Episode 147 -The State of Seiko

Published on Wed, 18 Aug 2021 23:45:00 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode features a discussion about Seiko watches, particularly examining if their prices have become too high and whether they offer good value compared to their history of affordable but well-made watches like the SKX007. The hosts discuss Seiko's current lineup, pricing tiers, quality control issues, and how they compare to competitors like microbrands and other affordable Swiss brands. They also talk about potential reasons behind Seiko's pricing strategy and the nostalgia many feel for their previously attainable prices on iconic models.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20 with your hosts.
Everett the Asshole Did you forget your name? Oh, I know that's the wrong time to do that. Okay, well, we'll run it back.
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew and Everett the Asshole. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, I don't care how you are. Daddy's here. We got Will on the line. Will, Daddy, how are you?
Will Daddy's here. What's up? Been a long time.
Everett the Asshole Yeah, it's been forever. It's been, what'd you say, January?
Will Yeah, January was the last time I was on. It was, uh, when you guys Skyped me or when I opened Skype, I looked at the thing and it said January was the last time we talked on Skype.
Andrew Wow. That's too long.
Will Too long.
Andrew Too long. Too long since I've heard your majestic voice.
Everett the Asshole No, it's nice for you to come and hang out with the, with the, the mail room boys though. We appreciate it.
Will Yeah. You know, sometimes you got to get down on your subservience level and kick it with the real people.
Andrew Yeah. Managing by walking around, and in this instance, sitting and drinking beer around.
Will Exactly. Are you drinking beer? I'm drinking water, unfortunately.
Andrew That's very unfortunate. I'm sorry to hear that.
Will Yeah, that's because I drank way too much last night, as I told Everett about, and I had to baptize myself in the pool today just to feel better.
Andrew Yeah, I saw the pool picture and I was like, huh, it's not that hot, I don't think. Yeah, how hot is it out there?
Will So today it was 80 something. I mean, the water in the pool was warmer than the air, but it was nice.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. Well, I've definitely had that. I'm too hung over to do anything besides sit in a cold pool feeling before.
Will Been there. Done that. It cures all.
Everett the Asshole You know, when I was a teenager, I was a lifeguard and swim instructor as well as a swimmer. So I spent many, many early mornings in a cold pool, very hung over. It's the only way to live. I mean, the amount of lifeguards at that early shift, that early morning shift that are really drunk, if my personal anecdotal evidence is valuable at all, is like 95%. Maybe more. Yeah. You're a lifeguard. Yeah. But the mornings are easy, right? Cause it's just like, like swim aerobics. Yeah. Swim aerobics. Those, those ladies are never die.
Andrew No, they've got floaties.
Everett the Asshole Not in the pool anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they do die eventually, but not in the pool. Yeah. Andrew, you didn't ask me, but I'll ask you. How are you? I'm hanging in there.
Andrew I had another misfire today. I got the boat wet again and I'm having some electrical issues. Yeah. So I'm really, really just fully embracing the boat ownership. Boat is a money pit. It never ever works the way you want it to. So did you name the boat? No. Is that bad luck? It still has not had a maiden voyage. I've been on it. On the water.
Will I think you just need to name it before it's a maiden voyage and you have to do the champagne bottle thing.
Andrew Yeah, but the problem is I can't, like, I'm just having some electrical issues. So I went and we got it out today, fired it, and then so the battery went from telling me it was good to telling me it needed charge. So it told me that the battery is not holding its charge. Totally reasonable. So I went and replaced the battery. And then I got this new tool called Muffs. And they are a, they look like a headset, but they're silicone and rubber and they pinch together real tight and you plug your hose into them and you pinch around the water intake of your outboard motor so that you can cycle water through it while it's running. So I can now do all the troubleshooting and testing in my driveway as opposed to taking it out to the lake. So that's the next thing is I'm going to be doing some troubleshooting in the driveway.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. That was really unfortunate that you had to like, get it to the lake to test it.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. So now there's a, there's a mitigator and I knew there had to be, I was like, how, how do you do this? Cause there's a way. Yeah. There's obviously a way. And it's not necessarily a, you know, a 50 gallon drum filled with water and in your driveway though. I've seen that in videos also, but this is a far more effective tool and a little bit less, uh, less invasive.
Everett the Asshole Like many problems fixed with a little muff.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Like most problems. Um, So, yeah, and it's hot. So I was like looking forward to being out on the water and in the breeze.
Everett the Asshole And today was cool. It was only like 93. Yeah.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett the Asshole Relatively cool.
Andrew Yeah. That's really, really, you know, temperate.
Everett the Asshole We've been like 98. We live in Eugene, Oregon. It's been 98 to like 102 every day this last week. Yeah.
Will Do you guys get your jackets out for all that?
Andrew Sounds chilly.
Everett the Asshole Yeah.
Andrew Fuck all that.
Everett the Asshole Well, I do sometimes wear like a sweatshirt in the house, mostly just because I like wearing a sweatshirt, but also because we keep the house at 68. Friday night, my AC went out. That'll do that. Is it back? It is not. The technician will not be here till Thursday.
Andrew Uh, what have you done to try? Well, I guess we could talk about this off air. We'll, we'll troubleshoot off air. Yeah. I didn't realize you're staying at Andrew's house. Uh, not invited. Kim and the kids have been invited.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're talking about something watches. We're talking about watches. We asked Will to come here and help us talk about watches because we don't know because we don't know anything about watches.
Will I don't know anything either. We're screwed.
Andrew Crack another beer, my friend.
Everett the Asshole We're talking today.
Will I guess I will start drinking now.
Everett the Asshole What do you think, I mean, Will, you've kind of prepared this episode for us and obviously we've done the thing we do where we share information and have conversations beforehand, but in your mind, what do you think we called this episode? I was thinking like state of Seiko or something like that, but anything more tantalizing from the SEO guy?
Will Yeah, I was going to say for SEO purposes, it should probably be, is Seiko overpriced? Um, you know, my working title was... Subtitle, yes. Subtitle, maybe no. In parentheses, yes. Yeah. Uh, my working title for this was, what is Seiko? But I figured no one would want to listen to that. Um, but yeah.
Andrew It's a watch brand based out of Japan. They make some movements and some watches. Boom time. Let's enjoy some beats.
Will Yep. That's it. Quickest episode ever. Play the music. So, um, Yeah, what I was going to say is, you know, we just wanted to take a look at, you know, what's going on with Seiko because what you hear from a lot of people is every watch that Seiko comes out with is too expensive. There's QC issues all over the place, misaligned bezels. The SKX is the greatest watch they ever made and they haven't been able to beat it since 1996 or whenever the hell that came out. So I thought, let's take a look at what's going on with Seiko. What are their prices like? has changed with them, and is there any meat on those bones of is Seiko kind of turning into a brand that has no more value, is too expensive, and we should all move on to something else?
Andrew What would the something else even be? Microbrands?
Will Yeah, but Seiko stands alone in that.
Andrew I guess that's the answer for everything. Seiko stands alone, for the most part, in that $5,000 to $1,000 range. There's some micro brands who have offerings in there, but Seiko, I think, stands pretty much unchallenged in the $500 to $1,000 generally.
Everett the Asshole Yeah, there's some Swiss competition too, but I think that's right.
Will Yeah, definitely. And part of some of the notes that I had down here that I sent to you guys was micro brands aren't Seiko's competition. They aren't competition for most of the larger brands that we think of. Or is Tissot, Hamilton, Christopher Ward, all those, you know, it's micro brands aren't their competition. It's each other that they're competing against.
Everett the Asshole So starting with the premise then, and correct me if I'm wrong, starting with the premise, I think that is almost universally accepted and and maybe with an eye towards challenging that premise, but Seiko is or has become more expensive and is approaching overpriced status. Is that fair to say that's where we're starting?
Will Yeah. And I think that probably a good starting point is to look at the watches that they launched, I'll say the bigger watches that they launched in 2020. So think of the SPB14X series, which is the 63 or 62 MAS that people are calling it. It's got the square lug box, The SPB 1.5 series, which is the Willard and then the SPB 1.8 series, which is the Marine Master 200 that like the newer one that just came out, you know, with the smaller Marine Master case. That's not the one that's, you know, was out a few years ago, you know, and those are all MSRP well over $1,000. I think they're between $1,100 and $1,400 depending on which one you're shooting for.
Everett the Asshole And unlike some of Seiko's offerings in the last 20 years, those watches seem to sell pretty close to the RP, the retail price, right?
Will Yeah. I mean, the ones that I was able to get in, one of them I had to buy to get in and it was at retail, like no discount on it, even with an established dealer. Was that the Willard? No, it was the SPB143. That was the gray dial. Got it. 62 M.A.S. style one. Sure, sure. But, you know, that's, you know, we'll talk about this a little bit later on, but, you know, it's, I don't know if that direction's coming from Seiko, you know, to their dealers saying keep discounts to a minimum, you know, and stick closer to the MSRP, but, you know, we'll talk more about these, but I think the argument is those watches are so expensive. They're $1,000 and I'm used to, I'm saying I'm in the proverbial watch fam person. I'm used to the $200 or less SKX 007. That's what I'm used to. And I think that's where people are like, well, that's what I used to get. It was an ISO certified diver with some great loom, a bezel and a bracelet, and it was a hundred something dollars. I think that we all agree here that those days are dead. I don't think that's ever coming back.
Andrew I mean, those days died when the rumors of the discontinuation began. That's when we started to see spikes in SNK, spikes in SKX. There was a time when you were looking at SNK for 200 bucks, and they're back down into normal territory between like 85 and 125, depending on the day. But I mean, new in box, but
Everett the Asshole They found a factory that had a bunch of boxes that SNK's in it or something.
Andrew Yeah, but I mean that's when those when those rumors started when we started to see kind of the last vestiges of that affordable pro spec'd watch vanish.
Will Yeah, and I took a look at on Camel Camel Camel if you've ever used it. It's just Amazon price tracking. You can type in any product.
Everett the Asshole It's a great website.
Will Yeah, yeah. So I took a look on there just to see, because it's super easy research to do for something like this, of what, as a Amazon-sold watch, so not a third-party seller, what did the SKX sell for over its history? So the lowest price I ever found was in 2011, so that's 10 years ago, so it just tells you how long this watch has been out, was $140. And the highest it ever was was a little under $350 in 2020, and that's after the discontinuation rumor started in 2018.
Everett the Asshole Now, the average inflation on 140 is like 170, 169 bucks. I looked it up before we came over. So it's really still 170 bucks. Yeah. Yeah.
Will And that's perfect because that fits right into the average that I found, which is around 175. Now, um, maybe today you might be able to get like a black dial turtle for around that. I know two, I think it was two black Fridays ago. Um, you were able to get a turtle for under $200, but you know, that's SRP seven, seven, seven turtles.
Everett the Asshole Yeah.
Andrew That's yeah. And that's a sale currently an SKX double Oh seven K two on a bracelet on Amazon. $800. A couple of weeks ago was like $500.
Everett the Asshole So it's already gone. Now, I think you can find them today, maybe not on Amazon, but you can find them today for like $4.95.
Andrew The J1, $6.19.
Will Yeah, and the used ones are still, you know, affordable. People are selling them for what a new one cost, you know, probably, you know, a couple of years ago. I think they're still like $200 used in good condition.
Everett the Asshole Yeah, that's right. In pretty good shape, yeah. I think that's right.
Andrew I think that's right. But for reference, I mean, a watch that was previously, what do you say the low was? 50, 140, 170 bucks. By today's we're looking at five to $700 new inbox. Yeah. Yeah.
Everett the Asshole Well, cause they don't, yeah, they don't exist anymore, so it's hard to, yeah.
Andrew But still that's a, that's a big, then they haven't existed. I mean, the discontinued them a year and a half ago.
Everett the Asshole I think 2018 is when the official announcement came through, but, but yeah, I think it's one of those watches that there was a lot of stock out there. So it was, it wasn't a quick shut off the switch.
Will Yeah, because you heard for a while that there was always discontinuation rumors before 2018 that, you know, Seiko made a whole slew of them and they haven't made them in, you know, however many years. And I don't even know what, yeah. Was it actually a official Seiko, like, letter that came out that said that these were discontinued? Because I don't think that Seiko really does that.
Everett the Asshole I don't think so either, Will. In 2015, Hodinkee, I think, did a review or some sort of mention of the SKX where they announced, we've got it on good word from an insider that the SKX has been discontinued. Right. But that was still pretty early. And then that same thing happened again in 2018. And it felt like at that point, it felt like, oh, this is actually happening. Whereas in 2015, it was clearly not, not there yet.
Andrew The nail was the, was the release of the new, the entire five line where they, they basically silently removed everything that wasn't Seiko five and Seiko fives replaced it.
Everett the Asshole And I think the SRP turtles came out in 16 too. So maybe there was some truth to that original, uh, ho dinky rumor.
Will Uh, yeah, I'm sure there was. Um, you know, but yeah. Barring discontinuation rumors, the point is, is that that watch existed as a major outlier of what was a good value in an affordable dive watch. And affordable, I'm saying, anything under $500. But if you take a look at... So moving on to, okay, so does Seiko make anything like that today? The answer, I think, is not as cheap as the SKX, because as we said, That's dead. It doesn't exist. But I think that they do make a whole bunch of watches that are still being produced that fit into that value a little bit that I think people just kind of gloss over and they're like, Oh, well, you know, they released something that costs $1,200. So that's, that's all the dive watches that they're releasing and they're pushing up market. I've said that in my reviews, but when I was doing some research for this and looking back on it saying, okay, well, there's still the turtle. There's, uh, if you want a little bit better turtle, there's the king turtle, which has Sapphire and a ceramic bezel and all that kind of stuff. Um, the dress KX, which, you know, we really like granted that's on a dive watch, uh, the new field models that they dropped, which replaced the, you know, the previous Seiko five, uh, SNK models. But then you have in dive watches, you have the samurai, which is still being made and they're doing all the limited editions of that, which is, It's a little bit beefier, but yeah, it's a cool watch. I've had it on the wrist. It's great. The Arnie, which is bigger, it's quartz, but that's a sweet watch, especially for, you can get those for like 250 bucks. And the one that everybody touted as the SKX replacement, including myself, the Mini Turtle.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. Are they making the Mini Turtles? I'm having trouble finding those.
Will Yeah. They came out with a bunch of them a few years ago. There was the black, the blue, and I think one other color, maybe it was just black and blue, I don't remember. But they came out with those and they were like... I think you could get those pretty easily for like 350 bucks, which was a good buy for that watch. And then they came out with a couple of limited editions that weren't available in the US, and then they kinda disappeared off the face of the earth. And then I saw them pop up again, where it's basically the same watch, and they added a couple new colors, including a black one that's DLC with Red Seconds Hand. And I'm pretty sure that you can buy that today on Namin Watch. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly.
Andrew GNOMNOM.
Will GNOMNOM. Yeah, them. You can buy it there today. At least I'm pretty sure.
Andrew They have a good selection.
Everett the Asshole of Seiko's. Yeah. They're one of the, they're one of the big Seiko retailers. Yeah.
Will Yeah. Um, excuse my, my clicking. I know that people don't really like clicking, but I'm going to look up to see if that is still available right now.
Andrew I'd like you to type the alphabet really quickly for us too.
Everett the Asshole And so I think, and I think your point, uh, I think your point within will is, uh, what we're really talking about is, uh, instead of, a push up market, uh, just a lot of variety within Seiko options, especially as we start to get down towards that lower end. Right. I don't know how much the SRP 777, or I think they've changed the number on that, but that's like a $350 watch on a bracelet. And, and if you want Sapphire and ceramic 450 bucks for a King Seiko, um, we're still in that affordable diver range there. Not as affordable, but affordable.
Andrew That 777 is available for sub $400 at Macy's right now. $378 and with a code $322. I don't know what the code is, but it just says code.
Will Sign up for a credit card and you probably get another 20% off. Yeah. Um, the, the mini turtle is available. It's a $489 watch. So I think the price went up a little bit on that, but I think that's just because that's a little bit closer to what the MSRP is. And those are JDM prices also. So you're paying for the, the JDM tag, right? Which as, as we know with SKX, with the, you get the double Oh seven J it's all of a sudden more expensive.
Everett the Asshole Um, and maybe, and maybe meaning meaningless too.
Will Yeah, exactly.
Andrew I have a Dremel. I'll add a J to any single one of your watches with my Dremel and I will to it for only $55.
Will right on the bargain Chris the crystal like like Omega no no just do the case back so you know you if you look at those models I think the argument can be made that they're still making very affordable dive watches and Seiko is a brand that has the ability to offer that range you know from something that's $250 at Macy's you know granted that's a discount all the way up to I'm taking out like the marine master series and all that kind of stuff up to, you know, 12, $1,400 for their, um, you know, regular production model dive watches.
Everett the Asshole Um, what about, what about will the argument that, um, that price that 1100, $1,300 Willard, for instance, uh, is just sort of, uh, uh, bald price grabbing price, price gouging. Um, because you, you know, you're a guy who's handled these watches personally taken macro photos of the dials. Um, you, you know, we hear people say that, right. That that's an, an additional amount of money that you pay for one versus the other. And that is emblematic of the problem to the extent there is one.
Will Yeah. And I, you know, I think that it kind of goes back to that, um, conditioning in the buyer's mind of Seiko, you know, these are supposed to be cheaper. You guys are supposed to be affordable, not, you know, 11, $1,200. But the fact is that Seiko is producing watches that are, um, I think worth that money. Um, there are some watches that, uh, you know, we're probably, you know, goodbyes, as we said before with like the, you know, the mini turtle and the turtle and all that kind of stuff. But these watches specifically in this, in this $1,000 range, you know, look at the watches that they're competing against. Um, The Hamilton Khaki Scuba, some of these watches I don't think come to the forefront of some people's minds when they think about this, but these are watches that if you walk into a jewelry counter at a big retailer, these are probably some of the watches you're going to see. The Hamilton Khaki Scuba, the Tissot Sea Star, Mido Ocean Star, those are all around $1,000 MSRP. They're basically right in the same spot. The Kaki Scuba is $9.95, the Tiso is between $700 and $1,000, and the Mido is between $900-something and a little over $1,000. So they're all kind of playing in that world right there. And I think this kind of brings us to the next point we should talk about, which is discounting. Because you hear a lot of people say, oh, yeah, the Kaki Scuba, sure, it's $995, but I can get it from my dealer for $700 or whatever. you know, you're going to get a 30% discount. But I think that discounting is, you know, played a role in how we viewed Seiko over the past number of years. But, you know, as we talked about, that discounting is very subjective. And I think that it's slowly starting to go away, um, because for various reasons, but I'll just touch back on the subjective part of it. Um, I, you, the three of us can walk into three different stores, look for the same model, and we might all walk out with different prices. I might get it for list. Everett might get it for 10% off and Andrew might get it for 30% off or none of us.
Andrew Cause I'm doing stuff behind the counter.
Everett the Asshole Well, and especially if we're talking about something like Amito, right? I mean, we may have huge price fluctuations. Yeah. You know, it's such an oddball watch.
Will Yeah, exactly. You know, it depends on. what the specific store has in stock that they want to move. You know, we're not dealing in, you know, Rolexes here that you have to get on a list. This is all stuff that's pretty much readily available.
Everett the Asshole And I think even when you look at, even if you look like internally within Seiko's own catalog, right, they've got these watches that drastically, not drastically, but different price points, you know, they've got, The Marine Master 200s, at the sort of lower end of that upper tier, they've got, you know, just we'll just say the SRP 777, that OG, they're maybe true affordable entry-level diver. And then you've got that next echelon, that sort of 3,500 to 4,000 sort of Grand Seiko, Zaratsu level, not necessarily Grand Seiko branded, Seiko branded, Grand Seiko level of finishing, et cetera. And you see differences, right? The SRP777, how many sevens did I say? You know, famous for having misalignment and kind of a crappy bezel and mediocre fit. You get to that next level. All of a sudden you've got real applied indices. You've got a much better movement, say what you will about the 6R, but it's quantitatively a better movement. Uh, you're going to have higher degrees of finishing, better fitment on the bezel. For instance, everybody raves about the Willard, that $1,100 Willard bezel movement. Um, no, nobody ever picks up a, uh, entry level turtle and it's like, gosh, the bezel feels so nice. Right. It might be. fine, but nobody's saying that. So you do have improvements as you move up and then you get into that, the $4,000 Willard say, say what you will about it, but uniformly almost unanimously lauded by the people who touched it as just being a fucking banger. Right.
Will So it's a grand Seiko without being a grand Seiko.
Everett the Asshole That's right. Seiko is doing things to justify their price. Whether you agree with those justifications. or you think it's worth it or not, that's subjective, but they're definitely able to on paper justified, I'd say.
Will Yeah. And you know, that, that, I think what you said in the beginning kind of brings up a good point where, you know, people spin the bezel and they're like, Oh, the bezel stinks or, you know, stuff like that. I, I think that we take for granted in some ways with Seiko that the, the amount of watches that they produce, um, different models and all that, uh, and how, even though they do have QC issues that they do, And we'll talk about that a little bit, but, um, the level of a watch that they're able to put out to you, um, you know, for the money that they are. And, you know, you could take a look at, you know, that, that khaki scuba that I mentioned, I don't think the bezel on that thing's great at all. The lugs are too damn long and I don't think it fits that great, but it's a thousand dollar watch and everybody's gives it a pass because it's not a Seiko. You know, we, you guys have talked about before how, you know, like some micro brands, um, you know, they almost have to prove themselves more than the established brands, you know, that they get, um, I'm trying to think of the right word for it, but you know, they have to put more effort into convincing people to buy it, you know, as opposed to someone who's been established, you know, like a Hamilton, um, and they can get away with that kind of stuff.
Andrew And I feel judged way more harshly. I mean, Seiko is known for misaligned bezels known for it. It's in fact so known for it that it's kind of charming. We sort of like that. about Seiko. At almost any price point, they drop a watch, the bezel's misaligned, you're like, oh, Seiko. A micro drops a watch, and there's a speck of fucking dust on a hand, and we lose our minds. We expect perfection out of these burgeoning brands, but Seiko is like, in our hearts, earned the right to just fuck up. And not just a little, to just like, meh, whatever, I don't care.
Will And I've said it in my reviews. You know, at the end, God, I forget which Seiko review it was, but at the end of it, I said, despite the misaligned bezel and the quirky bracelet that doesn't quite fit, I really love this watch still. If, and this is me being totally honest about this, if those same issues were in a watch from Microbrand ABC, I'd probably rip them for it. And I wouldn't say I love this watch despite all those things.
Andrew I just did two watches that required spring bar tweezers to remove the bracelet. That's some tight tolerance. I was annoyed by it. Yeah. I was annoyed by it.
Everett the Asshole Meanwhile, meanwhile, the, uh, the, the hell cat, you don't like it.
Andrew That bracelet doesn't go back on. That's why it was eating a granola bar.
Everett the Asshole The $1,300 Willard. You can take that's the end link off with a shoe horn. Yeah, pretty much. It's got like a millimeter of gap.
Andrew Why are we, why do we tolerate that?
Will Yeah. And you know what? I read that it's because the lug opening, um, I read this like a week ago, the lug opening on the, uh, those watches is actually like 20.4 millimeters. It's a little bit larger and they didn't upsize the bracelet end links. They just left it.
Andrew It's like they fucked up the model or somebody mismeasured the CNC and they're like, eh, this is close enough.
Everett the Asshole I wonder if it's an auto, I wonder if it's an automation thing. It's easier to, to put them together. in an automated fashion. I don't know. I'm just throwing spaghetti against the wall here.
Andrew It's not Everett just sitting there pinning bracelets together. One thing that I thought about, and I kind of, I don't know if this is just a thought that we throw out or we land on it. I think when you think of watches that came from Seiko that really captured our hearts and brought a lot of love to Seiko, I wonder if it was almost intentional. I mean, in the very much in the way a drug dealer does it, you know, we have the SKX and we have a Prospect dive watch for dirt cheap. next to free against the other offerings. We have the Saab next to dirt cheap against other offer offerings that are competitive with that style of watch. And then Seiko takes them away and says, Hey, look at everything else we've got. It's the kind of, yeah, I mean they, then they, they kind of re-imagined their business model. We've got the, we've got the Seiko 5 series with a lot of analogs, but not exact replacements. We've got some tiering. you know, some segmentation up from the Seiko 5 series up into that thousand dollar range. And then north of a thousand, we've got a lot of great options, but they hooked us. They hooked us on the brand with these watches that were iconic that are now no more.
Everett the Asshole I think that's a good, I think that's a good context for us to maybe explore this idea that Seiko pricing has gone up. Right. Because I think, um, I think maybe there's some, there's some nostalgia playing out for the days when you could get an SNK or any of those fives, and certainly, it goes without saying, the SKX for so little money. Historically, what do Seiko prices look like, Will?
Will I haven't dove into many watches outside of the SKX, but I think What throws it off is kind of what we talked about before is that these watches were able to be discounted so heavily that it made them artificially low in price. It was like we talked about the Turtle, that one you can still kind of get cheaper. But if you look at watches that have been released after that, that are in that price range, like the Samurai, for example, I don't think that's discounted as heavily, especially, you know, the limited editions that they do with, um, you know, they have all those, those dials with the fish on them and all that stuff that they do for, you know, various, you know, uh, ocean charities, all that kind of stuff. Um, you know, I think those, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, the, the Patty edition of some Seiko diver usually sells out because it's somewhat collectible. Um, you know, but if you take that out of it, I, the, the thing with Seiko watches, Patty people buy watch Yeah, exactly. I don't think Paddy people are like, oh, I need the Paddy version. They probably prefer it without all that Paddy marking on it, to be honest. But I think it's just, we're so used to getting those discounts that the landscape of how watches are sold has changed and Seiko and many other brands have adapted to that. And all you have to do is go on Seiko's U.S. website, which I think is seikousa.com, where you can actually buy them, because they have two, and it's very confusing, one you can buy them and one you can't.
Andrew Yeah, you can just look at the goods.
Will Yeah, so... Koreans like that too. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. So you look at their storefronts, and they're selling their watches for MSRP, and sometimes they have a sale. It's usually, I think Seiko is usually 15% off their online store. But any other online retailer that they're selling from, so you think of Windup Watch Shop and Hodinkee, I think are probably the two biggest ones that they do sell through. Those are MSRP. And I think you're going to see more of that from Seiko and a lot of other brands, but we're talking about Seiko. I think you're going to see those prices consistently, even if they were to make a watch that was exactly the same as the SKX, they reissued it, and said, we're going to make it the price. It was adjusted for inflation. There wouldn't be a discount on it. It would be a $500 watch. I guarantee it because they want to get the extra margin out of the watches that they're producing. Um, if they can cut out, here we go, cut out the middleman, which in this case, the middleman is the retailer. Um, if they can cut all that out and get rid of those discounts, they're making more money. And at the end of the day, It's all about making money. It's not about making the hashtag watch fam happy about a good deal.
Andrew You also got to wonder how much loss they were eating in, in watches like that because Seiko was universally less expensive than similarly spec'd watches. You know, it makes you think like, they realized that they were leaving a lot on the table.
Everett the Asshole Well, so I was curious about this earlier and I pulled up some advertisements from Seiko dive watches from the seventies. I, I pulled up an ad, which I think is for, uh, from 1970 for a 6105 Willard, I think that 8110. Um, and it was deep in the text thread, $95. The ad has the price right on it because there didn't used to be online and discount codes and that stuff, right? $95. It's a $95 watch. $95 punched through the inflation calculator from 1970 is like 665 bucks. If you take that to the end of the 8110s run in 77, it's like 485 bucks. So that's sort of our left and right limits on the potential price for that watch at that time in today's U.S. dollars. And that's the price of a King's... King... Turtle. What do we call that watch? Turtle.
Andrew That's right. Not a King Seiko.
Everett the Asshole And that was their sort of entry-level diver, right? That was their... This is the watch that you buy. It wasn't even that great. And it wasn't that great.
Andrew It was the 70s. No watches were that great.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. So then you start to think, well, has there ever been another Seiko watch like the SKX? That's what I start to think. Maybe you don't start to think that. I start to think that. And I think the answer is no.
Will Yeah.
Andrew It's like they fucked up the pricing when they launched.
Will Yeah. They were a loss leader in that space, not with all their watches, but in that specific space, like ISO certified divers that were mainly being sold to enthusiasts. It wasn't people going up to the Macy's counter and buying them. But that watch was an outlier. And one of the things I wrote down is, it kind of reminded me of the stories you hear about it now, like, oh, I got the SKX for 120 bucks one day. It's like you hear those stories about the people who bought their Hamilton Field watches. Every once in a while, like a Rolex, you hear a story at the PX on their Army base. and it was a month of their salary or half a month of their salary. It was a good deal at the time when you look back on it retrospectively like, wow, I can't believe you got it for 50 bucks or whatever it was. That stuff is just gone. You guys know, you go into a PX now. I'm going off track a little bit, but you go into a PX now, it's the same crap you get anywhere else.
Everett the Asshole It's the same stuff you get at Macy's.
Will Yeah.
Everett the Asshole But there's more Suntos. Yeah. You know, the watch counter at the PX could, could be lifted directly out of a Macy's at a Sunto counter.
Will Go. Yep. Exactly.
Andrew You know, I think that you look at inflation across, I mean, at any of those luxury brands, you talk Rolex, you could, there's been a 20% increase in prices in the last year.
Everett the Asshole Well, to, to, yeah, to, to add a little fuel to that fire. I looked up 1970, um, 1970 sub prices for 1970 and I figure 200 about 200 bucks. Yeah, so like maybe $1,300 with inflation today, so Let's talk about price increases, right?
Andrew Let's not let's that's it.
Will That's Yeah, let's move on from that one because that's That's a whole other thing but well is it though because I think that we think of price increases and the The two brands that come to mind are Rolex because they seem to have a price increase every year. Um, which doesn't matter. You can't get their watches. So who gives a shit?
Andrew Uh, and it's just to justify their used market selling better.
Will Yeah, exactly. And, um, Zen. And the only reason I say that is because it seems like every six months watch buys is telling us that there's a Zen price increase, you know, whatever.
Andrew Because there's no inventory. Zen's inventory is controlled perhaps more tightly than Rolex.
Will Yeah. It's slightly looser, but yeah, not too far off. I mean, good luck trying to get a U50. Um, you know, but anyway, so, but like, you don't get those notices from Seiko, like Mark from Long Island watches and coming on YouTube and saying that he just got notified of, you know, another Zen or Zen, uh, Seiko price increase.
Everett the Asshole You know, I, you know, you know, not only that, but guys, I won't throw anybody's name under the bus, but guys, Like Mark from Long Island, when Seiko does weird things are very, very unwilling to talk about it. Uh, you know, which we know, and I'm sure you know, Will, not only are they not forthcoming coming out with that information, but when you ask them specifically, like, I don't know if anybody remembers, but a few years ago, some of these major dealers in the United States pulled their gray market Seiko inventory. And no one that I could find would tell me why, what was happening. We all kind of know what was happening, but none of the dealers would speak on it.
Andrew So even off the record, we're talking about like just Andrew and Everett, like, Hey, we're curious. Like we're obviously not going to tell anyone this. We just want to know.
Will Well, that's because you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you. I think for most dealers, Seiko is such a, a widely known name that even I would say, you know, outside of, uh, you know, close knit watch community. And you talk to someone and you just say, name me five watch brands. They're of course going to say Rolex. And then you'll probably get, you know, Citizen, maybe, um, Tag Heuer, Omega, and you're probably going to get Seiko.
Andrew Those are the five you get. Those are the five you see branded, logoed every sporting event, every everywhere. Those are the five brands.
Will Yeah. And you know, I think that no one's going to say anything about it or, talk smack about what Seiko is doing because they don't want to lose their, um, you know, their, whatever, you know, their license to sell Seiko watches.
Andrew Cause Seiko keeps the lights on because normies buy Seiko. Yes. Normal people wanting watches by Seiko.
Will Yeah. And you just, just go on, we keep talking about Macy's, but go on any retailer that sells Seiko and just look at their catalog that they sell. They sell so much crap. It is an unbelievable amount of crap.
Everett the Asshole I can't- The amount of skews. Yeah.
Will It's crazy. Jesus. I don't know how they do it. And then that's why sometimes with the QC issues, I'm like, I kind of expect it with the amount of stuff you guys produce. You know, it's like a cheesecake factory menu. It's unbelievable.
Andrew Well, so if- Why do you have ceviche and filet mignon? It just doesn't make sense.
Everett the Asshole So if Seiko prices in the last 50 years or so for the baseline dive watch is roughly the same, which I think we've kind of determined that at least in 1970 versus now. They increased prices every two decades. The prices were basically the same. What of, what of this period of time starting in the nineties where Seiko has a huge, a tremendous amount of automatic 7S26 Seiko 5 SKUs plus the SKX. And is that a fair reference point for us to say Seiko price has increased?
Will Well, you just brought up a really good point. I keep forgetting. The SKX had a 7S26, which is a long-lasting but garbage movement. I'm just gonna say it. It's got not a fantastic beat rate, which pretty much all Seiko movements have the same, the 21600 or whatever. Um, but you couldn't hand wind it and you couldn't hack it. If you, if the SKX was produced today, it would have a four R whatever in it. It was like, you know, and that would immediately make it more expensive because when the SKX was still around, the watches that had four R movements in them were more expensive. Um, and you know, that, that just goes back to the thousand dollar watches having the six R movements in them, which is, Probably Seiko's equivalent to like an ETA-2824, I'm assuming, or maybe the... What's the thinner one? The 2892? It's their equivalent of that. It's good movement. It's got a 70-hour power reserve, which is pretty sweet.
Everett the Asshole The new ones do, yeah.
Will If you care about it. Their stated accuracy is all over the place, but most people say that it's pretty damn accurate. Um, I haven't measured any of mine cause I don't really care cause I don't wear the same watch two days in a row. Um, but you know that they're accurate movements. You're getting the ISO certifications in those, um, pretty much all their divers. The loom is great. I think they save their best case designs for those thousand dollar watches. And, uh, they have, uh, the, uh, Dia, Dia shield coating, however you say it. Um, which is a good coating. It is very scratch resistant and they put that on their higher tier models.
Everett the Asshole So there is that level, you know, that tiered level of product that you're getting, you know, um, I said better, better hands, uniformly better hands, applied indices, more loom, uh, stronger finishing die shield coatings. They're doing things at every level. Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Bracelet improvements. Cause you're not seeing that sub thousand dollar bracelet in that
Everett the Asshole category. And it doesn't matter if you spend $100 or $1,500 on a Seiko, you're getting a stamped clasp. Fuck off.
Andrew But you're getting a different bracelet sub $800 than you are north of $800. Yeah. The bracelet changes. The clasp remains, but the bracelet changes and gets better.
Will I'm not the biggest fan of their bracelets. I know some people like them, but at least in the more expensive models, they are putting solid bracelets on that do have some heft to them. You're not getting that jingly jangly, you know, jubilee that came on the SKX, you know, with, and you're not getting the links and all that kind of stuff.
Everett the Asshole You're not getting the faux polished middle links and, you know, some of the more, some of the more trite, uh, you know, offering. So, yeah. Well, I think I've got a theory, perhaps I've got a theory, perhaps that these seven S two, six movements that are still fresh in the mind. of us collectors who have been around for even just a few years, um, that, that perhaps these were a blip. And when we talk about that, is that, uh, what does that mean for us? Is that blip, uh, something significant long-term? A, why did it happen? I don't know that we can answer that today, but how does that affect this conversation when a, when an entry-level Seiko diver in 1970 is the same price as that Seiko entry level diver today. What do we take? What do we do with that weird period from 95 to 2015? Is that something we can fairly consider?
Will Well, I think what happened at some point with the SKX is someone at Seiko said, we have this watch that we can produce cheaply. And this conversation may or may not have happened. We have this watch that we can produce cheaply. We can make a shit ton of them. Let's make a whole bunch and we'll get a whole bunch of people. flocking to our doors for our divers. Um, and I think that is probably somewhat close to what happened. I said before about the Costco chicken, it got everybody in the door to go shop around and see what else they had, you know, and, and look, the SKX was a lot of people's first watch, or at least a watch that they researched and are very familiar with when they got into, um, you know, quote unquote, watch collecting and look at it. We talk about Seiko all the time. micro brands get compared to Seiko, other brands get compared to Seiko. Seiko comes up in almost any conversation and is in almost everybody's watch box.
Everett the Asshole So I think at the end of the day... Yeah, them and Raymond Wilde, the two most common watches you can find, right?
Will Yeah. I think at the end of the day, you can say that it was... The Seiko SKX was probably a strategic move by Seiko to get on the wrists of a lot of people and become a favorable brand that they would think of. And, uh, the, the, the price that they put that out for was yes, probably, you know, low enough that it had that effect, but it's, they still, they still were still producing other watches that were more expensive that people were still buying, but they were like, I really like mass KX. So I'll go buy the turtle or I'll go buy the samurai. Now, you know, I think that was, their rationale. And if that's what someone did in their marketing department and came up with that, I mean, bravo. I hope they gave that guy an award.
Everett the Asshole Yeah. Well, yeah, no, that's a good point. Right. Cause there, you still have people talking about, you know, exorbitant titanium samurai prices and, you know, spork prices. It feels like the spork is not, nobody talks about the spork anymore, but there was even when I was coming into the hobby 2015, there was still people saying, Oh, if you can get a spork for under $850, $900, you should buy it. This is a $450 retail price watch that was for some reason, insanely popular. I think it's an attractive watch, but, uh, so it's not like even in 2015, 2014, 2013, there weren't these watches. And I think that's your point. Maybe.
Will Yeah. Um, and you know, I think the last thing we had on the list, and we talked about it kind of throughout the conversation, was just, does Seiko get a pass for their QC issues? They shouldn't from my point of view, but they don't seem to care. And I think it's because we don't care that much. The Seiko that I'm wearing today is, yeah, the Seiko that I'm wearing today is the SPB149. That is a list price, I think, because it's an LE, I think it was $1,350. and the bezel's misaligned. Not by a lot, but I know it's there. But if I was not aware of Seiko's QC issues, I honestly probably would not have noticed. It's that close to being aligned where you almost looked for it to see if it was misaligned because you knew about it.
Everett the Asshole But if that was a calamity, would you have called up Nick and said... Yeah, I would have been like, realign my bezel, dude.
Will Yeah.
Andrew Or if it was a Ming, that is causing people to lose their fucking shit. And in fairness, Ming's QC issues are far greater. But Seiko, that's a feature. We know Seiko has poor QC. It's more unusual to get a flawless Seiko than it is to get one with a quirk.
Will Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, you look at the, you know, the sale listings for Seiko's and basically the way it goes is on a used Seiko, If the person does not mention alignment, it is misaligned. If they say it is perfectly aligned, it is actually perfectly aligned. It might be a misaligned too. They have some parallax issues, yeah.
Everett the Asshole I'm wearing my SKX 007 today. Alignment's money. I paid $179 for this. Alignment's money.
Will I'm not wearing a Seiko. My SKX, I have the 173. That bezel was misaligned, but you guys know I like to do this. I popped the bezel off and made it a 60 click bezel. And when I put it back on, it was realigned.
Andrew So that's the answer. It's just like unplug it and plug it back in.
Will Yeah. So I don't know what I did. I must have moved the spring a certain way that lined it back up.
Everett the Asshole We'll have you on. We'll have you back on next week for our watch repair issue.
Andrew Yeah, there we go. I've removed quite a few bezels and they are not going back where they belong.
Everett the Asshole Seiko, anything you want to add, Andrew?
Andrew I think we've done it. I think Seiko's a darling for a reason.
Everett the Asshole Closing Seiko thoughts, Will.
Will I think that Seiko gets a little bit of grief, and they should, and I think that they get a little bit of grief that they shouldn't. I think that they're doing some things really great, and that they're offering some really great stuff at attractive prices, um, across a number of ranges that I think that we should embrace a little bit. I think we've been, I think we've been kind of spoiled and we're like, Oh man, a thousand dollars for this, where it's actually probably a pretty decent buy. And if it isn't wait for a used one and then it'll be a really good buy. So that's my two cents.
Everett the Asshole Well, you're talking to a guy who's got, who literally has a psycho diver wave tattooed on his body. So I'll, I'll leave that with my, I'll leave my closing thoughts with that. Andrew, other things, what do you have?
Andrew I got a cheap watch tool and I got it for a couple reasons. Number one is we have an episode in the works for cheap watch tools. Number two, I was a little tired of people making fun of me for not having calipers. So I got a pair of calipers off the Amazon. They're from a company called Adoric? A-D-O-R-I-C.
Everett the Asshole I'm sure that's a big Swiss brand.
Andrew They are the Amazon number one bestseller in digital calipers. They're $11. They calip things. So it's a digital readout. I mean, just read the whole title. Usually, Amazon titles are pretty short and to the point. Digital caliper. Adoric. 0-6 inches. Caliper's measuring tool. Hyphen. Electronic micrometer caliper with large LCD screen. Comma. Auto hyphen off feature. Comma. Inch and millimeter conversion. That bitch is a long name.
Everett the Asshole Yeah, certainly there has to be a way to... You've got to be able to include your keywords in an Amazon listing without putting them all in the title, right?
Andrew I mean, I assume... There must be a way that they have not yet figured out.
Will I'm pretty sure that it pulls from the description. It's just people don't know that.
Andrew Perhaps. Um, but these have been great. They've done all the things I expect a caliper to do for those of you who have not yet bought calipers. And for, for some reason, I mean, I, I feel inclined to have a set of calipers because I write reviews from time to time and measure watches and measure other things. Um, are they, are they steel or resin?
Everett the Asshole They're plastic. Okay. Not even resin. I think that's good.
Andrew Uh, so they're plastic. The, they, zero out easily. They are impossible to move without a readout. And that's something that I've noticed in digital calipers. As you get some play, there is no play in the digital readout. It's very precise, which I appreciate. They are measuring plus or minus a millimeter to what manufacturer's measurements are of their watches. A full millimeter or 0.1? 0.1. Okay. So
Everett the Asshole Like a millimeter, that's a lot.
Andrew But they're measuring plus or minus 0.1 millimeter to what the manufacturer is saying, which I think is within the manufacturer's tolerances are, which makes me think they're actually quite accurate. They're very precise. And for $11, if you're in the market to want to be measuring watches or other tiny things, I think they're a good option. For $11, you can't lose. You could lose $11 and be less upset than by finding these calipers in your house.
Will Yeah. I'm going to buy a set because I need a pair of plastic calipers though.
Everett the Asshole I'm buying it. Yeah, I do too. My metal ones, I'm always worried I'm going to scratch a watch with them.
Andrew Yeah. Adoric calipers, 11 bucks. They come in black, silver, and red black. I think the red black, the red black is kind of like rally stripe down the middle. They're 14 bucks. There's a few red black options. Actually, I didn't even look at one of them's $31. That's too many. Uh, so go with the black. I think the silver, the silver looks to be metal actually, because it's 22 bucks, but mine are the black plastic $11, six inches. I think most people should have calipers for small measurements, black plastic, six inches.
Will We just became an adult podcast.
Andrew Yeah. So I've been using them for now two months. I've had them for some time. Uh, and I'm prepared to say, yeah, buy these, they're $11 and you're not gonna, you're not going to be disappointed. I love it.
Everett the Asshole Ever. I've got another thing. Do me. So I know normally when we're talking about other things, it's not watches, right? Or watch related. Although I was, that was a watch related thing. Yours was semi watch related. Um, but, but really that's the only rule. Something else besides, well, so my other thing today is an Omega professional boar bristle shaving brush.
Andrew Ooh.
Everett the Asshole Specifically the model 49, which you can get on Amazon for between nine and 14 bucks, depending on when you buy it. I am a person who does not shave all that often, but when I do, I wet shave and I have some very nice. You said 1049? I have a hundred and well. Yeah. The, the model 49, I think it's 10049. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I have, some very, very nice shaving brushes. One of those is a hand turned, uh, homemade wood handle, very fine badger bristled brush that I got from Andrew as a gift. Um, and some additional like $120 shaving brushes. So I have four shaving brushes at this point. My favorite shaving brush is a nine 99 bore bristle Omega model 49. So The, if you're a wet shaver, you'll know badger hair, very soft, supple, even supple feels nice. It is widely considered the bees knees.
Andrew Well, the shaving form is called badger and blade.
Everett the Asshole That's right. Very nice badger, badger hair, boar hair is hard. It's cheap. Uh, and people don't like it for all sorts of reasons. Uh, me having gone through the same, thing with wet shaving that I went through with watches, which I know nothing. I'm going to read, read, read. Now I know a little bit more and now I know enough and I'm going to do a podcast. Uh, I didn't do that, but I felt like I could have, I could have at one point, uh, I discontinued because we sort of ran out of faces to shave. I have these brushes. It's my favorite. It's the one that I use. And, um, I would, I would caution anybody who has, is a wet shaver and has used Badger for 10 bucks, buy one of these things. Few caveats. One, when you get it, it is going to smell terrible. So it doesn't smell good. Yeah. Soak it, hit it up with shampoo, rinse it, let it dry, soak it, shampoo it, rinse it, let it dry before you use it. Even the first time it will, the first time you use it, feel like you're applying your shaving cream with a ruler. It's not terribly comfortable, but within about two weeks, it softens up the ends on the hair split. It's got just a fantastic backbone. If you use any sort of hard soap, it's wonderful in the cup. It's hard to get a good lather out of badger with hard soaps. Totally, totally. If you're using a harder soap, you absolutely need I love it. I love for 10 bucks. Everybody uses badger cause they think it's better. What is better? Everybody agrees it's better. I, as I sit here today, could not disagree more. I used my, uh, I used my boar bristle to make some lather earlier today. I was like, yep, this is the one for me. This is what I'm talking about tonight. The Omega professional.
Andrew You shaved this morning?
Everett the Asshole No, I did my neck.
Andrew Oh God. Uh, can I offer some bad news? The guy who made your shaving brush and a shaving brush that I bought also from him from a website called pensoftheforest.co.uk, Rodney Neap. You're going to tell me he died. Uh, no, that might be better. Well, no, it's not better. He's still alive, but his website says he's having a clearance sale. Since I was fitted with a pacemaker, the doctors have advised the electromagnetic field from the lathe may alter the settings. Therefore, I am no longer making new pens and shaving brushes. So he has retired. Well, good for him. Good. Well, I mean, he got a pacemaker, so that's not great. He's retired and there are no more brushes or pens being made out of Gloucester Shire, England by Rodney Nape. And that's sad because I wanted to buy another brush from him because the one that I have is about 10 years old and I will have to replace the badger, but I wanted another handle from him.
Everett the Asshole Rest in peace in your retirement, Rodney. Other things, Will, what do you got?
Will Hey, since I haven't been on in a while, can I do two? You can do two. And also, Daddy makes the rules. Yeah, I don't know why I'm asking permission. I'm doing two.
Andrew Daddy pays the bills.
Will So, my first one is something you guys know about because I've been sharing the output from it with you. So, I'm obviously a photographer, but I found it very difficult to take my camera that I take watches with up out to, you know, go take pictures of, uh, you know, my kids and, you know, other stuff, you know, just whatever's going on around.
Everett the Asshole Cause it's annoying as shit to carry a giant camera around.
Will Yeah. And you know, it's like, if I were ever to break it, you know, it'd be heartbreaking and I'd have to spend a whole bunch of money to replace it and all that. So I decided to get something that was easy to carry around. Wasn't going to be used for watches. and I could just grab and go like my my quartz beater, if you will. So I got a Fuji X100V, which is just a fixed lens, advanced point and shoot. Yeah, Everett's telling me I should get insurance, which yes, I do have that.
Andrew Anyway, so he wrote it in the handwriting of a three year old. Yes, he did.
Will I should have used it to take a picture of that because that was awful. But anyway, so this, this camera is great. It's, I keep it in my kitchen. So it doesn't go down, you know, into the studio where I do, where I do pictures or any of that stuff. And it has just been wonderful to just grab it when my, you know, kids are running around the house in the morning and just take pictures of them doing stuff, you know, just life. And we went to this weekend, we went peach picking and I took it with me and I couldn't see the screen because of the sun. I just was just blindly shooting. And I got these fantastic photos out of it. Everything just kind of, you know, like the planets aligned, the focus was good, the composition was good. And I was just so happy that I had it because one of my friends that I also shared the pictures with said to me, your daughter's going to love these photos when she's get when she gets older. And like, you know, just a comment like that made it all worth it. So I guess my point is, if you're someone who does something like that, where you have you know, a camera that you're using for work. Um, you know, maybe take a look at getting something that you don't have to use for that. You know, it's, it can bring you back down to that hobby level where it's more fun.
Everett the Asshole Um, so my photos, I'll just say, I'll just say for my part, the photos you're getting out of the X 100 V are absolutely bonkers. Wonderful. Totally lovely photos.
Will Yeah. Thank you. Um, I mean it, it's optically, you know, perfect. Um, and it's, it's really good for, you know, families cause it's got, you know, the face and eye detection and all that. So it takes a little bit of the guesswork out of it.
Everett the Asshole Um, and Fuji does, Fuji does some really cool stuff with their, with their software too, which yeah, I use the film, yeah, the film simulations, which are a lot of fun.
Will You know, it's, I don't edit them on my camera or anything. I just take them right out of the camera onto my phone and you know, share them with family and friends and it's, it's just easy and it's more fun. Um, So the other thing is, uh, my other other thing is a show on Netflix called Brand New Cherry Flavor. And I started watching it before we started recording this. I think I watched three episodes cause I was hooked. It is freaking weird. It is probably one of the most bizarre shows I've ever watched, but I want to know what's going to happen next because it's, it, it's surreal because it's almost like a show that's based in reality, but it's got all this other trippy stuff going on. and you're not sure if it's, you know, like hallucinations or, um, you know, just actual supernatural stuff going on. I don't want to say too much about it, but what I'll say is it's about a girl who's a filmmaker in the nineties, goes to Los Angeles, um, to try and sell her movie. And it's about what happens after that girl, the girl who plays the, no, I'm just joking.
Andrew It was also a film producer at the train station.
Will Um, Yeah, but it's a, it's a limited series. I think it's only eight episodes. So it's, you know, one season and done. Um, but I'm probably going to finish it in two days because I'm absolutely hooked on it. It's really good.
Andrew So I Googled it and here are the first three headlines that pop brand new cherry flavor review. The sickest thing on Netflix this year. Netflix is brand new. Brand new cherry flavor is definitely channel zero. Brand new cherry flavor serves up a weird brew of empty calories. This is just the top three.
Will I'm intrigued. Were those titles written by a robot?
Everett the Asshole Yes, probably.
Andrew Yeah, we got Polygon, Forbes and Action News now. So those are all those are AI generated headlines. Mr. Algae generated. I watched the new Space Jam. It was trash. It was terrible. Really, really bad. LeBron is not even a good actor when he's being himself.
Everett the Asshole The kids liked it. I thought it was real. I mean, it's fun, right? It's fun to see these NBA start. Yeah. Anyway, I did not have fun. Will, you got anything you want to add before we go today?
Will That's it. Just check out the website, the YouTube channel. Always looking for new people to hop on if you're listening to the show.
Andrew Always love new people hopping on. And if you do have any questions for Will, we are going to put his phone number into the show notes for you. Perfect. Andrew, you got anything you want to add?
Everett the Asshole Add a thing. Hey, thank you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the WatchClicker podcast. Check us on an Instagram. You can check Will's page out at WatchClicker. You can check us out at 40 and 20. Also, please go to our website, watchclicker.com. We post every single episode of this show on there, as well as weekly reviews from Will and Mike and Evan and all the other folks that contribute to the site. If you want to support us at WatchClicker, you can do so at patreon.com. slash 40 and 20 look guys that's how we support all of our hosting fees which are not small it's how we buy hardware for the show and it's how andrew is supporting his new boat battery testing hobbies thousands of them don't forget to tune back in next thursday for another hour of watches food drinks life and other things we like bye daddy