folks up to speed on kind of what the current, cause there's some good numbers in your story and I don't want to bury those too deeply because I think they paint a fairly clear picture of why brands and collectors might be concerned about the supply chain and the kind of culture to a certain extent that supports watches, like you said, both at like say a design and assembly point, but also a service point down the road. |
| Rhonda Rich | Yes. And, and I think, To me, the most, when I was researching the story, the thing that the number that stuck out the most is that they are actually, you know, the Swiss are selling less watches. It might, I might feel overwhelmed by the amount of launches, but there's actually, um, there's less watches being made, but because, and they're asking more money for them because they are more complicated that the, the sales are in the high end. and the super complications. And even though it's less watches, it requires more hands to make them. And also because they're more complicated, the more complicated something is more likely it is to break, uh, you know, to take it back to the car, uh, analogy that, um, I remember when I was sort of more into automotive, what was happening in the automotive scene, it was like, yeah, that you're, uh, you're old, uh, Toyota could, you know, run on a couple of patch jobs and things and keep going for a long time. My grandfather was a mechanic, so I kind of would see this, you know, somebody pull up in the driveway and he would, he would put their car back together. But if you had a, you know, a fancy German car, you had to go back, get the parts from Germany. It would take months usually to get it. And, were very few people who had the expertise where I grew up to do that. But there were lots of German cars for some reason. |
| Jason Gallop | Yeah, you've touched on a number of really good points. We've seen the industry change significantly. When I started watchmaking when I was like 17, by the time I was 19, I was in Switzerland and out at Wastep, etc. And, you know, I remember very vividly going in and doing or going on a tour of the Swatch plant and it was the very first time a watch had been manufactured autonomously. There were conveyor belts going everywhere. It was the beginning of most certainly a revolution in order to be able to mass produce the watches that they needed to meet the demand. The industry had adapted to that. And I think that, you know, it's been a slow ramping up since the late 80s of this issue, where, you know, when I was at WASTEP, there was only one WASTEP. You know, some of the factories were producing their own watchmakers, but it really did rely on, you know, Switzerland and perhaps even France for the workforce to feed these factories. With the increased demand that we've seen quite significantly since COVID and a little bit before COVID, the awareness for watches has increased incredibly. People have seen re-releases from brands and then all of a sudden become interested in the original watch, which would then be vintage. So searching for that, eBay's been a great enabler to find those things along with a few other niche outlets for vintage pieces. And then that opened up Pandora's box with regard to, hey, I'm buying a watch and is it going to work? And if it arrives and it doesn't work, it's either send it back or fix it. There was once a time where it was fairly easy to have a watch fixed, like you said, Rhonda. And that certainly isn't the case now. Yeah, the industry's realized it, but has been very slow on the uptake to make change. |
| Rhonda Rich | I was going to ask you also, Jason, that because we sent a couple messages back and forth before this. How does it affect? Because I had numbers from, you know, what are the shortages of of of watchmakers, for example, and that, you know, what were the projected like we're just going to the new watchmakers coming in doesn't meet the demand of people retiring at this point. But you bring up WASTEF and, you know, there's, if you're not in, you know, Switzerland, where are watchmakers getting training? And that, that was something I didn't touch on in the article, but I'm kind of interested in now. |
| Jason Gallop | Yeah. And, and that's a, that's an amazing point, you know because, You know, there have been watchmaking schools pop up. There is a watchmaking school here in Canada. It's unaccredited. So unfortunately, people going through that don't get really the first rung on the step to get into watchmaking globally speaking. I think that requires more established watchmaking schools. I say established. WellSTEP's only been around since the 70s, mid-70s or so, and it was only one school for the longest time. Schools are not producing enough people. Now, I read some statistics with regard to regions for this, and I was actually quite interested. It seems like France, if the numbers are to be trusted, are actually making more watchmakers than Germany and even perhaps Switzerland. The proximity to Switzerland for French watchmakers right out of school is great. So that, I think, is amazing. But I think this also goes down to culture, too. The French probably think about it quite differently than most other places around the world. and care about watchmaking schools and training people well. But also, on top of that, the curriculum has changed significantly. The curriculums in these schools have changed to suit big industry over independence. So they're trying to introduce watchmakers into the industry with the minimum knowledge to be able to get through, because they'll be going into a service center and they'll be finished off there, so to speak. You'll get to work on certain calibers, and then you'll upgrade to different things as your skills increase, because when you get out of school, you're pretty green. Going out of school into independence is an entirely different story, and that is A whole other issue with watchmaking's watchmaker issue is that we don't have enough local places to service watches like we used to. And that's a problem because then it looks more like a monopoly on big industry side for pricing. It doesn't help the consumer very much when all watches have to go back to the service center. However, if there are independents, there's choice there, there's pricing differences there. Unfortunately, there's other issues that come along with that, and that's being able to access parts. |
| James Heaton | I think that's a piece of the topic that does align with this, though, because the parts thing, I think, speaks to something that comes up in Miranda's original story. And to be clear, the number that we danced around there for the last few minutes is there's an estimated 4,000 new watchmakers needed in Switzerland alone. So that's only one market where watches are designed, serviced, cared for, assembled, the rest of it, and that's by 2026. So that gives you like a number and that number was put out by the Employers Convention of the Swiss watch industry. So it's I'm assuming they know at least their own game there in Switzerland. They've got the numbers to to understand and you know, that's a big number when you know from some of the notes that Jason you provided to me. I'm counting, you know, maybe the training system in the world is cranking out about 1700 watchmakers a year on a really good year. And that could be dependent upon the phase of a multi-year program. So you could have a lack year as well. And so I think, you know, it highlights a certain issue, but Rhonda, your story kind of hinged at least in the first third of it on the fact that, you know, we had this kind of twofold weird problem where COVID introduced a huge amount of demand for all types of watches. And of course put a stress on the production and the servicing side. But then if we stretch out the trends in our world, in the enthusiast watch world, before COVID, we all started to get kind of hyped up about in-house. |
| Rhonda Rich | Yes. |
| James Heaton | And in-house means you can't just take your at a 2824 to Jason and in a couple of weeks time have a, you know, now perfectly functioning 2824. The world is a little different. And I've taken movements, watches to Jason for him to go, it's broken, but unfortunately it's from X brand and I can't just call them and get a part. Mm-hmm. Right. So we're going back to the dealer on this one. And in this case, the dealer's not down the street or in the next town, like it might be if you bought one of these German cars we talked about. Yeah. It's going back to Switzerland, probably, or it's going to a huge service hub, like, you know, for those of us who've gone through, say, a Rolex service that could be done out of their New York area, you know, outfit. |
| Rhonda Rich | Well, just as a personal anecdote, as I took my Omega Dynamic to get service because there is a, a swatch servicing place here in Toronto. And this is a place where. People I know outside of Toronto, like people drive in from Buffalo, New York to have their watch service because they didn't want it to get, otherwise they'd have to take it back to the dealer and it would get sent to Switzerland. But now even here where they have the service center, they wanted to send it back to Switzerland. And I'd never had that problem before taking things. But now it's like, no, if it needs a new crystal and I say, but I don't even want a new crystal. I just want the crown is busted. Can't you fix it? And they couldn't because even then the parts weren't available. Um, so I can imagine how frustrating it is if you don't live in a city like New York or Toronto that has a service center, the same with Rolex. I, they, uh, can't fix everything and you don't want to be apart from your watch. It could take six months. Um, it caught the, the cost is a lot, but then it comes back. Another part of the story is, you know, with it's, it's all such a weird, and I, I'm going to have to write a second part, a part two to this story, because there's so many elements that, you know, a web of, of things you're, you don't, your watch breaks, it's hard to get the parts, or you're on a waiting list because there's not enough watchmakers to put the watch together. Or in this case, you kind of are at the mercy of the brands that when you want to take a watch in to get fixed and they send it, there's a list that like we're going to polish the crystal. We're going to polish the bezel. Like, is it scratched? And it's like, I don't mind a scratched thing. But at the same time, if you don't do it the way they want you to, you lose value because we've also seen watches become kind of more of a commodity that if people are spending a lot of money on watches, they want to know at least there's some resale value or something. And, It's not a way I think about watches, but people do. They want to buy a watch. It costs a lot of money. They want a watch that works so they don't have it away from them. But if they have to sell it and you don't have all the box and papers and all your service doesn't come from an authorized service place, then you could lose value on your watch. |
| James Heaton | Yeah. I mean, quite easily. Yeah. And, and especially, especially when you enter the world where the service isn't done correctly. Because maybe you live in an area where there just isn't a, you know, a reputable, great watchmaker. There's just a watchmaker and may or may not understand the enthusiast perspective, may or may not understand the watch they're necessarily working on. And yeah, when you get into the asset class thing about this, then again, we have like another connection to the automotive world, which is kind of weird, right? Like the way that you hear about the more and more of these cars that become collectible, people stop driving them and they start falling apart. they just deteriorate in garages if they're not cared for. And the care takes time and effort. And you know, in my time doing the car and the watch thing, I've met people who like have a guy for their 50 cars or whatever. And I do wonder, and I'm sure to a certain point the answer is that they do, but I wonder if there's, you know, super collectors out there that basically, you know, they're keeping a watchmaker gainfully employed, um, you know, keeping, keeping their collection ready for auction or, you know, ready for post auction, like if they're buying stuff or, or that sort of thing. And I'm sure some of this also must put a lot of pressure on, you know, we've mentioned obviously big, big elements and, and then, uh, the, the assembling side, the, the, the brand element, but I imagine there's, there's got, this has to cascade into several, like if you're a dealer and your business is turnover, and you're buying vintage watches or new watches, pre-owned, whatever it is, and those ones have to be serviced in some way, at what point are you sitting there waiting 90, 120 days on your inventory just to get it back in so you can list it and sell it? It is a problem that would affect essentially all elements of this space. And it's also Sometimes with watch industry business news, it's like if you're just a normal enthusiast of watches, like even if you're me to a certain extent, like at a personal level, like I just don't, none of it's really going to change the way I interface with this whole world. But like a watchmaker shortage will actually change the way that watches kind of hit all of us. It'll change the way that these businesses prioritize certain types of technologies. It'll be, it'll like, it would affect the next generation of watches. And when you think that Rolex is making something like 3000 watches a day, if they're still doing something like a million a year, it's crazy to think that we're 4,000 people short to support something. That's just one brand. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Heaton | Like talk about, talk about, I feel like that number may be, I'm sure it's holistic to Switzerland, but then, you know, we have several other places in the world where watches come from. Right. And, and where people are trained to work with watches. |
| Rhonda Rich | I just wanted to go back to the article too, that if you have a, limited amount of people, of watchmakers and other, you know, polishers and things, their focus, the brands have to make a choice. Are we going to focus on producing or are we going to focus on repairs? Like we have limited resources. What are we going to allocate those people to do? |
| Jason Gallop | There's a third dimension to that, and that is movement replacements. In order to compensate for a lack of service personnel. Many brands, and they started this years ago, would just do straight-on movement replacements. I know, you know, we've had experience with that with Tudor, for sure, but many brands do that. Cartier's done it for a long time, maybe not across all of their lines, but Certainly, it's much faster. You need a less skilled person to actually do a job like that. So it's quick to train that person up to be able to do it. And it works for most brands. I think then there's the gap that there is for the higher end stuff, anything that's a watch over $50,000, where they're going to be making it, the assembling it, and then carrying on the service of it afterwards. It requires a complete, well, maybe not a completely different skill set, but it needs a specific skill set in order to do that. And that's a segment of the watchmaker population, which is very, very small. And that is decreasing too, because typically those positions have been given to senior watchmakers. You know, they've started young, stayed with a company, and have gained a lot of experience. And that's what's being lost now. And to compensate for that, you know, like I said before, there isn't the production. But the interesting thing here too is that I think that there may be a perception issue happening in the general public. I looked on a number of forums after reading your article, and one particular post that I found on an Omega forum was very insightful, saying that, you know, certainly there's no longer a watchmaker issue when we can get our watches into the service center and they'll be repaired. a bit disconcerting when you think about that because, um, you know, it, it, it, it, it, it is, it does not come, it does not come across, uh, got to get the wording right for this. Depending on a service center is putting all your eggs in one basket. Uh, you don't have options. You can't build up a relationship with a watchmaker like you used to, to be able to take care of your watch and nurture it and be able to deal with minor issues quickly because you can just walk in and say, hey, this is happening with my watch. When you're sending your watch off, it's a problem. I'll quote you from this one post. It says, certainly there's no longer a watchmaker in every small town like there might've been in the 50s, but I can send my Speedmaster into one of the world's leading specialist watchmakers and have it back in two or three months. So I wonder is watchmaking really dying? And again, it's one of those things that if the brands are saying they need watchmakers and they can't get them, that that's an issue. But on the outside, people don't think it's an issue. And if people don't think it's an issue, then perhaps people do not see watchmaking as a viable career choice, which then affects the number of people going in. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, and I think that brings me to where I wanted to pivot because, Rhonda, your article does such a good job of explaining kind of the watch product side of the problem. And I think the other element that's kind of interesting here is we understand that the demand is high and that we're making more watches and thus more people are required for it, but there isn't necessarily as clear of a statement as to why there aren't more watchmakers. And I think it's an interesting thing because it seems like different, obviously this is different places in the world have a different feeling about this as a job, as a career, right? Like, I don't think I could have gone to school here in Canada to become a watchmaker, um, even, you know, even years ago. Right. |
| Rhonda Rich | I think in this kind of goes back to, back to Jason's comment about the perception of watchmaking. I don't know if people actually, we become as consumers sort of distanced ourselves from, you know, how, how the sausage is made. Um, so, you know, there's great careers in, in trades that are going unfilled across the board, not just watchmaking, because I think people don't realize how interesting it is or, you know, satisfying. And it's, it's not, if you train well, it's not a bad, a bad career choice as far as making money. But I guess everyone, I feel like old lady shaking my fist at the sky, but everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and a disruptor and make a million bucks. |
| James Heaton | The question I had that I'd love to hear what the two of you think, because it's more of a hypothetical. I don't have data that would kind of speak into this, but with the idea that so much of things in our lives have become disposable. you don't really... You can fix some things on, say, your cell phone, right? But I think most people, if it breaks, maybe unless it's the screen or a battery, like something you could take it to a shop and they'd fix it, and you see those shops around, so that feels like sort of an expression of a similar thing that maybe that's how it used to be for watchmaking. There would be a shop roughly in your neighborhood, the guy could do a bunch of generalist tasks and keep your watch going. And I do wonder if the quartz crisis, and I'm not saying quartz is a bad thing, but I do think it made watches more disposable than they were before. And I just wonder if what we're seeing is a long tail effect of watches being seen as disposable to the wider world. The watch enthusiast world knows that you could buy even a relatively inexpensive watch today and wear it your whole life. And it would need to be serviced a couple times, right? In that span of time, maybe a little more, whatever. And certainly, you see other industries are able to keep up with their service needs, but they're you again, I'm going back to the car world or maybe into the contractor world, right? You buy a house at some point, maybe even it's yours when it's brand new, someone's going to come along and help you keep the roof from leaking and other things like that. And I just wonder why we got to this point where we were short on watchmakers. Um, and, and I do, I just wonder if it became a thing where this is that like, maybe we're actually starting to see just how much of an enthusiast pursuit this is. We're in a niche world. Everybody else out there is just looking at the time on their phone. And that means there's fewer kind of broad level cultural scenarios in which watchmaking is set up in the same way as it might some other career or trade. |
| Jason Gallop | I saw a post recently from the British School of Watchmaking. They were advertising for their intake in January. So please apply because Guaranteed after the 1800-hour WASTEP program, there is 100% employability rate. So that shows you right there that the schools are not producing enough. If it was 80%, it would tell a different story. So as soon as they say, yes, you're 100% employable no matter what, you're in there. So I think the core of this is, you know, quartz did change things. It reduced, perhaps, the value of a watch in a sense that it allowed prices of watches to drop somewhat. People started to lose interest with that over time. I think the Apple Watch came along and started to revive people's interest in wrist-borne time-telling and other things. But what it did was it opened up nostalgia for nicer things, and that's where people started to think about it. So I think there was a general lull People buying quartz watches like crazy. They break down. Is it worth repairing them? Move on to buy the next watch because it's disposable. But now people are seeing the benefits of mechanical watches. Certainly the companies, the brands are seeing that because they're producing more and more and more. So the interest must be there regardless. But unfortunately, watchmaking schools, they're on the slow end of the dog wagging tail, right? They react in a different time space to the industry. The industry gets its information quickly. We create a watch, we sell it. If it sells quickly, we're onto a winner. This is good. This is what people want. Sell more of that, sell more of that, sell more of that. If they are selling more in the way of mechanical watches, it takes a while for that to percolate back to the watchmaking schools to say, oh my goodness, we need more watchmakers. We're stuck now. And I think this is where we're sitting. |
| Rhonda Rich | It has to be more than just the watchmaking industry that is supporting watchmaking schools. In the US, you have Bolivar has, I guess, for a long time, supported veterans taking watchmaking classes. So they're getting the information out there that this is a good job, this will provide steady income and will set you up. The Horological Society of New York has various programs to basically make it a free education and also maybe get some grants to pay for your housing and things like that. So There's educational things. Again, there's just so few watchmaking schools. In Europe, maybe, in a region that's got a strong history of watchmaking, people know about it. Going back to Glass-Hooda again, that there's several Ateliers or Maisons of various sizes. people have been watchmaking for generations, but, uh, here it's, I think I know one person who has a parent who was a watchmaker and, uh, it's, uh, yeah, we, we need, we need to, I guess, and, and this is something I was talking to Jason about is like Roald Darf is helping people get watchmaking training, like |
| Jason Gallop | That actually segments into something very interesting here. And this is something that the brands are doing now, but even then, they're having issues with it. And that is changing the model for training. Typically, in the dawn of watchmaking, young people that were interested in horology would find a watchmaker that they could apprentice with. And they would spend a certain amount of time. And if they were promising watchmaker, the person that they were under would have connections in the industry and ask them to go to another watchmaker who had a different insight in complications or something like that. So people would pass around, and that was the start of the early watchmaking school, I think, in many ways before it was formalized into training centers, the most modern of which is like Whatstep. But the brands have opened up their doors now to training themselves. We've seen this with Patek Philippe in New York, Numerous brands are doing this. The problem here is that there's been an onset of independent watchmaking and micro-brands. In order for them to be able to get employees and watchmakers, they're having to struggle to find this. There was a quote that Moser actually said that, you know, because there's a shortage of watchmakers, the cost of the watchmaker is astronomical because that's what they're demanding. So for smaller companies, you know, regular watch shops, jewelry stores and stuff like that, it is a massive investment to do that and this is another reason why we're not finding watchmakers in every store that sells watches like they used to be. |
| James Heaton | Yeah you know I want to make sure I'm every week don't keep you guys forever and for too long and especially if there's a second outing for this article from Rhonda's mind. Rhonda I'm curious when you were putting the article together did you come across anyone who felt like they really had the solution or, or what, maybe what the Swiss believe the solution is. Cause saying you need 4,000 more trained people is one thing. I think it probably takes a lot of moving parts to make that number move in the, in the right direction. Right. |
| Rhonda Rich | Yes. It's a, I don't, I'm sure there are people who are very confident they have the solution, but it is such a, a wide ranging thing. And I went to the Longines manufacturer, first of all, There's somebody from the archive who goes around buying, you know, old, new old stock or dead stock all over the world. So you can even get, you know, an enamel pocket watch dial because they found a guy in Brazil who had a box full. It's amazing, an amazing thing to see. So they are committed to the servicing of all watches from the past. So as a vintage fan, that makes me happy, but they also, have a training school, you know, on, on site that they are training people, not just what, you know, all the aspects of watchmaking because it isn't easy to become a watchmaker. I've had the opportunity to visit a lot of places and they've let me put on a white lab coat and try, try my hand at taking a movement apart and putting it back together again. I cannot do it. So there, there are, You and me both. There's physical skills and, and, you know, that are needed, but not for every part. I'm not, I don't want to brag too much, but I'm fairly decent at perlage, but, uh, you know, I couldn't do any other part of watchmaking. I don't think so. They're, they are. Being able to train people in different aspects. And maybe this is a kind of industrial take on it. We'll get people to work. here and do the finishing and do the cases and do the QR and more elite watch, actual watchmaking is another part. And then the serve people who service is another part. And I don't know if that's the perfect solution, but also they, because they're part of the larger, you know, company, they're, they're not an independent. They cannot, you can train there. and then go to anywhere else in the world. I think a, it's alluring to people that, yeah, if I, if I trained up with swatch, I can then work for swatch in Brazil or doesn't have to be Switzerland. It doesn't have to be Germany. So I think that might be a P so that solves the problem of how do you make this profession appealing to people, especially young people in a global society, they want to, they don't want to be that picture again of, you know, a kindly old person at a, at a work bench, you know, tinkering away. They sure that, and, and also, uh, another Frederique Constant is trying to, uh, you know, address the problem by giving young watchmakers more of a chance to bring their voice to the table beyond just the, you know, family multi-generational watchmakers, try to get the people who maybe got into watches as an enthusiast, and then want to try their hand at watchmaking. So not the Nepo babies of watches, beyond those family kind of things, bringing new people in, but also listening to their voices, because that is another part of watchmaking. We have new developments like know, silicon and materials and things that older generations haven't used before. Right. Things that are trying to keep the prices down. So like maybe 3d modeling, like we'll be able to manufacture new parts through, uh, you know, 3d printing someday. But, uh, yes, people have strong opinions, but I don't think there's any one perfect answer yet. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, there's no, there's no, yeah, there's no like, yeah, exactly one perfect solution, one magic solution that somebody's just saving to, to suddenly create all these, you know, Jason, I'd love to grab your perspective on this just as we close, obviously, because you came from a world in which you were trained essentially as a generalist watchmaker, not through a brand, uh, specifically. And, um, and I don't know, you know, with the woe step experiencing being one, what do you see as some of the, you know, I assume just like Rhonda was saying, it's, it's whatever the solution will be, will be very multifaceted and will probably have to be developed over the next few years. So I'm sure, I'm sure that we will actually see the true effect of those missing 4,000 people, um, by the time 2026 comes along. But Jason, I wonder, you know, in your mind, what would be the kind of sensible solution to support all sides of it? Not just the brands that want to create their own people. but the brands that want to support wider watch education or even schools that do it, you know, as, as essentially independent outlets of that information. |
| Jason Gallop | Yeah. That, that's actually a very, uh, requires a very deep answer, but, um, yeah, so I, I had both worlds. I was, uh, I went through Wastep and, uh, while I was actually working for Rolex. So I, I saw what it was like. in the service center as that. And I realized quite quickly, it just, it wasn't for me. I wanted to be independent so I could see other things. Now with enrollments, especially in North America, diminished or diminishing with numbers, the numbers are very, very low for output of watchmakers in North America. The system has to change. It's, you know, where there's a cluster of business in Europe, there will always be a cluster of training. But when it comes around to the rest of the world, there is going to be a hard time trying to be able to capture some of those watchmakers to come in. So this is where regionalized schools comes into play. However, that isn't enough. We need a different way of looking at this. problem and trying to find solutions. Number one, we need to raise the awareness of the trade to show people that A, it's viable and two, it can pay well and three, it's fun. It's an alternative to many other things and will suit many people. It will suit people that don't realize it will suit them. And I'm one of those people. And I think In order to change that way, so we raise awareness that we have to be able to develop more schools much faster than we are or expand the schools that we currently have. But then also for those areas that have low enrollment, we need a hybrid solution to training to get certified watchmakers. And that would be uh, an apprenticeship with, um, uh, school time attached to it, which is what currently we're doing at the moment, um, with the AWCI. And that, that is a, that that's a fairly nascent thing. Um, I, and we'll, we'll require some tweaking, but it, it will actually help. Honestly, though, I think going back to the original, the original concept here is raising awareness. The industry is small, and it's in a silo. It isn't in the mainstream, other than seeing watches being worn by people. But until people actually realize that it is a viable trade to go into, then we won't have the people. I'd love to have another apprentice start with me next year. trying to find even a person because people don't think about it, right? There aren't the avenues to just go to. I can't go to the government can of, for example, and put a notice on their job bank because watchmaking and horology and any of those tags don't actually appear there. It's not on their radar whatsoever. So if we go back one step further to government, it needs changing government. And this is where my earlier concept of, hey, why does France have such a large number of watchmakers that they're producing? I think it all goes back to the government and the emphasis they put on watchmaking at that point. |
| James Heaton | Yeah. And I suppose there's also channels there between governments and schools that already exist. So you wouldn't be creating new roads, you'd just be changing what's kind of going down some of them at that point. |
| Jason Gallop | Or at least cutting the foliage off them to remake those roads so we can get things started again. That's most definitely needed. Plus then also industry grants and funding even for the independents to be able to create that, more funding for the AWCI, that kind of stuff. When you don't have an Olympic program for a sport, it always goes back to the government to prop it up, right? Right now, the Olympic sport here is watchmaking, and in Canada, at least, and probably in the US, there really isn't that support. in especially when you look at the the need that's out there. |
| Rhonda Rich | Write the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities tomorrow to get to start a start a petition. |
| James Heaton | Rhonda I'm curious as we as we start to wrap up here and anything else you'd want to add anything you'd like to point out that you think is kind of crucial to this it sounds like It sounds like that, you know, they've identified the problem to some extent. It'll be interesting to see what we come up with as a solution for watches. |
| Rhonda Rich | As I said before, I really need to do a follow-up article because so many people have reached out after with, you know, ideas or identifying different problems. And it is hard in a thousand words to get to everything. But, you know, like Jason says, the first step is getting the awareness out there. that it is worth having your watches made well, and it's worth having someone who can take care of them. Um, whether, whether it is a Mickey mouse watch or a, uh, you know, a Patek that, uh, if as a community, and that includes the brands, the watchmakers, the boutiques, um, we, we need to, uh, support each other, I guess, in, in this endeavor. But I'm also for part two, Jason, I really want to talk about, you know, the boutiques and, and the, the, the independent watchmakers, because people have to focus, you know, make those parts available again, or have more, you know, certified watchmakers instead of just sending things back to the factory, because it keeps it's that relationship. Like, I think about, I had a really, my, my former watchmaker, um, I had a great relationship. He would let me go and watch, do repairs if they were small enough, you know, and that just kind of makes you connect with things. And I believe, you know, if we don't want watches to be disposable again, we need to connect with all of those actions from, you know, not just something you buy, but something that you keep going over a lifetime. Same with cars. You love a car. You're going to want to keep it going. |
| James Heaton | Well, look, I can't thank you both enough for coming on and chit chatting with us. I look forward to maybe being able to do this again in six months and, and even maybe even the next time there's some fresher numbers out, we'll see which way the needle moved. Yeah. Um, Rhonda, I'll, I'll let you go first anywhere that people can find you follow along with your stories and all that kind of stuff. |
| Rhonda Rich | Yeah. You can follow me on watchanista.com. Um, I'm on Instagram as the real Rhonda Rich. So you can see my various posts about watches and cat, my cat. |
| James Heaton | I do like the cat stuff. |
| Rhonda Rich | It's good. And yeah, that's, that's about it. |
| James Heaton | Fantastic. And Jason, you know, as I, as I mentioned at the top, the audience knows you enough from past episodes, but for folks who maybe are just new, new to you, where can people find you and maybe find other ways to connect with you or if they want to send you an email about maybe becoming a watchmaker, what's the best way to kind of interface with you these days? |
| Jason Gallop | The easiest thing is just through the website, roldorf.co or on Instagram at roldorf and that's us. You can reach out and if you really are interested seriously in becoming a watchmaker, contact me because I've got a lot of insight and would love to chat with you. |
| James Heaton | All right. Well, this has been fantastic. I can't thank you both for taking an hour out of your busy days to, uh, come on the show and chit chat. And I know Jason sent me a text message while we were recording my, my Jason, Jason Heaton sent me a text message while we were recording saying, uh, just to say thank you to both. So it means a lot for, uh, for Jason and I that you guys would hop on the show and, and help us out with an episode that's kind of core. to what feels at times when you read stories like this, like a little bit of a dying flame. Um, and, and obviously none of us want that. We, we really enjoy the product, but these are products that should last forever. And the forever part requires a lot of human involvement. Um, when you, when you're talking about millions of watches or a watch where there's maybe only a few of them, uh, and there's special stuff on both sides of that line. So I appreciate you guys digging into the topic a little bit with me today. |
| Rhonda Rich | Thank you. |
| Jason Gallop | Thank you. Thank you for having me back. |
| James Heaton | Of course, I think Rhonda will look forward to having you on more in the future. And it's always fun to kind of expand the horizons with new perspectives. So appreciate you both and we'll talk to you soon. |
| Jason Heaton | All right, well, thanks for that really interesting chat, Jason and Rhonda and you, James, for kind of shepherding them through that talk. I thought it was really interesting. You know, it brings to mind, you know, we, we have this sub channel on the Slack group for watchmaker referrals and, and people are always seeking watchmakers. I mean, the more popular watches get and the more people are buying watches, I mean, they need servicing. And, uh, and so it was a very timely topic and, and thanks to both Rhonda and Jason for, for joining on TGN. That was great. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, totally. I mean, if we get a chance and there's a second part to that story, we'll have them back on. And, uh, and I do encourage anyone listening. If you're at the point in your life where you're looking down the possibility of starting a new career or picking a first career and you would like a little bit of advice on whether or not watchmaking might be that career for you, reach out to Jason. He offered it. I guarantee he didn't mean that, um, you know, to placate the audience in any way. He'd love to have a discussion if it's something you're curious about. Amazing. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. That'd be great. All right. Well with that, uh, it's turned into quite a long episode. So let's, uh, let's dive into final notes. How about that? For sure. You want to go first? Looks like you've got two. I've got two. I've got a quick one and kind of a little longer one. Um, the first one is just a quick shout out to my friend Oren, who is a musician and a composer and he writes and performs under the name Leng Zai. Uh, you can find him on Spotify. Um, uh, he is the guy who actually composed the depth charge theme, which, which I still love. Oh, cool. He recently composed a new song called friendship seven, which, uh, you know, you space nerds out there might recognize as the name of John Glenn's 1962 orbital flight, uh, his Mercury flight. And indeed the, the song is kind of music overlaid with the audio track of John Glenn's, uh, radio transmissions from, from his orbit. So, uh, just kind of fun. Uh, and, and Oren, uh, or Lang as he goes by on Spotify, uh, is, is a really talented guy and have been buddies with him for, for a good number of years. And, and it's, uh, it's a good listen, but, uh, yeah, check it out. We'll put a link in the show notes to, to that Spotify track. That's my first one. James, why don't you jump in and give us yours, and then I'll close out with my other one. |
| James Heaton | Yeah, you know, the main recommendation for today is definitely the Stephen McDonald talk that we mentioned at the top of the show. Please, just a little footnote, hit the show notes, check that out, or swing by Hodinkee, and it'll be in the recent episode, so you can Google Stephen McDonald, and no doubt you'll come across it. So my final note officially for this week is a top gears first drive of the Gordon Murray Automotive T 50. It's just like a perfect like top gear. So it's their web, the website of the business. So it's ollie marriage is reviewing the car. I'm a big ollie marriage fan. And they've got this incredible blue T 50. And you know, perhaps the 12,000 something now that the official numbers are out from cause worth and I'm going to get it the digits wrong here, but it was something like 52,000 RPM a second is what it's capable of. So it's red zero to red line or idle the red line in point two of a second, and it just there's a sequence. I don't please watch this. If you love cars, this is such a special thing. Causeworth V 12, a six speed, very minimalist three seater. So the driver has a central seating position, very much sort of the spiritual continuation of something like a McLaren F1, obviously designed by the same guy that helped put the entire project together for the McLaren F1. And there's a sequence where all these, you know, heading towards a tunnel. And, you know, he's, he's telling you the revs as he downshifts. And it's, you know, six is 3000 or whatever. And then fifth is thirty eight hundred and then fourth and then third, and then you could thirty was only at about seven thousand. So you could have gotten a second at highway, almost at highway speed, or at least at, you know, back road tunnel, you know, Pyrenees mountain speed. And I just I don't know. I can't imagine what it's like. I know I know of one person that's loosely in like an acquaintance of an acquaintance that's getting one. And I just I can't even imagine what it would be like to to get a ride in that or driving. I've had a ride in an F one. I got to start an F one. I've not driven one and I just it's such a the F one was like kind of my start as like a real car enthusiast. I have the original magazine, the road and track with it on the cover and to see another car come out that's in that same milk, this like deeply pure, not especially flashy, crazy expensive, let's be clear, but largely custom with all the cool elements and the wild body work. And this one has a fan that creates, you know, 400 kilograms of downforce at V max. And it's just a fascinating thing to see that this still exists, naturally aspirated V 12 that revs to 12. Like let's go, like, let's get excited. It makes me very happy. Yeah. Yeah. And on the, on the other side of that coin, I do want to throw a weird shout out there because it's probably my longest standing relationship with a piece of media. is the show Top Gear. At one point, I think I had every episode on a hard drive for the BBC. If you're asking, those weren't pirated, I promise. And now they've canceled the show, so it will not have another season. So the last couple of years have been with Chris Harris and Patty McGinnis and Andrew Flintoff. I think that they're really, really successful, really fun seasons, but for whatever reason, Top Gear has decided not to push on. with another season. Maybe that means they come back someday. Maybe this means the YouTube channel will grow with different resources and that sort of thing. I don't really know, but it does this kind of a weird moment for me. So much of my automotive enthusiasm in the internet age was based in Top Gear clips on YouTube and learning how to use torrents just so I could download Top Gear a minute after it ended. in the UK on a Sunday and I'd have friends over in my basement when I was much younger and, and, you know, we'd all watch it. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's a weird thing to know that's not, not going to be around, even though obviously the show's been through, I don't know, a dozen iterations since the Clarkson May Hammond era sort of faded out. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting. We kind of bookend this episode with a kind of farewells to, to longstanding institutions, uh, Phoenix straps and now Top Gear and, uh, Yeah. I mean, like with NATO straps, I mean, with, with Top Gear, like now there's just, you're spoiled for choice when it comes to kind of. Online streaming video, you know, kind of automotive shows or in review shows, everything from, you know, throttle house to, to our friend Henry and all of this. And it's, uh, but yeah, they were, they were there at the beginning. |
| James Heaton | Yeah. I mean, and that's a, that's an interesting touch point is there's no shortage of great car media these days. I would say the field is, has never been stronger. Yeah. And yeah, whether, whether you track down what Henry catch pulls up to with Hagerty, which has been really incredible, great stuff, super enjoyable, or check out something like, you know, we've had, um, Jacob from the straight pipes on the show in the past. And we've had Thomas from throttle house. And I think especially with throttle house that most closely aligns with the sort of top gear format of hosts with some chemistry that are kind of goofing around a little bit. And then the car is, is the main part of the story. Uh, so I think there's a ton out there and, uh, and that's, that's even only just scratches the surface. Like I just listed kind of the two biggest ones in Canada and, you know, who are at least, you know, kind of co-produced co-hosted by buddies. Uh, they do some incredible stuff out there these days, but, uh, I've, I've really been enjoying, um, so much of what's in car media right now. You know, uh, the intercooler remains something I try and read every single day. They publish a story a day. Um, and, uh, and yeah, there's, so there's some good stuff. It's not like we're, we're in a drought now that top gear is not going to do eight episodes a year, but there's always a bit of an occasion to getting to watch the, whatever the new episode of top gear was. Yeah. All right. |
| Jason Heaton | What have you got for your second? Yeah. My second one is, uh, it's also a YouTube video and it's called the voyage and it's, um, it's a video about a tall ship called the bark Europa. Uh, that's based in, in the Netherlands. And, uh, I came across this because Uh, somebody I follow on Instagram had taken a voyage, uh, across the Drake passage from Ushuaia, Argentina to Antarctica on this tall ship. And I was like, fascinated by this. The photos were spectacular. Um, look, you know, looked like, uh, the old, you know, Frank Hurley Shackleton photos, except they were, you know, high definition, like video, um, and photos. Um, but Europa actually runs expeditions where you can, they take amateurs and teach you how to kind of crew and sail. a tall ship and they do multiple voyages a year. Uh, and, and it just, it piqued my interest and I was like, how could I make this work? It's like $16,000 to do this 22 day sale from Argentina to Antarctica. I was scheming on how can I, can this be a business write-off, you know, book research, whatever. I got a little sidetracked, started looking into the Bark Europa and I found this 30 minute video on YouTube called the voyage. And it was filmed during the pandemic. So like March, like full on beginning of COVID time when the world was shutting down and the crew members on this tall ship were in Argentina, kind of stuck there. They couldn't go ashore, um, because of lockdown. And, uh, they were just trying to figure out how we're going to get back home, who will accept us. And the only place that would really take them in was their home port, uh, back in the Netherlands. And so they sailed, you know, 10,000 miles. from Argentina back to the Netherlands on this tall ship. And it takes weeks and, and it just follows this voyage and this crew. And it's just captivating. I mean, it's, it's, there's not a lot of voiceover or dialogue. Um, and that part isn't, isn't the reason I tuned in. It's just the footage is great. And just kind of the life on board. It's just fascinating because this is the kind of sailing, uh, and, and travel that you just don't see anymore. You read about it in old books. Um, or new books about old, old expeditions, you know, to the polar regions, et cetera. So, um, yeah, if you're kind of keen on this, uh, you can see what life on a tall ship is like on a very long voyage. Uh, check it out the voyage on YouTube with the, the Barky robot. |
| James Heaton | That's great, man. Yeah. I scrubbed through that as you were talking in the, no matter where I dropped the red dot on the video, uh, the footage is remarkable storms and, uh, yeah, it looks like they're training to clean the boat and, and, you know, take care of it and rescue people and. Oh, man, what a thing. Cool. Very cool suggestion. I look forward to watching this. Yeah. Well, hey, as always, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even move us towards that 2000 subscriber bonus where we're going to turn on the YouTube channel, please visit TheGreyNado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from Soren Kierkegaard who said, life can only be understood backwards. but it must be lived forwards. |