The Grey Nato - Ep 38 - Does In-House Matter?

Published on Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:01:25 -0400

Synopsis

This episode of The Grey Nato podcast covers several topics related to watches and diving. They announce the winner of their Oris Diver 65 giveaway. Jason recounts his recent trip to Bermuda where he attended the America's Cup sailing races and went diving on a shipwreck. They discuss the release of the Halios Seaforth and IWC Mark XVIII watches. The main discussion focuses on whether having an "in-house" movement matters when buying a watch, examining the pros and cons from different perspectives. Final topics include Jason's upcoming dive trip to the shipwreck HMS Hermes and recommendations for a key suspension clip, a Titanic video game, and a National Geographic article on diving in Antarctica.

Transcript

Speaker
James Welcome to episode 38 of the Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. Thanks so much for listening. So we've got some news. I guess this is the end. This episode would mark the end of the Oris Diver 65 giveaway, which means With the end, we also need a winner. And, uh, Jason, who do we get, uh, from our big list of entries?
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, we got, we got over a thousand entries, which was just a really super cool, super cool, really nice. Uh, I wouldn't call it a surprise. I mean, we knew there'd be a lot of, uh, a lot of feedback, a lot of interest in this giveaway, but, uh, it was a great, you know, great to get that many people entering and we really thank everybody for giving it a shot. Um, certainly thanks to, to Oris for supplying such a great piece. For sure. And, uh, our kind of methodology of choosing a winner was we, we selected all of the entries with the, you know, the correct criteria from our Instagram feed and, uh, pasted them into a spreadsheet and then used a random number generator to find our winner. And that person is Anastasio Giannakis, who goes by the handle Giassuko, G I A S U K O on Instagram. Yeah, so Anastasios, we will be in touch this week to get all of your shipping information so we can send that watch over to you and then by all means wear it, wear it well and post a lot of photos of it, tag us when you get it and just enjoy it. Yeah, please. Yeah, so congratulations and thanks to everybody for entering.
James Yeah, and you know, stay on the Instagram and certainly stay tuned to the show for future giveaways. We have some really cool ones in the works and I think there's other interested brands that will see the number of entries that we got on this one, and we should be able to do more. And certainly, Jason and I are well aware that we don't necessarily need more watches at this point. So I think giveaways is a pretty good way to kind of tackle brands that want to connect some way. So we'll do what we can. And congratulations, Anastasios. That's awesome. What a cool watch. And thanks again to AORUS for supplying. Definitely. And what are you feeling for new business? Anything new? You were on a trip. I mean, it was a little while ago now due to our recording schedule, but how was Bermuda?
Jason Heaton Bermuda was great. I was there, as I mentioned, last episode I went with as a guest of Ulysse Nardin. And even though the team that they were supporting didn't make it into the finals of the America's Cup, they were gracious enough to host a few journalists and retailers and some of their customers to Bermuda to watch the final weekend of the racing. You know, it was great. I was in Bermuda two, two summers ago with, with Bremont to watch some preliminary racing and, and Bermuda is just, it's one of these really contagious places that when you visit, you want to go back. It's a little bit like the Caribbean, but not quite. It almost feels like, like a small island from Scotland got plunked down in the Caribbean or something. You get all these little windy, windy roads and stone fences and cottages with fireplaces and chimneys and, um, you know, these kind of quaint, street names and things and narrow roads and yet, you know, it's hot and humid and there are, you know, tropical birds and coral reefs around it. So it's just a fascinating place. And of course, you know, the racing was stupendous. You know, seeing those boats fly around was really cool. We got a chance to try our hand at sailing on kind of a smaller version of the America's Cup boats, those hydrofoil high-tech sailboats. We were out on those.
James The whole trip looked really cool, but sailing on those boats, those foil style boats, I don't know the exact name for it. That looked so super cool.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. They look so fast. And there were a couple of videos on Instagram of them. Do you know what one of those boats costs if you were wanting to have one, you know, for your lake or something like that?
Jason Heaton Well, I don't know, but I was talking to, um, kind of a fellow watch journalist who was on the trip, James Malcolmson, who does some writing for Rob Report and a few other places. And he's an experienced sailor. He owns a boat, lives out in San Francisco, and he's kind of dialed into the sailing scene. And he was saying that, you know, foiling catamarans are pretty, pretty cutting edge, and only within the past year or two have they become kind of trickled down to consumer. Ah, OK. The consumer realm. So it's only very recently that you could actually buy a foiling boat you know, kind of to take to your lake or whatever. And, uh, you know, the lake that I've got down the street from the house here, I think, you know, if you were up on foils, you'd be across it in about 30 seconds. It's, uh, we were taking turns. Uh, just sort of clinging, clinging on for dear life as these two UK Olympians were, were, you know, actually doing the sailing, uh, there in Bermuda. And, um, the rest of us were, were following along in like a little rigid inflatable boat. And, you know, we were tracking their speed. And, you know, this is just purely for, for kicks taking us along and they were hitting 45 knots. I mean, that's, that's insanely fast for just, you know, recreational sailing on the sound and Bermuda. Yeah. That's ripping. When I was getting my ride, you almost don't get a sense of the speed because it's so quiet. You know, I think that, that always strikes me about sailing on some of these, these racing boats is because it's purely wind powered. There's no. cacophony of engines. There's not a lot of, um, you know, you just sort of get the sound of a little bit of the creaking of the mast and maybe some whistling in the, in the, in the lines and, and, uh, a bit of the wake behind the boat. But, um, you know, to kind of rise up on those foils and just cruise along, it was just, it was a real thrill. The actual America's cup racing was, was fun to watch. And then I managed to sneak in a morning of diving. Uh, I guess it was last Sunday. Um, which was, I didn't know what to expect. I'd heard good things about Bermuda diving. Um, given all the shipwrecks that are around the island there. It was, it was awesome. I mean, I'd, I'd, I'd make a trip to Bermuda just for the diving because.
Unknown Oh, really?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, that's great. Yeah. It was, uh, you know, great visibility, super healthy coral. Um, you know, they've got a lot of shipwrecks. We, we dived on a, it was kind of an intentionally sunk. It was a former U S coast guard buoy tender, uh, like, you know, 150 foot, uh, boat that had been sunk and, and it had some good penetration and sitting upright and some good fish life around it. So, uh, it was fun to kind of be able to sneak off and do that, uh, one of the mornings before the, the America's Cup racing. So, um, good times.
James Yeah. You posted a really excellent piece to, uh, Hoding Key.
Jason Heaton Oh, thanks. Yeah. If you want to check out kind of the recap of my visit there, uh, the article went up last week, just kind of the couple of days after I got home.
James So yeah, we'll put that in the show notes.
Jason Heaton America's Cup seems like old news now, but yeah, we'll, we'll definitely drop that in. What's new up in Vancouver these days?
James Oh man, you know, I've been swamped with a number of various projects. So really, at most, I would say new business. There's a couple of kind of new watches on the market that I thought looked like they'd be worth talking about. One is we've talked about the Halia Seaforth like for a long time now. Oh yeah. But earlier this week, and actually like it was the window that they were available was way less than the window between two of our recordings. And so I think it was three days, you could order a C4 via the website. And so their ordering window is closed for the time being.
Unknown Yeah.
James But the first wave should be moving its way to buyers in July. And I think that's right in the sweet spot of the sort of watches that we love for Greynado. And you're talking under, I think it's 680 US. So under $750, which is awesome. And 40mm, quite a few different versions, but obviously you can get them with a steel bezel, which is great. I love a 12-hour bezel. You can get these really slick fixed bezels. There's a few different dials. We've talked about them kind of at length, but for those of you who are listening that, you know, successfully ordered one, congratulations. You know, I've seen some of the earlier versions, the pre-sale stuff, kind of post-prototype, but before final, and they look fantastic. Not really like anything else. I think that this is the a real maturing step in the Hallios design language because it has some of the design language established in the Tropic. Yeah. But it seems like so much more of a cemented overall design in terms of what it's attempting to be and the fact that it doesn't really look like a lot else that's on the market. Yeah. And I think if you're listening to this and you go like, I can't believe I missed it and it was only a couple of days, my recommendation would be to, you know, stay tight to the Hallios Instagram because they will mention when the next window kind of of ordering opportunity comes live. And that's probably, I would say that's how almost everybody found out that they were going to be up for sale is, uh, is via their Instagram.
Jason Heaton So yeah, it's such a, it's such a neat watch and, you know, just full disclosure, I've, I've got an order in, um, hopefully, hopefully we'll see that in the next few weeks. It's, it's, it's one of those watches that, uh, you know, there are a few watches that have been more excited to get, I think it's because, um, Jason at Halios, he does a really good job of building up the design process, the prototyping. I wouldn't call them teasers, but he puts up some great photos on Instagram of the watch's development. He gets his loyal following whipped up, and that's definitely the state I'm in. I'm really excited, and I know that you ordered the one with the 12-hour bezel, and I've got the fixed bezel version.
James Yeah, I think we I think we ordered the same model just with different bezels Yeah, and I mean yours would have been my second pick. I really love the turquoise dial. Yeah, but obviously I have a Hard-fought love for the the 12-hour bezel. So I had to go that road. I'm I'm Yeah, I'm Jack to get it in. I think it'll be a great watch for the summer. It's gonna be really fun watch to review and Just one one that I'm really looking forward to wearing around. I've had a couple of great years I guess it's been longer than that hasn't it within the end of 2012 or 2013, I guess that I got the Tropic. So it's been some time. Yeah. I'd have to go back and double check that date, but it's been a few years that I've had that watch and I've worn it weekly. I love it a lot. And I think that the, uh, the C4 will fit right into that. And I like these watches that are under a thousand dollars where you don't necessarily have to sell a bunch of your collection to get one. And you don't have to necessarily follow a one in one out sort of rule. You can just... And with the Halio stuff and with a lot of these brands, Raven as well, you typically know the watch in advance of its availability.
Unknown Yeah.
James So you have some time to kind of make your decision and even in the case of the C4, kind of pick your combo. Yeah. And Raven too, like with the Trekker 40, they had a handful of different versions. I think there were six or seven different SKUs to begin with. And there was time basically to plan that before they were gone. Yeah. And, you know, with a normal watch that's sold at a retailer, typically they're not super limited. Uh, certainly not at this price point. Right. So with some of the indie watches, you kind of have to be on your game for when they actually have the window to buy. Because between watch you seek and Instagram and things like the Grenado, like it doesn't take that many people, legitimately speaking, to buy all of them. Right. Right. Because there just aren't that many. We're not talking about thousands or even several hundred.
Unknown Yeah.
James There's a few hundred of these watches that will be available. And then Halliost has a history of occasionally redoing watches, but never with the same color. So once these first, I think there's five or six versions, depending on how you spec the bezel, once those are done, your only option would be watch recon or wait to see what the next versions lie. Yeah. And yeah, so I think that's a pretty cool one. And then we can jump right into my second one. Did you get a chance to take a look at the IWC Mark 18 tribute to Mark 11?
Jason Heaton Yeah, it sort of caught me off guard. I think it probably caught a lot of people off guard when I saw it appear kind of in feeds and on the blogs and things. I'm pretty jazzed about it. I mean, I think it's got the look that everybody likes. It seemed to garner a fair amount of kind of criticism from certain people that didn't like the, you know, the date window and and little niggling issues with it. But for me, I thought it hits the mark, I think. It's a great looking watch.
James Yeah, I think it looks fantastic. And obviously, at 40 millimeters, the sizing is going to be clear and really straightforward. And obviously, it's an automatic. I'm not a huge fan of the aged lume, but I know that's not a good or a bad feature. It's something that some people really like and some don't.
Unknown Yeah.
James I saw a photo. Now I'm just trying to remember whose Instagram account. On somebody's Instagram account, I saw a wrist shot, probably the first one. Yeah. It was one of the European bloggers and the loom color on the hands looked different than the loom color on the markers.
Unknown Huh.
James And that could have been the light. I mean, there's really no way to just suggest that that's the way that it necessarily is because that's not the way it looks in the renders that they, you know, they sent out to press. Yeah. It's a really beautiful watch. Yeah. The date window does not bother me at all as it's color matched to the dial, whatever.
Unknown Yeah.
James I mean, they could offer a no date version, but that would really only appease the maybe 1% of the, you know, in the overlap of the people who don't want date windows and are also buyers. It's really only going to appease like a small window of them. Yeah. So I can understand why they would do it this way. And I think the, where they've put the date and how they've done it, it doesn't bother me. And the date's a pretty handy feature at times. So Pricing is, you know, at the low end of IWC, actually the very, very low end of IWC at $41.50 USD is what they're projecting when it comes to North America later this year. And now, I remember back when we were chatting about maybe it was Dreamwatches or it was like our predictions or wishes for SIHH, you had mentioned a reissue of a JLC Pilot's Watch. How close would this be to that?
Jason Heaton Well, it's pretty dead on. I mean, you know, kind of look at the history of the Mark 11 style. It was just a couple of brands. In fact, I think it might have only been JLC and IWC that were actually making a Mark 11 for the RAF. And, you know, this pretty well hits it. I mean, I think, you know, you can always find fault or find little areas that could be improved. You know, if you look at, I tend to be an avid follower of analog shifts, um, Instagram feed. And I visit their site fairly regularly just to kind of drool over their watches. And they've got, I think they've got one or two IWC Mark 11s, the vintage ones on their site. And, and when you look at those and, and even if you look at something like the MK2 or Mark 2, um, the Hawkins, Hawkins, Hawkins, you know, I almost think that those come a little closer. Well, obviously the vintage one is the closest you can get, but you know, a little smaller, I, Personally, no date. I mean, the date doesn't really bother me, but I would love no date. You know, what I would really love is I would love a hand-wound movement. For sure. You know, if JLC did it, kind of the way they rolled out that geophysic 1958 tribute a couple of years ago, that to me was just such a dead-on, perfect kind of tribute watch. And I think, you know, IWC comes close with this. You know, I'd be certainly happy to own one. But on the other hand, I kind of think they already have like a 40 millimeter and I think they even have a 36 millimeter pilot's watch now that almost comes closer to kind of that vintage vibe. Yeah. I remember at SIHH last year, they had a... I don't know if it was... Technically, I don't know if it was a Mark series, but it was like a 36 millimeter pilot's watch, which I thought was really cool.
James Right. I think it's in the Mark 18 family, but I could be wrong with IWC. Yeah. And I do agree that there's something about the the original, the vintage ones, like what's on AS and the Hawking, that's it's somehow rounder. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know how to describe it because obviously both are a circular dial and almost identical looking watches.
Unknown Yeah.
James I mean, if you were in the market for an IWC pilot watch, this feels like it'll be a hot one.
Unknown Yeah.
James And and I think the pricing for IWC, the pricing is very appealing, I think, because that's right in the same, roughly the same vein as their 40 millimeter Mark 18. Yes. Yeah. I think it's a small premium that you're paying. Yeah. Um, whether or not this is a better looking watch than the Petit Prince or the white dial one is kind of up to you. I think all three, it would be hard with, you know, kind of all three in the same display case. Yeah. If you like the aged loom, then I think the tribute to Mark 11 is probably right on point. Do you have any idea what an original one costs, a JLC?
Jason Heaton JLC, oh boy. um like a vintage one boy i think you know the iwc mark 11s are going for i think around 8 000 or thereabouts i'm guessing okay i'm guessing the jlc's are probably 13 14 or maybe more because they're a little more rare and a little bit more prestigious brand i guess i i honestly don't know but yeah um yeah if you're after that look so not not certainly not 4 000 no no yeah so so yeah this might be your ticket and i think your your your remark about the kind of the Hawkins or the vintage ones looking rounder. I think, I think I want to say that the bezel on the old ones and even on the Hawkins is like a thicker, like a wider bezel.
James Definitely. Yeah. It's closer to like one of the Trent watches. Yeah. In the case, the case shape is really curvy lug. And then maybe it's the dome from the, from the crystal helps.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. Not sure. Beautiful watch though. And yeah, the IWC Mark 11 on Analog shift is inquire for price. So that would indicate it's of a higher value than the average on the site. So certainly if you're not in the market for an original, an older one, and you don't want to go the Mark II route, then I think this could be a pretty good option. I have no idea how well IWCs these days hold their value used. My guess is if it's limited, it'll hold its value pretty well. So you may not even save that much if you wait for somebody to flip one on watch recon or something like that. Right. Right. Switching back to dive watches, you have a trip coming up in August. Want to tell us about that?
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I, you know, I've kind of been, this has been in the works for actually several years. There's a shipwreck that I've wanted to dive. It's kind of, I would argue it's kind of my Holy Grail wreck to dive. that I've thought about for quite a while, and it's off the east coast of Sri Lanka, which is a place that I visit every few years. It's called the HMS Hermes, and the Hermes was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier. So it was built in like 1918 or 1919 after the First World War by the British, and it made it all the way through the beginnings of World War II until it was sunk by the Japanese in 1942 off the east coast of Sri Lanka during an air raid there. And it's a really, it's actually one of only like three aircraft carriers that you can dive in the world and the only one that was actually sunk during combat and not intentionally sunk. And it's one of those kind of iconic shipwrecks that kind of people that travel the world looking for shipwrecks to dive, they seek out, but it's It's also kind of a challenge to get to because it's in a fairly remote part of Sri Lanka and it's also offshore. And for quite a few years, that part of the country was inaccessible because of the civil war. And it's a deep wreck. So it's 175 feet deep, you know, 50 meters or so. So I happen to know the guy who has done more dives on the Hermes than pretty much anyone else. And he runs a tech diving course out of a small town on the East coast of Sri Lanka. And he's offered to kind of train me and take me out to the wreck, uh, to, to dive it in late August. So it's, it's one of those, you know, I think you and I are these, we, we tend to kind of have a big challenge and every year, you know, last year was Baker for you and you did the Clipperton expedition earlier this year. And for me, the Hermes is kind of my, thing that's kind of lurking out there in the future for me this year. And I'm, I've been, you know, gearing up both literally and figuratively to, to go do this. I'm studying the, the tech diving manual. It's a lot of math and a lot of theory and a lot of skull and crossbones warnings about, you know, you will die if you do this wrong kind of stuff. So, you know, aside from all that and preparing mentally and physically to do this dive, um, I have a, uh... what many would consider trivial but the listeners of the great nato certainly won't uh... sort of a conundrum and that is which which uh... dive watch i should wear on this dive you know james you and i have hashed this out a bit uh... in our daily back and forth but uh... it's an important discussion it is an important discussion and i thought that i would uh... kind of solicit some reader feedback uh... you know if anyone cares to kind of offer their suggestions i the kind of the candidates of the watches that i have that are in the running are my dearly beloved 140-60 Rolex Submariner, which is the watch that I've done a lot of kind of life, you know, life-changing, momentous things with, which is kind of an early logical choice. But I've also got, you know, these old Aqualands, Citizen Aqualands that I've talked about on past shows that are also strong candidates simply because They're reliable. They are, um, and, and most importantly, it's, it provides a nice backup depth gauge, which I think would be, um, something very handy. It's something that's actually required, um, you know, to do dives like this. You can track, uh, if your computer goes down, you can, um, you know, track your depth and your time with, with it, you know, something with, uh, you know, a nice long accordion rubber strap, which, you know, will fit over a wetsuit when I'm doing a deep dive and the neoprene will compress. Those two are candidates I've, I've thought about, um, My DOCSIS sub 300, kind of more for sentimental reasons. So I think those are kind of my three top choices. I had briefly considered my, my Braymont Supermarine 2000, but one of my considerations is I want kind of a more lower profile watch that won't get snagged on a lot of the gear that I'll be wearing. And the S2000 kind of sits up high off the wrist and I can imagine kind of getting it snagged in all the extra hoses and, and strapping and stuff that I'll be wearing when I'm doing this dive. So.
James Yeah, it's a lot of gear to do that dive, and like you said, a lot of preparation. And for those listening who have seen Blue Water, White Death, a little bit of context for you, the Hermes is the same wreck where Peter Gimbel was bent in the film. Yeah. So that's the same one where they anchored off the wreck, hoping to find sharks, and went down there repeatedly with a huge amount of gear. If you read Blue Meridian, Matheson goes into more detail about the amount of gear they took down to the ship. All these lighting cables, like a whole spine of cables that had to go all the way to the bottom so they could light it. And then everything they did, people were having trouble because of just how deep it is and how long they were staying down. I mean, it's a pinnacle dive, certainly not only if you're into wreck diving, but if you're into kind of historical wreck diving. I think this is an absolute winner. I think you've chosen well. And this is also why I think that, you know, picking the right watch is key.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think for a lot of the, you know, the diving that I do and that we do, you know, you kind of choose a watch based on something that might be kind of fun or memento. But I think in this case, I'd really need to consider it as a legitimate tool. I think a well-marked bezel for tracking, you know, decompression stops, which I'll be doing. You know, as I mentioned, the presence of a backup depth gauge would be nice. something that fits, you know, well with all the other gear, you know, all these little considerations, in addition to kind of the fact that the watch will be a memento. When I come back from this trip, I'd like to have it be a watch that I'm going to keep and that I'll be able to look at and remember that trip by. So, you know, I'll just kind of open it up casually to listeners. And certainly if you want to write into thegrenadoatgmail.com or tag me on Instagram or tag us on Instagram and kind of give your suggestions, Um, I'd love to, love to hear what people's opinions are, whether you're a diver or, or you just want to, you know, you'd like to maybe see some GoPro footage of one of these watches down in that wreck. Uh, let us know.
James Yeah. And if you happen to have done some kind of pinnacle diving, some diving, you're very proud of some really awesome location and you went through the same thought process, maybe send us an email, tell us the story. And, uh, and if it's a cool one, we'll share it on the show. We always like to kind of reflect some of those back at the audience, uh, You know, maybe you wouldn't feel this way about the fins you wore or the backpack you chose to go up a mountain. But I think things like a watch, because you're not going to wear the fins to the office during the week or whatever, you can always kind of have that watch on. And then when you kind of look at it, you're able to recall, you know, one of these events that you did all the planning for and then actually executed on and had a, you know, an experience that not only not a lot of people have had, but an experience that personally is quite important.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James I can definitely understand the kind of mental gymnastics of trying to pick that watch, for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So maybe we should jump into our main topic, which is one that we've bandied around for, gosh, as long as we've been doing this show, I think we've been talking about doing this one.
James Yeah. Does in-house matter? We've received a ton of emails. So for everybody who I kind of said we would get to it when we get to it, This is us getting to it. So the plan is to chat about the various elements of in-house, you know, kind of the history of what that meant when it became more of a marketing term than anything else. And when you're buying a watch, should this be something you're really concerned about? Should this be a primary feature of the watch or is it a nicety or is it something to avoid? You know, I think that a lot of people are kind of confused because so many brands have pushed in-house in the last little while. And I think it's something that they sell kind of directly to enthusiasts. I don't think it matters to the mall crowds one way or another. So, you know, Jason, I know you had written a piece on this some time ago. Where does your kind of thought process land on in-house versus not in-house versus value versus kind of perceived value in marketing?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Maybe even before we kind of jump into the arguments or kind of the discussion about it, maybe it might be a a good idea to define what we mean or what we interpret as in-house. Yeah, that's a good thought. If not even for listeners that maybe aren't familiar with that term, but just to kind of make sure we're both on the same page. I think, you know, I don't know what... There's a few different levels. Yeah, and I don't know if the term in-house movement, you know, if that's kind of a creation of the past decade or two and if something was, you know, kind of the term that a lot of the the watch companies use, particularly the French-speaking part of Switzerland watch companies, is manufacture movement, they call it. And I think what we're loosely referring to here is a watch movement that is designed, manufactured, and assembled under their roof. Do you think that's a fair statement, or would you go further than that?
James Yeah, I think there's various levels to what you could call in-house. As with a lot of things in watchmaking, you could go from quartz to Roger Smith. Yeah, yeah, right, right. So, I mean, at a certain point you have scenarios where every piece of the watch is being crafted by a person. So, this would be your Roger Smiths, your Greubel Forzis, some Patek Philippes. You know, when you get into the really high complications from a number of different brands, sometimes there's only two or three people at their company capable of making it.
Unknown Yeah.
James and they will be making each piece by hand, and then likely that dude's job will be to maintain those watches throughout the life cycle of his time at the company, because the watch will outlast him. Right, right. So I think you have artisan, which is probably outside the scope of our expertise. It's nice to talk about, and I really, you know, I have a grand fondness for Gruber Forsey. but I'm not a Gribble 4Z buyer and I doubt I will ever have the good fortune to be a Gribble 4Z buyer. So I would probably leave that to other experts or even, you know, people from the brand themselves to explain how much time and effort goes into not only designing the movement, which is insane at these companies, how much time they can spend designing the movement so that it has not only the performance that they want, but also the aesthetics. Because the movement becomes the watch at a certain point,
Unknown Yeah.
James But I think what we're talking about is, you know, let's dial that back a little bit. We're talking about mass produced movements that are designed, implemented, assembled and then serviced by one brand as much as possible. I mean, there are situations where mainsprings, things like that are going to be sourced from other brands, which is a fairly common practice. And, you know, it's up to you whether that's important. That's definitely getting down into the kind of nitty gritty. I'm Concepto, you know, there's a handful of brands that, you know, if you have the money, will make you a movement that is made by them and is kind of not an ETA or a MIOTA, which is the most non kind of in-house when you get to a mechanical sense.
Jason Heaton I think two examples of in-house watches that you and I both own are a Rolex and a Seiko. You mentioned Rolex and Seiko. Now, from the definitions that we've given of in-house movements, these two should be the pinnacle of in-house movements, right? Everything is made there. Seiko, you know, complete vertical integration. Same with Rolex. And, you know, they're manufacturing parts, they're assembling them, they're finishing them from top to bottom, from an SKX Seiko to, you know, a Creedor or a Grand Seiko. But I think the level that you talked about earlier with the Gruble 4Cs or a Lange or something like that, it's a different type of in-house and yet they kind of fall under that same term. And I think that's where I don't know if the term becomes... Useless? Useless or watered down? Problematic, maybe? Problematic, because I think people assume that because they're hearing so much about, you know, Grubel-Forsyth or Alanga having an in-house movement, they assume that the watch that they're buying, the Doxa or the Halios or the, you know, whatever it is, should also have an in-house movement. And I think I think the argument that I made a few years ago in the article I wrote on Gear Patrol and kind of where I still stand on this is, you know, for the types of watches that are important to me and probably to the vast majority of our listeners and probably a lot of the people that are reading the forums and things, you have to look at the watch holistically. And rather than just look at the movement, the caliber, the motor that's inside of this thing as in-house, look at the other aspects of a watch that are equally important. Let's, you know, just take a tool diver or just a dive watch or something. The design of the case, the build of the case, the expertise that goes into making the case or even the strap or, you know, the dial printing or the luminescence, those things are, I would argue, equally, if not more important than the movement in the vast majority of the types of watches that I will ever own. Right. you know, my Rolex sub or my, you know, Seiko turtle has a quote unquote in-house movement from those brands is actually, you know, I don't want to say meaningless, but it's so unimportant to me. Um, although I do respect what those brands do.
James So it just has to be good enough. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James You know what I mean? And, and, and I think, I think if you're looking at a movement, you have to, you have to with any movement, and this is literally any movement, you have to look at what it purports to be. Like whether it achieves, whether it achieves its own mission statement. And if so, is it a good movement or is it somehow a bad movement? And the truth is, is at the entry level to automatic movements, there aren't many bad ones. Yeah. Those that were weeded out by the courts crisis. Yeah. And even before that, by the onset of micromanufacturing and the ability to rapidly replicate things that would have been created by hand. and removing the human element from that brought the overall level of quality up. Right. And as you bring the level of quality of the pieces of a movement or a car's engine or whatever to a higher level, then you find that they're more reliable and you can better predict the way that they'll perform and thus you can better tune them for desired level of performance. Yeah. And that's true within a movement. So if you're looking at something like an ETA-2824 or the Mioda-9015, these movements have seen orders of magnitude more testing in the real world than some very high-end fancy limited handmade movements where there'll be 10 or a hundred when they can get to it.
Unknown Yeah.
James You know what isn't necessarily always talked about is when you see some of these watches that are a million dollars and have 10 plus complications. Yeah. They may say they'll make 15 or 5.
Unknown Right.
James But it might take them 10 years. Yeah. when they actually get to the field and they're used by people on their wrist, assuming people wear this, you know, hypothetical million plus dollar watch, it may not perform as well as a 2824. Yeah. Yeah. And the question is, does it have to? No, probably not. Yeah. I guess I think what the, the main lesson, if we cut to some form of a chase here is I would say that it, it's, um, it's not in-house or not in-house. It's specifically the movement.
Unknown Yeah.
James So you can find an ETA 2824 in a $500 Indy Diver and you can find it in a Recents. So if you look at something like a Recents Type 3 is 23,000 euros. Right. And you can look at that watch and I think even just from looking at it, you know, the movement's not going to be some bog standard basic movement, but it turns out the actual beating heart of the movement is based on a 2824. Yeah. And is there anything wrong with that? doesn't bother me one bit. I know that you hear some purists have trouble with the fact that they're taking a shelf movement, a movement that's available at large in many other watches and then modifying based on that. All I can see is that probably drastically limits the amount of investment they need in gear train and heartbeat and all the very basics of the movement and allowed them to focus on the clever magnet system that allows them to essentially mate the movement side with the oil-filled side as a sort of transmission via magnets.
Unknown Yeah.
James And would that have been possible if they also had to make their own movement? And if they had to make their own movement, would they get the same performance that they get from a 2824, which is a known entity, which can be serviced? Right. It always depends on what you're buying and what the watch purports to be. So... Yeah.
Jason Heaton And, you know, the other kind of ubiquitous movement example is the 7750, the Valjoux. chronograph movement that debuted in 1972. And, you know, people that are kind of watch snobs like to sort of poo-poo that movement because, you know, it had plastic parts in it and it wasn't a column wheel chronograph, et cetera, et cetera. But that movement has been in so many iconic watches. And I think one of the brands that did so much with that movement was IWC. And of course, IWC of late has moved more towards truly in-house manufacturing. But, you know, throughout the 80s and the 90s, They did so much with that movement. Kurt Klaus is their kind of iconic famous old watchmaker who took a 7750 and based his revolutionary perpetual calendar on it. And it's a perpetual calendar that could have all the functions set entirely through the crown without little push pieces on the side of the case. A tremendous achievement in watchmaking and still revered by everybody up and down the the chain of expertise or of knowledge in watchmaking. And then, you know, Richard Habering, who used to work for IWC, took the 7750 and made their famous split seconds, their doppelchronograph out of the 7750 because he just found that it was kind of a shortcut to achieving what was otherwise an extremely complicated movement to build from the ground up. And, you know, IWC made such good use of the 7750 and some of those great Flieger chronographs that they made in the 80s with the black ceramic case. You know, these are highly collectible, really desirable watches that have a movement that a lot of people will poo-poo. And I think it kind of just goes to this notion of, like what you were saying, it's just look at the movement itself. Don't, you know, strip away that branding. I think the in-house label or manufacturer label has become much more prominent in the last five, maybe ten years, due in large part to this on-again, off-again scenario with ETA, the Swatch Group, and ETA saying that they're going to limit sales of base movements to companies outside of the Swatch Group. I think brands kind of hustled to differentiate themselves by necessity by creating their own movements because they were afraid that the supplier was going to run out. they had to do something and suddenly it became this, this branding opportunity. And I think we've reached this second chapter of that post EDA era. Um, and we're seeing things very interesting happening, like what we saw at Basel this year with Tudor using a Breitling chronograph movement in their new black bay chronograph and Breitling using a Tudor movement in, I think it's the new super ocean heritage. And, um, you know, we're going to start seeing this stuff. And I think it's kind of throwback to the way the watch industry was, at least the Swiss watch industry was, you know, going back to the early part of the 20th century when, you know, those who did things best made things, you know, you had a case maker, a dial maker and a movement maker. And then they were assembled by the company whose name was on the dial. And I think, I don't know if we're going to see more of that or if we're just going to start to see this sort of insular, you know, sort of looking inward you know, more and more. But I don't know. A lot of it is an economic, you know, it's an economic argument for a lot of these brands. So.
James Yeah. And I think going in-house to, you know, claim that as a term and let's talk about the meat of the luxury market in the last 15 years. Even you could probably cut that down to 10 years. The first one that stands out in my mind, and this may not be like historically the first, but the first one that stands out in my mind is Panerai. Yeah. For many, many years made a perfectly reliable ish. Yeah. You know, I've read, I've read some things, but a serviceable product with the 6497 hand-wound ETA. Yeah. And then started the process of transitioning to in-house movements with the P2002. And now we're up into the P9000s, which use, I mean, the P9000s are three-day movements. So they use technology from JLC, also within the Richemont brand and such. And, you know, obviously those of us who've been kind of following or knowing Panerai for some amount of time, know that the price has changed when they did that. Yeah. And you saw the same with IWC who, like Omega, used to offer watches that used ETA calibers, not exclusively. Certainly IWC has some insanely complicated watches in their history in the 80s and the 90s and really in any decade. But they offered more entry level pieces, entry level to their brand with ETA movements, which they still do to a certain extent. Not ETA necessarily, but off the shelf movements.
Unknown Yeah.
James And then they started to slowly progress towards their, you know, eight, you know, five digit eight series caliber movements, and the prices went up. And we saw the same with the BO1 from Breitling when they moved to an in house caliber, there is a certain prestige if you're at a certain point in the market, Omega, of course, did this too, where being able to you're able to move kind of up a step in the market or better position yourself in the market as terms of luxury by not using as common a movement yeah yeah now arguably you could say omega did it really for technology they had the ability to capitalize on the coaxial escapement and they've now taken it so many generations in just a few years they've gone wild with their technology they've you know hugely anti-magnetic movements in the 9,000 caliber movements where you'll see the culmination of the coaxial and the anti-magnetic materials. This is, I think this is a good thing for buyers, but of course you and I have lamented that the Omega that made the 2254 isn't really Omega anymore. It's a different sort of thing. At least they still make the Speedmaster.
Unknown Yeah.
James But certainly the whole, their whole dive watch game has changed.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think, I think it, it's disturbing or troubling to me when brands do sort of switch to sort of in-house manufacture and kind of kick up the prestige based on that when it isn't really necessary. And I, you know, going back to my earlier statement about, you know, the ETA supplier crisis or perceived crisis, you know, that that's one thing, but, um, it, it kind of bothered me when Panerai went from, you know, these, these simple, robust hand-wound pocket watch movements in, you know, really cool cases with crown protectors and big beefy leather straps to suddenly we're kind of haute or lingerie, you know, high-end in-house manufacturer, which kind of veers from their history. And I, you know, your point, we've talked about that 2254 in the past. It was such a, it was such a great way to get a really fantastic watch that used, I think it was what, a 2892 base for the caliber 1120. And, you know, great thin dive watch that, you know, Omega, you know, tweaked it, massaged it, turned it into a nice, you know, chronometer grade, well-decorated, really great watch. I would think that, I would argue that unless you're making a substantial improvement to a movement's function, or adding a complication that doesn't exist, at least in the, in the kind of stratus of watches that, that we're kind of talking, not the grouble level stuff, but yeah, there's really no reason to go in-house. There's no reason to go through that effort when you can take a great off the shelf Salida or at a movement and you can decorate it to the hilt and, and swap out parts if you want. But why, you know, just for the sake of prestige, it doesn't make sense. But I think to your point about Omega, They at least had sort of this technical excuse. They had this coaxial technology that they thought could make a difference.
James Yeah, and you also have NOMOS as a great example.
Unknown Yeah.
James So you have many, many, many years they operated offering their base hand-wound movement was the Alpha, which is loosely based, not loosely, pretty closely based on the design of the PASSEAU 7001. I apologize for my pronunciation of any terms like PASSEAU. I'm Canadian. I'm doing my very best. That's how I read it. I think that's a fair-ish pronunciation of it. And then, of course, from the Alpha, they went into their DUW movements and the pneumatics, and their prices haven't increased drastically with that. They have increased, certainly, and depending on the model, they have gone up quite a bit, but not exclusively due to the movement. But the movement is much more efficient for them to produce, and then it runs much more efficiently. So they still maintain a very thin very high-end movement, but they were able to bring it closer to the kind of brand promises of Nomos. It was a much more efficient to create and manufacture movement, something they're quite focused on is efficiency of process. Yeah. In a really admirable way, I love at least learning about different efficiencies at manufacturing levels, and they really designed a movement that could be made with the least amount of waste and effort. Yeah. And what they came out with their DUW movements is really an impressive spin on the in-house concept where yes that we're making it but they're very careful or not careful this is just kind of the way Nomos is where they're saying like yeah it's in-house but this is why look look how cool this is look what we were able to do and this is why we went in-house yeah and then i think you have other brands like Tudor who at first you could say like well they you know they went in-house for kind of a luxury perception but then you speak to them and they were having kind of problems with the consistency. If you sold enough watches, you started to see certain trends within the ETA movements. Sure. And they required a lot of time before they were cased to make sure that you could work out the inconsistencies in those movements. So if you're an indie watch brand and you're only selling 100 or 300 or 500 watches a year, it's not such a big deal to QC those movements. I mean, it is at a human level.
Unknown Yeah.
James But it's still, it's not as many, like Tudor moves a ton of watches. And while I'm sure there was an investment involved in setting up their MT movements.
Unknown Yeah.
James Once that investment is kind of stabilized, I think they're, I think they've done it so they can offer kind of the most sound product. And there's a marketing backbone to prove the case to that in, in, in how they're able to market it to their customers. And I think some of those, uh, some of those black bays, the difference between the in-house and the Etabase was like 250 bucks. $275, something like that. And that seems totally fine. I guess if you amortize that across enough watches, then you can run your own movement. And now they're selling some to Breitling and hopefully they sell them to more people. I would imagine if you had watches that have the 9015 and the 2824 and the 7750, and then some that are running the MT series from Tudor, maybe that's not their goal to offer 500 movements or whatever to small brands. Maybe Breitling is a big enough buy. that it was worth it for them, but I would love to see that, that spread. So you could say, well, like, no, no, we've known for years that the Tudor movement seems to be very solid.
Unknown Yeah.
James It's running in a ton of black bays at this point. So then you have kind of a statement of, of, you know, stability within the market, whereas we all know the stability of the 2824. And that's, if you care for it and you got one that was kind of delivered without issues, it's a perfectly capable long-term movement.
Unknown Yeah.
James There's no issue with that. The 9015 seems to be the same thing. Maybe not capable of the same accuracy, depending on which watchmaker you talk to. I get different opinions when I ask. And certainly I'm not qualified to do anything more than bounce those opinions out. Yeah. I don't know enough about movements, but a good watchmaker can make any of these movements run very well. And that includes very old movements that even don't necessarily reflect all of the technological increases. Like I had my Sylvana service, which is an automatic movement, but it would have been an automatic movement from the mid 60s.
Unknown Yeah.
James I don't know what movements in there specifically, you know, it doesn't have quick set date. And when I saw the movement, it was full of crud and it, you know, it looked very rough. And then even once it was cleaned up, it looked shiny, but still rough.
Unknown Yeah.
James And it keeps beautiful time. So it's just a question of, of you know, how it's serviced and what you expect. And I don't think that it's ever going to be a case of in-house being universally good or bad or better or worse. It's more or less a plus or minus in the way that people buy their watches. Right. So some people will want in-house and that's why brands like Rolex, like JLC, like, you know, like Nomos want to offer an in-house solution because it more fits with the exclusivity of a luxury product.
Unknown Yeah.
James And then if you were Rolex, why would you offer anything less than what you could sell?
Unknown Right.
James Like at this point, they're not going back. They've got a great history of operating on the in-house game, but they've been doing it for a long time, whereas a lot of brands were operating just fine under using ETA movements or something else and have transitioned to in-house probably to stabilize their movement supply. And because technology, probably because digital designing has made it made its way into movement design, which can allow you maybe to streamline the process. I'm making some assumptions here, but these are all things that have affected the way car engines are designed. And that's another very complicated thing that's often sold to other manufacturers. I think engines are an interesting way of kind of framing watch movements because you have, you know, you have, obviously you wouldn't go out and buy a three series that has a Chev four cylinder in it.
Unknown Right.
James If you go up high enough, the McLaren F1 famously had a BMW V12. And if you had bought a Pagani Zonda, that uses a Mercedes AMG power plant. And then you get really strange stuff where brands like a Noble, which is a very small British manufacturer, they start with a certain engine, like a crate engine, which is a Yamaha designed Volvo engine. And then they only keep the bits they need and they go nuts with the rest of it.
Jason Heaton Well, I don't want to veer too far into the car territory, but I don't think you get necessarily that same snobbery, or maybe you do, when it comes to sort of in-house motors versus in-house movements. I mean, you look at a car brand like Lotus, who for years has used, what, Toyota engines? Toyota engines, yeah, Corolla, the high-end Corolla engines. And nobody seems to bat an eye. I don't think people really care. And yet, on the other hand, an Aston Martin engine will have a plaque on it that tells who actually built the engine. You know, it's, it's interesting to me, you know, getting back to watches, how you get a brand like, um, like Seiko. And if you kind of forget about Grand Seiko for the moment, which I think is very much about the movement in those, um, among other things. But, um, you look at the lowliest Seiko quartz or dive watch or any of the watches, you know, we've talked about so many times on the show. You never see in any of their marketing or branding, any mention of almost never talk about the movement in general. I can't even think of, unless they're actually talking about like a kinetic or solar movement because they're touting its abilities to, you know, never need a battery, et cetera, et cetera. But, and yet the people who own and love these SKX divers and SRPs and things tout the durability and the ruggedness and, you know, watchmakers say, Oh, I saw this 1972 6105 Seiko that had never been serviced and it was still running fine and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Seiko itself, so seldom touts what conceivably could be a real sort of marketing piece for them. They just don't talk about the movements in the great majority of their watches because it's, I think for them, it's such a pure, it began as such a purely economic necessity or just simply a manufacturing model that they embraced from the very beginning because they were in Japan and they weren't getting stuff from from Europe to put on their watches. So they just built stuff from the ground up and that's the way they always did it. Right.
James I don't think it's, it certainly hasn't hurt them at all, but it is, that's an interesting note from, from your perspective where, you know, you go to a Basel world and you meet with Seiko and nothing says, oh, an in-house such and such caliber. It's just like, it's like this thousand dollar Prospex is a 6R15. It's an automatic with this much power reserve. Right. Right. Even if you go to today, like a watch designed and released just recently that Singer Track One Chronograph uses the aging graph movement. That's a $40,000 watch. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really, really cool movement. Like if you don't know what the aging graph movement is, it's also in a watch from Fabergé and it's a bonkers movement. Like if you're going to talk about where you get something with in-house, for me, it's when you get to that level.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James It's so vastly different than what you can typically get from an ETA 24. Obviously, Recents aside, what they do is amazing. Yeah. With an ETA. Yeah. But with the Agent Graph or when you get into that really, that really high-end upper strata of watch design, you can get some really impressive stuff that doesn't matter if the same brand that's on the dial made the movement. It's if the movement is a good movement. Right. At an entry-level watch, it's more function. And the more you spend, the more there has to be some level of form. And even then, so you start to see that, you know, the big wide open case back on the new Speedmasters, the big Speedmasters that shows you the whole movement. And you don't get that much on Rolex. I think Rolex is very much like, this is our movement. They don't change that much. You make these little iterative changes. But pretty much once you hit anything above that price point, you get into Glashutte Original or Breguet, you know, this is just holding with Swatch, a movement making company.
Unknown Yeah.
James You get into these higher end brands and certainly when you get into things, you know, like we rambled about earlier, you want to see that movement. And I think it's because their form starts to play into it, into the buying, into how people make that buying decision. Yeah. The form, the finishing, you know, you look at the back of a Chopard with the Geneva seal or you look at the back of a beautiful Patek Philippe, and not only have they made that movement all on their own, they're also working very hard to make it as beautiful as possible because they have to present some sort of value statement that's above what we can get from a Rolex, a Seiko, an Eta, a Miota. Yeah, yeah. Something to set it apart, something to make it special. A watch that costs that much should be special. It should make you happy. Right. Otherwise, how do you spend that much on a watch if it doesn't make you happy?
Unknown Right, right.
James The movement thing is a really confusing thing because there is no way to pull back enough layers where it just becomes cut and dry.
Unknown Yeah.
James There's always, oh, but this or that one or what about this one or how's this? And I think for the types of watches that we talk about, I don't think in-house matters.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I agree. You know, back when a couple episodes ago when we were focusing on Rolex, we cited that article that Jack Forster wrote and kind of talked about that arc of the Rolex owner or the watch nerd who gets into the hobby and the perceptions of Rolex from the beginning to the middle to kind of maturity. I think it's the same with in-house or much the same. I think when you start out, you don't really care. I bought like a Swiss Army with a display case back, had the 2824 in the back. I thought it was really cool. It is cool. It is cool. And it's like, it's a mechanical watch. It's so cool. I can't believe I've got this on my wrist. Yeah. Then you learn a little bit, you visit the forums, you've spent an inordinate amount of time reading everything there is to know. And then it's like, I need an in-house movement. I'm going to get an Omega or a Rolex or whatever. And then after a while you kind of reach this, this third stage where it's like, you're thinking, you know, yes, in certain areas, um, you know, I want to look on the back of my Lange and see this beautifully decorated piece that they built. It took them five years to develop. But for my Daxa or my, you know, Helios or whatever, I'm perfectly fine with an Eta or a Miyota movement or a Seiko or whatever it is. And, you know, I kind of think that, you know, when I talk to, when I look back at my own sort of arc or maturity as kind of being in this crazy hobby, and then I talk to people that are maybe just getting into it or, you know, people that Want to learn a little bit more about what I'm doing and or they're they've just gotten their first watch or whatever and they ask you they look at a watch and they they say I Keep talking about Doc's because I have it on my wrist right now, but like I'll show them a watch and they'll admire it They'll say oh neat, you know great design X Y & Z and then they'll say but what's inside of it? What what movement is it? Is it in-house? and I just I I just want to say it doesn't matter it isn't but Forget about that. It doesn't matter in this watch, you know? I just want to, like, sort of stress that point that in certain cases, yes. In the case, like you mentioned, Tudor or an Omega that maybe had a technical or a QC reason. But for the great majority of watches, you know, it really truly doesn't matter.
James I think the... I would entirely agree. I think, oddly enough, and I think you'll agree with this statement, but where the the movement starts to matter is sometimes the movement itself has a fun story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or or is historically linked with the product like an Omega 861 in a Speedy. Yeah. That's that's that's the one you would want, I think, even if the automatic is better.
Unknown Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
James Right. And then like it's funny because like the way that you this mental math isn't always based on function.
Unknown Right.
James Right. Because like Omega can produce a much better movement than the 861, technologically speaking. But they're still putting it in watches because they know there's something like, there's something, that's what you want in a speedy, especially a vintage style speedy. You want that older class of movement. You want the ability to flip it over and see that gorgeous movement. And I think that kind of connects in a way that defies the logic of any of this. Right. And I think that's why it's a little bit difficult to try and cover in a chat like this.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. Just because it's nebulous, but it's also not, you know, part of it's kind of emotional and there's a nerd element. Like in cars, there's engines that aren't even very good that people really like because they sound really good or they have an amazing, you know, mid-range punch. And then you have, you know, an engine like a Chevrolet LS hugely mass-produced, available, not hugely expensive, can be made to perform unbelievably, but it doesn't really get anyone excited. So I don't think you're going to get excited about an Edit 20, 24, or 7750, or 9015, but the overall product should make you excited. If you want to get excited by a movement, thankfully, if you save up, you'll be able to, you know, you're essentially spoiled for choice at this point.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is, you know, to kind of put a bow on it, I mean, it's, this is, this is the argument that isn't an argument. It's the discussion that conceivably would never end. And this is the classic, to me, we should be sitting at a pub with five other guys with a, you know, each having a pint of beer. I mean, this is the classic watch nerd round table, you know, pub discussion. I think in house, it's a fascinating, it's a fascinating discussion. And I think, um, you know, we could do the next episode and the next after that, and we'd still be talking about this stuff. So,
James Yeah, and I mean if you're listening and you have an opinion and you have kind of a cogent thought that you want to throw into an email, by all means, thegreatnadoatgmail.com. I think it is one of these discussions that doesn't need to have an endpoint or any sort of a point in general. If you're buying a watch and you're thinking about writing in to Jason and I to ask if the in-house is important or isn't, basically try and assess how much of the overall value statement of that watch is based on its movement. So if it's something like a Black Bay with an ETA, I think that's going to be just as fine, providing you care for it and have it serviced and all those sorts of things, as the Black Bay with the in-house. The in-house will always go for a premium. It has a better power reserve, so there's a performance increase. But I honestly think that when Tudor went from the ETA base to the in-house movements, it's kind of like when a car goes through a mid-generation shift, and it has a couple new features, maybe a new front end or new tail lights or something like that. Is it drastically different? No, not at all. I think you could wear them both one on each wrist every day and only know the difference because the dials are slightly different. Know what you're buying, obviously, but try not to place too much value in the movement until you get to a point where the movement is the value of the watch.
Unknown Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that's fair.
Jason Heaton Yeah, what did we miss? We'd love to hear. So definitely write in and tell us, you know, if you agree, disagree, if you have a point that we missed, we'd love to hear it.
James We'll get to it on a future episode. I want to dig into final notes. I think we've probably gone long enough on in-house, not in-house.
Jason Heaton Sure. Yeah, let's do it. I've only got one this week. If you've got a couple, why don't you go first?
James Sure. So my first of the episode is a small, very cheap product that I actually have been using every day for a very long time. And it's so nothing that I forget to talk about it. And it's basically it's going to be helpful if you go to the show notes to actually look this up. But the the name on eBay is Steel Pocket Suspension Clip for EDC Gear Tools Backpack Keychain Key Ring. Huh. So not a great title. It's essentially a little If you imagine the pocket clip on the side of a knife, imagine one of those removed with a spot to clip a set of keys. So it's a little hanger that allows you to keep your keys from going to the bottom of your pocket and just kind of jumbling up in a ball. And I got kind of interested in the idea of these, and I'm sure there's way better versions. And if you know of a better one, by all means, send me an email. This one is perfectly usable depending on how many keys you carry. So I almost never drive. And certainly when I do drive, it's generally not with my own car. So I'm not usually carrying keys. So I just have the keys to get in and out of my home. So it's just a couple of keys. And I keep a USB key, like a little metal USB key to possibly move files or pick up a file from somebody that doesn't have an internet connection or files too big for Dropbox, something like that. But it's a little fold of steel. and it has a hole at the bottom that allows a key ring to be threaded through and then you can hang your keys on it and basically the idea is instead of having your keys fall to the bottom of your pocket or possibly fall out of your pocket when you sit down it just this little tiny metal clip almost like the the tab on the pocket tab on a pen sits at the top edge of your pocket and it's a $1.40 US it's 26 cents shipping And I've had it on my key chain for, it's got to be well over two years at this point. And I just never think about it, but it's the only way I carry my keys. And it makes them so low profile in your pocket that I actually often have to, you know, kind of touch that part of my pocket to find the tab.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James To know that I have my keys.
Unknown Yeah, sure.
James So it's a really handy way if you're not, you know, if you don't have a janitor's collection of keys or, you know, the lock on lock, you know, the key fob for your vehicle or whatever. If you just have a few keys, this is a really fun little thing that I will put in the show notes. It just kind of struck me because I was light on final notes this week and I was looking at, you know, what do I actually use that I recommend to somebody? I was like, oh, this thing, it doesn't even have a name, a correct name. I'm sure there's somebody out there that makes a nicer one that's made out of better metal or looks better. This is very rough and it's, you know, machined and then folded. I really like it. Swing by the eBay page I linked, this is the guy that I bought it from, and it's a silly little thing, but just remarkably useful for the number of keys that I carry.
Jason Heaton Huh, cool. Yeah, it's the Unsung Gear. I think we should, at some point we should do a show on Unsung Gear. It's the stuff you just use every day that you forget about, but it's indispensable.
James Yeah, and it'll kind of keep your keys in one place in a backpack. Yeah. If that doesn't sound entirely insane as I'm describing this, like, silly little piece of metal, then swing by and check it out. I really like it. And what have you got for yours this week, Jason?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I've only got one this week. It was sent to me by a friend of mine, kind of a fellow shipwreck nerd to kind of bookend what I was talking about earlier in the show. And I'm not into the gaming culture at all. And I hadn't even realized that there's something called YouTube gaming. But this happens to be a a game demo called Titanic Honor and Glory and it is um it's as it describes it's it's a it's a demo of of a 3d sort of interactive game that that you can play up apparently um on youtube it's about 40 i think it's about 48 minutes long and um it's this rendered video of basically a walkthrough of the titanic as it sat in the docks in Belfast where it was built back in the early 1900s. Very cool. It was absolutely mesmerizing. I mean, it's not only incredibly realistic, you know, it starts with, it has this sort of hokey voiceover, this guy with this sort of stilted accent sort of walking through the ship, but it starts with walking down the dock, and you're kind of seeing this from the point of view of the person. And, you know, there's everything from, you know, signage, you know, plastered to a wall, and there's a seagull that kind of lands in front of you and flies away. And you approach the ship from the side, and you get on board, and suddenly you're inside the Titanic, and it is so incredibly realistic. And it's all just done, you know, it's all just computer generated. You know, I'm assuming in the game, you can actually sort of navigate and interact and kind of go down different hallways and visit different parts of the ship. But through this 48 minute demo, you're actually walking through the Titanic through all of its various state rooms and dining halls and the boiler rooms and the crew quarters and the, you know, the lavatories and, you know, basically the entire ship. And it's, it's fascinating. I mean, the Titanic is, you know, it's the most famous shipwreck in the world. I mean, everybody has seen the movie and knows the story, et cetera, et cetera. But I think just watching it, I was really struck by the incredible, um, amount of, uh, I think the detail of this video struck me with the amount of work and workmanship and artisanship that went into the construction of the ship and all the interiors and the furniture and the joinery and the woodworking and the artwork and everything in this massive, you know, floating city. And it was all gone on its maiden voyage. It's all sitting at the bottom of the ocean. It just, it almost, I finished it and it was almost, I almost wanted to weep. You know, it's this, it's such a shame that all of that is gone. I mean, it just shows the incredible beauty that this ship was. And certainly there've been countless other shipwrecks with equivalent levels of opulence and artisanship, you know, the Lusitania and the, uh, you know, the Andrea Doria, et cetera, et cetera. But I, I just, uh, I found this really interesting. I, I particularly liked, you know, not only the, the kind of the state rooms and the, and the dining halls and that, that stuff. But, uh, when, when he goes down the, uh, the staircase into the, one of the boiler rooms and you can see, you know, flames sort of this shimmering heat wave effect coming out of one of the boilers and you can see piles of coal on the floor and it's just so realistic, but it really gives you a sense of the immensity of the ship and kind of the complexity of what it took to build that thing. So yeah, just, you know, I don't know if you're into gaming. If so, maybe the game will be of interest to you. That isn't to me, but just this demo I thought was really fascinating. So check that out.
James Yeah, I clicked around in it for a little while this afternoon, and what a great time waster, if nothing more. It really is well done, and I think we're used to seeing the pictures of the ship listing over, underwater, overgrown, and decrepit, and maybe short of seeing the Titanic movie, which I hope I never have to see again, something like this really gives you an idea, yeah, of the spectacle. Yeah. That this was of the production. Yeah. Like you said, it was a city.
Unknown Yeah.
James I thought this was really fun and a fantastic way to take a little break from work and do something you haven't done before, which is, you know, kind of stroll around the Titanic. Yeah. Really, really cool. Great suggestion. Yeah. How about your last one? Yeah, my final is this week is actually a piece in from a buddy of mine, Paul Hubbard, who's at PF Hubbard on Instagram and Paulson in this piece from Nat Geo, which is a deepest dive ever under Antarctica reveals a shockingly vibrant world. It's a bit of a long title, but a long form piece with some unbelievable photographs, really beautiful photographs from a diver, a team of divers that dove under Antarctica, as the title suggests, and there's not really like there's so much to cover. Really, I would just suggest anybody who kind of digs these underwater dive stories, this is more about the ecology and the visuals than the actual diving. I mean, there's some diving discussed within the piece, but really just an absolute, the exact sort of thing you want from modern Nat Geo.
Unknown Yeah.
James Super high end, really great story. An easy read, but long. I really love long reads now. I think it's because the web keeps making things shorter and shorter.
Unknown Yeah.
James And you come across something like this and it's, I think I've read it twice. It took some time, but I went through it a second time just because the photos are amazing.
Unknown Yeah.
James And I highly recommend it. So this will be in the show notes, or I assume if you just go to Nat Geo and like search deepest dive, It's the deepest dive ever under Antarctica. So there's some kind of hardcore diving in a really, really intense place, but visually it's not what you expect. It's not dead and empty. It's bursting with life and color. A really, really fantastic piece from Nat Geo. So be sure to check that out.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's, that's a cool one. I remember when you sent me the link, I had just gotten the hard copy. So it's also in the magazine. Oh, lovely. But yeah, yeah. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to that.
James Yeah, it's a good one. All right, well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Seyssian. You can follow the show and all of our giveaways at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Or you can actually grab the feed at TheGreyNado.com. Music throughout a siesta by Jazza via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And until next time, we leave you with this quote, which was sent in to us by one of our listeners, Ken Nichols, who's at Nichols.Ken on Instagram. Thanks for that, Ken. This quote comes from John Muir saying, the world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.