Episode 148 - In-House Movements

Published on Wed, 25 Aug 2021 20:44:04 -0700

Synopsis

The hosts discuss the concept of "in-house" movements in watches, exploring the ambiguity of the term and the various levels of in-house manufacturing employed by different brands. They examine the pros and cons of true in-house movements versus using third-party or collaborative movements, touching on factors like exclusivity, cost, serviceability, and innovation. Ultimately, they emphasize the importance of transparency from brands and encourage consumers to understand their own priorities when considering the value of in-house movements.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett I'm well. I'm chuckling a little bit about your glass, your ice clinking in the microphone.
Andrew And I choked a little bit on my spit. So, you know, get what you deserve.
Everett Yeah, I'm doing well. Nothing to report, nothing major. Nothing new, huh? I mean, I'm sure.
Andrew Do you not do anything anymore? Like, used to be you golfed and you ran and you did all manner of fun and entertaining things. And it seems like now you don't.
Everett I do, I do less. Yeah, I do fewer things. Sorry, that was mean. Yeah, that was a little mean. No. It's insensitive. It's not mean. It's weird, right? Yeah, I don't do anything anymore. I go to work and then I come home. But you build more hours, though. I do build more hours. I've watched a lot more television. Makes sense. I've watched a lot more television. I've read a ton. I think I read like seven books in the last month. Wow. So, you know, which is not a ton for a reader, but for me it's a lot. You know, I'm like two to three books a month normally, so.
Andrew I can't wait to have kids at an autopilot age. I know. I used to read a ton and then Calvin got born and he's just a menace. If he is awake, it is a, it is a full time gig. Just, just wrangling. And then when he's asleep, it's a full time gig. Just cleaning it up.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. And we don't, we, we don't have that. Right. So, I mean, there was a couple of weekends there where I read, you know, three hours in the morning, another four or five at night. And you know, you can blast through a book in a couple of days that way. Yeah. Um, but yeah, but yeah. Andrew, how are you?
Andrew I'm well learning a lot about outboard motor maintenance.
Everett Um, are we going to get a update on the saga?
Andrew I mean, the update is that it's running. But we, I had some issues today and I, and I can't really place my finger on, um, what the issues were because mechanically everything was fine until it wasn't. We were, and we were also in like next to no water. There were no boat trailers at the ramp and there were a couple in the Marina, but the Marina separated from the launch. So I think that there, that was maybe it. Like if you're the only person doing something, you're, you're almost certainly wrong. And at today we were the only person. doing that something and I've never seen no trailers in the in the parking lot so I think that's part of the issue but yeah I mean I ripped apart the starter because that was what I isolated the problem down to and now it starts and runs great yeah just just learn as I go just that boat life yeah so that's all life no it's fresh water only but yeah it's it's been certainly an experience and and something that I maybe should have expected was going to absorb as much of my time as it does. Um, it didn't fully and certainly do appreciate because I mean, like you low learning new things. The problem is that I take on new things when old things aren't, maybe aren't done yet. So I now have a lot of works in progress that are all running in parallel and yeah, that's okay.
Everett It's okay. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. Yeah, well, uh... I guess we're gonna talk about watches. I think we have to dive into this one quick. Yeah, you know, we're at four minutes now. We will talk about watches for approximately 45 to 50 minutes. How much of the stuff that we meant to get to, that we mean to get to right now, do you think we're gonna get to? 20%. Which is fine, which is fine. So we're talking today about the idea of in-house movements.
Andrew Which we both recognize is maybe a little out of the affordable watch zone. It sprinkles in to affordable watches and we see it from time to time. But generally speaking, this is a conversation had at higher price points.
Everett than that which we normally speak, yeah.
Andrew But I think that's what makes this such an important conversation for the affordable watch consumer. And I think we'll get to that lesson learned at the end. Or not. Or not. We might not achieve it. But I think the bottom line is we put a lot of value on the term in-house. And it seems like this thing to be sought after, like, oh, I need to buy this watch because they use an in-house movement. And I think today, part of our goal is to unfurl some of the thought of what an in-house movement is. Demystification. Yeah. Look under the kilt, as it were, and realize that it's maybe, at least to me, and maybe to you, maybe not as big of a deal as we make it, we being the watch world, make it seem to be. In some instances, I think it is a bigger deal than we give it credence for, but I think in most instances it's a marketing term.
Everett Yes. I mean, it's clearly a marketing term. I think that, um, I think that there's some history and background that I was maybe not super familiar with, um, regarding, you know, the relative, newness of the term in its current state. Uh, and, and I think having an understanding of that, you know, it helped me kind of feel comfortable to talk about this today. You did a ton of research and I appreciate you for it. Um, I spent, I don't know, maybe two hours reading wholly new material on this topic. A lot of it was regurgitated, between the articles, and I don't mean to say they were copying one another, but the, the sort of core tenants of, um, what it means to be in-house is sort of the same, no matter whose article you read, but, you know, different reading, different voices and different perspectives, different priorities, uh, was super helpful for me. I think, I don't know that I've ever read quite as much as I have. for an episode as I have for this one. I think I've done more research, but I don't know that I've ever just sat down and read as much.
Andrew Because so much of this is opinion based, and we were, I mean, gridlocked for hours on our group text today talking about this idea of in-house. So first a quick background, and it's going to be a very quick background, and it's going to miss a lot of parts. The general idea, and we've talked about this before, but I just want to freshen it up. The general history of the watch industry at large is very decentralized where components of watches were made in different towns, villages, take your pick. And then they were all brought together for the finished piece.
Everett Yeah. You know, we talked a little bit about this in our Swiss made episode, right? Yes. Where, um, There was this thing that happened in the 16th century where you had this sort of diaspora of in particular French Huguenots to Switzerland. Juggernauts. Juggernauts. And this sort of rebirth, as it were, of the watch manufacturing process by way of Swiss specialists. you know, now Swiss, now Swiss immigrant specialists, Huguenots in particular, and they kind of reinvented the way watches get made. There's this idea of établissage, which is literally turning watches into a cottage industry as in the truest sense possible, people actually making various parts of a watch in their cottage, as it were. And how the Swiss kind of took over the world because they were able to make, you know, 20 times as many watches as England or France or Germany just by way of having... They had effectively an assembly line.
Andrew decentralized across the countryside. Yeah. They just weren't all making it under the same roof, but everyone was making bridges and this person was making balance wheels and this person was making hairsprings or this village was making these individual components that were all then brought together to make these different watches. So the history of watches is decidedly not in house movements.
Everett It is in houses. Yes. but not in-house. Certainly not your own. That's right. And the Swiss also, in the 19th century, revolutionized the industry again by way of the hibache, you know, white label movements that are then shipped to companies who can finish the movement and finish it and market and use it as their own. That's a Swiss thing. So this isn't an episode of Swiss watches, but I think in context of your, this is the background. I think that's super important to what's happened here.
Andrew Yeah. It's key. And we, so we take that as the idea. That's the context that we're coming into this conversation on in-house movements with that the entire or the most part history of watchmaking was dispersed. And everyone was using the same shit that was being made, each component in its own place, centralized, shipped out, maybe assembled, maybe not. So here we are in the modern era in 2021. And the first thing I think we have to do in this conversation now is decide what an in-house movement is.
Everett Yeah. Yeah, we've already had some arguments, not you and I personally, but within our group about what in-house means.
Andrew And the industry doesn't have a definition. There is no threshold, right? This isn't Swiss-made. This isn't American-made. There's no percentage threshold for cost, production, manufacture that a product has to meet in order to achieve that stamp.
Everett No government is dictating standards.
Andrew There is no regulatory body who has decided what in-house, and I air-quoted, you may have heard it in the tone of my voice, what in-house means, which is maybe a problem. Or maybe not. Yeah, or maybe not. I think it is. Because in order for something to be used as a marketing term, we can't just be like, Be like Mad Men and Lucky Strikes. It's toasted. That doesn't mean anything. There has to be some meaning behind the language that you're using to espouse value, I think.
Everett Yeah, I don't disagree with you on a fundamental level. I think that we also want to feel comfortable. We want to feel comfortable with terms and phrasing and we want there to be a simple jargon and I think that this is an example of where there's maybe not a ton of value to simplification of a phenomenon or a process or you know we've yet to talk about any details but maybe you at home can tell I've got some reticence just just even to enter into the subject because I think sometimes what people want is neither available nor would it be beneficial. And this is one of those situations where I'm more and more, I'm increasingly of the opinion that having a strict definition for what would be meant by in-house could not be extremely valuable and could likely lead to crummy results.
Andrew Maybe.
Everett So, so what, what, what are, give us, give us some, some examples of what we could call in-house.
Andrew I've distilled it down to four distinct groups that could be in-house. Number one, true in-house. And you see this in luxury brands, mega brands, and unobtainium The dude makes two watches a year brands. And it is manufacturing, assembly, like soup to nuts done under that brand's name.
Everett Like the 7S26. Exactly.
Andrew That's an in-house. All of it done right there on site, maybe not on that same location, but all under the brand's umbrella.
Everett Designed, researched, manufactured. Yes. In in every single component. Yes. And you'll read a lot that that is the. Finger quote, true. Iteration of in-house that that you'll read, maybe not anybody specifically stating this, but certainly suggesting that short of making your hairspring Ruby doing your own design natively, Short of those very lofty standards, you're not in-house.
Andrew And I think I take issue with that. Because I don't care where you grow your rubies. That's an expensive endeavor. That requires a lot of space. It's not just R&D, it's like actual manufacturing space. And I take issue with that being the definition. But it's also a fair definition.
Everett Yeah. Well, it's like... It's like a diet or whatever, right? It's the easiest definition is always the one with the fewest rules. And so I think there's something attractive to that standard in that you don't have to talk about what's okay to import, export, and what's not. If you're not totally in control of every aspect of the production, you're not in-house. So I think there's a certain, it's attractive to a certain degree. I'm with you that I think that it's silly, but Um, you know, then to the extent we're going to talk about exporting rubies, importing rubies, excuse me. I don't mean domestically imported. I mean, bringing them in from another manufacturer. Well, next we start talking about hairsprings, uh, and, and then escapements and, you know, where, where can we stop and still be in-house? I don't know that we're going to answer that today.
Andrew Well, we're certainly not there because you also run into the point of okay well then everybody's R&D is into just getting three handers on the market. And that's not fun. I want more than that. The next group is going to be exclusive. And these are going to be movements that are paid for by a brand. designed in conjunction with a manufacturer. And that movement is only and can only be sold to one brand. It is theirs. They own, they maybe didn't develop the technology entirely, right? There has to be something that makes it exclusive. They're the single buyer for that movement. And then you run into Ollie and Ollie's, you know, selling it out the back door, but They are the single intended buyer for this movement. I'm down with that being called in-house. Third up, we've got collaborative movements. So there's some examples of brands trading movement technologies. Tudor and Breitling is a good example.
Everett Yeah, recently they did this, 2017 I think.
Andrew Tudor wanted something that Breitling had. But Reitling had something that Tudor had. Yeah.
Everett Did I say it right? You didn't. That's OK. I think everybody knows what you meant.
Andrew There's a trade that happened. These movements are proprietary. They are owned outright by their brands and by their respective brands, and they exchanged.
Everett Manufactured in-house in either instance.
Andrew And they exchanged the technology and they changed the name. They were public about it, which I think is important to continue calling something an in-house movement. It's super transparent, right? But I still believe that to be an in-house movement.
Everett Okay, I think we're stretching and that's okay. What's the next one?
Andrew Last up, this is I think the biggest stretch. You buy the movement, You finish the assembly. You buy the movement from a movement manufacturer, say Ronda. You do the entire assembly. You do the finishing. All you did was buy components. And I think most notable for that is Shinola for me. Because that was their claim to fame. They were US-made watches. And then some more digging happened. They're like, this is a fucking Ronda movement. Like, well, we'll walk it back a little bit. Yeah, we buy their parts. We buy their stuff, but we have our own Detroit based assembly line. We build this thing out. We do the finishing touches. We make it.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew But like everyone else, you have to have material to make things with. So is, is the issue that we bought material to build our watch movement or is the issue that we bought premade watch parts that you recognize as from another brand? And I'm, I'm willing to still call that relatively in-house, but that's the fourth category. I think that we can find that's, that's an in-house movement because I think just stamping the rotor is not an in-house movement.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe, so we've identified four sort of potential categories. Uh, we should talk about that real quick. Maybe, maybe we can dispose of something quickly. Um, you know, I think Manta, uses the Sellita 330, the SW 330 for their movements, they put a custom rotor on it. It's an SW 330 with a custom rotor. And maybe I'm missing something.
Andrew But it's renamed. Why? What did they do to rename it besides a custom rotor?
Everett Right.
Andrew I can't remember what they call it. They call them their M calibers, their M23.
Everett And so what Monta's not doing, is saying this is an in-house movement. And actually, I think Manta's relatively transparent about what they're doing, maybe having learned lessons from some other brands over the years. They're not suggesting it's in-house.
Andrew But they renamed it, which kind of gives the illusion that it is. Yeah, it gives it to an uninformed consumer.
Everett Norcane is another company. They've got what they call a manufacturer caliber. And I think that they may be stretching the limits of that phrase, uh, doing essentially the same thing as, as Monta's doing. So yeah, we're, for all intents and purposes, we're going to not say that's an in-house movement because it's not, it just isn't.
Andrew But that's, that's one of the categories that is a proclaimed, that's why I kept that as a category because it's a proclaimed in-house movement.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so they're not proclaiming their movements are in-house. And I think in, at least in those two instances, Norcain and Monta, I'm perfectly satisfied with their transparency, uh, in that regard. Um, you, I think take on bridge with sort of having a caliber designation and in-house seeming caliber designation. Uh, I'm not sure I, I care about that, but really at the end of the day, it's important that brands are, are transparent about what they're doing.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett In that regard.
Andrew Yeah. Don't hide it. We're going to find out, you know, you look at Braymont when they had their, issue with an in-house movement. Quote unquote in-house. Yeah, which in fact was not in-house. Yeah. It was a manufacturer caliber stretched. Right. And people called them on it and they're like, well, you know, I mean, yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. You caught us. And that was an issue.
Everett This flyer, the flyer movement.
Andrew Yeah. And if no, if they hadn't touted it being an in-house movement, no one would have cared. No one would have cared and I think there's some there's some credit that is owed to the people who manufacture your movements that you're using because a lot goes into that and to take it as your own and I think even to rename it without making some significant changes and maybe that's just a higher level of hand finishing before it's installed maybe it's a custom rotor and hand finishing but I think there's a threshold there where you can call it where you can rename it where you can call it a manufacturer caliber but there's no industry standard for what that threshold is. And I, I take a little bit of issue with that because I think credit is due either to the watch brand who's, who's making the changes or to the movement manufacturer who, who made it and gave it to you because you bought it from them.
Everett Yeah. Well, and, and maybe not, I mean, that seems like a contract designation, but, but you know, to the extent that, to the extent that Salida or whoever wants to sell movements to Manta and they're comfortable with Manta calling them Whatever the fuck they want. I don't know. There's an issue there. But but yeah, there's Again, it really just comes down to transparency. What are we talking about? So let's let's maybe talk a little bit about the value Proposition I'm gonna hate everything about those words the value proposition of in-house movement, so again not talking about What category number one here? Talking about category number one, a completely in-house designed ground up manufactured movement. What's the value proposition here? Expensive. So that says to me anti value proposition.
Andrew So I think the first thing is it's exclusive. It is inherently Luxurious.
Everett Because the brand- Like the 7S26. Just like that.
Andrew Because the brand that you bought it from is the single source for it. The brainpower, the manufacturing processes, everything about that watch, that brand doesn't just stand behind and believe in, they built. And I think there's something there. It's not take your pick of brands using any third party movement where they can say, Oh yeah, you know what? Sometimes these movements have issues. We'll, we'll cover it for you. If you're, if, if your tour beyond fails, that brand is going to take that shit personally or not. But yeah, I think so. I mean, but I think if, if they stand behind every step from that case being milled, to the hand filing on your rotors, they're going to take their failure personally. I think the customer service that you should expect from that, based on the exclusivity of everything about that watch came from that company, I think that's cool. There's something there.
Everett And maybe this is a reasonable place to draw some additional distinctions. I know that's going to keep happening as we move through this. I've made the joke a couple times already today that a 7S26 is an in-house movement. There's a difference between a 7S26 and a Romain Gaultier, you know, six-figure movement, right? The 7S26 is, I don't believe, being made anymore, but a highly, highly efficient mass produced, I mean, take mass produced and multiply whatever, whatever the, the 10 times multiplier of mass is right.
Andrew There's brand new inbox, never used, never touched seven S two sixes in landfills, perhaps.
Everett Yeah. So, so there were, we're covering a lot of territory here. And so It's going to be hard to, in every instance, make those distinctions, but there are huge distinctions. You're talking about hand filing of gear, trade parts. Well, there's, that's not happening in many, many in-house movements.
Andrew Not in Seiko for sure.
Everett Not in Rolex, right? I mean, not in IWC or maybe even Nomos, right? We're not hand filing anything there. they're completely mechanized processes, CNC, everything. So, um, when we're talking about exclusivity and value, um, there's going to be a difference there, right? So Seiko does not give two shits about their, but they've got a fucking good warranty reliability on a, on a, you know, a seven S two six and neither does Orient.
Andrew I mean, and another, another, brand that uses in-house calibers.
Everett That's super affordable. Casio in-house. I'm sure Timex. Yeah. I think. Yeah. Well, I don't know that actually, but that's my guess.
Andrew Yeah. So there's some exclusivity associated with the idea of in-house movements, but to your point, it's maybe not as exclusive as in-house movement might make it seem to be. What's next in the value proposition?
Everett Yeah. I mean, I think, I think when we talk about value proposition, this is sort of the category where everything wants to work against in-house movements, right? If you were to, let's say I were to give you a hundred million dollars and a team of watch watchmakers and 10 years, and I'd say, make me an automatic three-hand movement.
Andrew Are you giving me the $100 million up front?
Everett Yeah. You'll have someone monitoring your expenses. Okay.
Andrew I was going to say I'm going to fire those guys and I'm going to retire.
Everett But I mean, that's a lot of money and I don't know that's how much it costs. I just threw, that's a joke obviously. But you know, unlimited resources, 10 years, make a movement. You are at the end of that period of time probably going to have a movement. You could do it.
Andrew Theoretically, maybe not you, but no, certainly not me. My team of engineers who work for me could though.
Everett That is a doable. You could from the ground up completely new redesigned in-house manufactured movement. You could do it. Yeah. Is that movement going to be more or less reliable than a Miyota 9015?
Andrew Arguably less because it doesn't have. Not even arguably. Well, you never know. I mean, maybe, maybe my engineers are geniuses. Maybe I've got bock talk engineers on the job, but there's not the body of work to demonstrate that it is as reliable.
Everett And, and, and even if, even if one piece or all the pieces are just as, if not more reliable, you're not going to have the same availability of parts. You're not going to have the ability to be repaired anywhere in the world. Any watchmaker in the world can do simple repairs or regulate or service a Miyota 9015. Some of them maybe don't because they don't want to, but it is something that any watchmaker will have seen, will have touched, will have ripped apart.
Andrew Probably dozens of times in watch school.
Everett Meanwhile, the Andrew caliber one is not something that any of them have ever going to going to have seen. And furthermore, they will never see it until they do. And they're like, I'm not fucking touching this thing. I don't know what it is. So that, that is a fundamental problem with in-house calibers is that unless they're based on some other engineering, some other skeleton, you're going to have trouble there.
Andrew Because there's a million ways to do that. Yes. There are a million ways to make a watch movement. Maybe more than a million, I think.
Everett It's cost prohibitive. Yeah. As evidenced by Oris's Caliber 400. So, you know, Hodinkee did a limited edition release this last week and they did it with Oris and it's a 65 diver watch. Uh, it's four grand and you know, Hodinkee did something and it's expensive and people lost their shit as is normal. Um, and they lost their shit for a number of reasons. One, it's a $4,000 65 diver, diver 65. What do you call that? Watch diver 65. It's an aura 65.
Andrew That's what I call it.
Everett So, um, that is a direct. a direct result of development costs of this movement.
Andrew Yeah, direct to the consumer pricing. You want this novel movement? Here you go, and here's the price tag.
Everett Yeah, so it costs more because the R&D is expensive. They could have stuck an SW330 or a 2824 or... Take your pick. Take your pick.
Andrew And made it a $1,500 watch.
Everett Yeah, that's right. Probably even less. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the normal 65s have in them, but I think they go like $2,000-ish new. Um, but yeah, it's, it's $2,000 plus of movement right there.
Andrew In that cost prohibitive vein, there aren't new brands coming out there showing up to market with a new movement.
Everett Not a lot. I mean, we've got like Cameron Weiss, I think is a great example of someone who, who is doing movement. Maybe it's based on something else. I think a unitus movement or something, but Cameron Weiss is doing new movements.
Andrew But he's an established brand. Has been for some time. Has some capital there to be able to do that. Some of the most exciting brands that are in our world of watches right now, if we told them you can't come to market without a novel movement, they don't go to market. They never make it. The retro magic never sees the light of day.
Everett Yeah. I mean, Jonathan's really benefiting heavily from Seiko's R&D. He's able to bring these extremely cool, extremely accurate, inexpensive watches to market. We're benefiting. Because of Seiko's R&D. Yeah.
Andrew And, and Jonathan's paying for it. And ipso de facto, we're paying for it, but he's riding the shoulders of what Seiko has accomplished and has been able to sink into research and development. So an out of house movement, really puts a fire to design innovation, to furthering other aspects of this industry that aren't specifically movements. Because I'd be okay with a dozen movements in the world. The movement isn't what is the selling point for me on the watch. I will not buy a watch because of movement, but I won't buy a watch because of the engine that's in it.
Everett You know, one of the articles you uncovered for this, and we'll link to it in the show notes, Um, but Jack Forrester, uh, of Houdinki fame, obviously published a, uh, an editorial on in-house movements a few years ago. I think it was last year. And it's, I mean, you know, say what you will about Houdinki. I know a lot of people are not fans of Houdinki for whatever reason. I think Houdinki is just one of the best publications on earth. I I'm really, truly a fan of Houdinki. And for me, Jack Forrester is the guy. I love Jack Forrester. I think that he's charming. I think that he's funny. He's incredibly knowledgeable. I mean, that guy knows more about, he's forgotten more about watches than I'll ever know as the saying goes. Us together combined. That's right. Yeah. But he, he really hits the nail on the head And again, we'll link to it and feel free to read this article because it's really good. But he, he breaks this down with a level of nuance that I just don't think many people are even able to think in off the cuff. Um, he makes some positions, he takes harder positions. And I think either one of us today is probably prepared to take because of his knowledge, but he talks about in-house calibers and horology and, Draw some really important distinctions. There are different goals. The goal of a Valjoux 7750 is significantly different than the goal of some high-end HOTE handmade in-house chronograph caliber. And the in-house caliber is going to be better Objectively, it's going to feel nicer to use. It's going to be snappier, um, perhaps not more reliable. There will be three of them way more expensive. And we're not talking about, you know, we're not talking about $500 versus a hundred dollars. We're talking about a hundred times that we're talking about a hundred thousand versus a hundred.
Everett But the goals of the two things are different and it's a really important thing to note in this conversation that if your goal is economy and production and scale, the 7750 as you know, and as you know, The 7750 I just think is such a cool movement. I dig it. I know it's fat and chunky and it's got a booty and I'm wearing a 7750 right now. I just love that movement for any number of reasons. It just really speaks to me. The soul of that movement speaks to me. With that said, that is not intended to be haute horology, right? That's not the intent. That's not the goal. If the goal is art, look elsewhere, my friends, uh, because art, this watch is not any, any aspect of it, this movement, this watch. So he's drawing this distinction. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that there are different goals and, and more so to acknowledge that there are different priorities. So our friend, my friend, Mike Razek, um, I think is, has been skeptical of this idea. And, uh, we were talking about the new Oris movement a few weeks ago. And I think ultimately with their, I think it's a 10 year warranty that they're offering on that movement, which is wonderful. Um, there's value there, objective value, but what if it was a two year warranty? I think Mike would probably be skeptical of that movement and that's okay.
Andrew I think I would be skeptical of that movement. I probably would be as well. I'm skeptical of it even with a 10 year warranty. Me too.
Everett Me too. But I think it's okay for us to just say there are things that reasonable people could like about the idea of that. It's another company making movements. That is always good. That's more better for the industry. Better for the industry. There are, um, you know, just, spreading the love, getting more involvement. It's a cool movement too. I mean, they are innovating certain aspects. It's got this five day power reserve by way of doing these things. They're pushing the limits and they're going to, they're going to push their competitors to be better, right? I mean, and at those prices, nobody's going to be threatened by them in the micro brand world, but it's furthering.
Andrew So, But in the land of competition for movement, for power reserve, for accuracy, competition drives innovation. I mean, Oris is an interesting person to be throwing their hat in this innovation arms race.
Everett I don't agree. Oris has made, I think, 200 or something unique calibers. Not many since the 70s, but Oris is a fabulous history. So I'm not sure I agree, but right now as we sit today, I think we're seeing maybe an opportunity for companies like Oris to get back in that game.
Andrew And it's going to drive innovation industry wide. We would hope. Yeah. One would hope. Can I talk about a real negative here? Yeah. And we've kind of touched on it. But single source servicing. Yeah. That's problematic for me. I want to be able to either send it back to where I bought it from, the manufacturer maybe. But if I don't want to go to those places, if I've got a watch guy down the street that does all the services on all my other watches, I want him. I want someone servicing my watch who I trust. And if my shit has broken and it's not under warranty, I definitely don't want to send it back to you because it's broken and you made it that way. I wanted to go to somebody I trust, somebody that's demonstrated, and this is kind of the risk in... No, no, no, listen, don't make weird faces at me.
Everett I'm listening, but I am making weird faces. What the fuck are you talking about? But go ahead.
Andrew Now who's making weird faces? Because you made me lose my train of thought here. I want to be able to trust the person doing the service. And I don't want it to must be the manufacturer. And if you have a novel caliber, it's got to go back to the manufacturer. And that's problematic for me.
Everett Yeah, that's right. What if you buy an RGM and your movement breaks and RGM goes out of business? God forbid, I don't think that's happening. I'm not suggesting it is.
Andrew No, but exactly. The novelty of that wears off quickly when suddenly the person who can service your watch is dead. That's kind of a problem.
Everett Now you need that S-Town guy to carve you a new watch part out of a piece of cast iron or whatever.
Andrew Yeah, because that's a thing. But I mean, it's something to be considered when we're thinking about high-end in-house movements. I think it's a deterrent for me. Now, I think if in-house movements were to become more accessible, and I'm not talking like Orient and Seiko in-house movements or Casio, I'm talking about, you know, the Oris, for example. That's an accessible watch. Absolutely. It's an expensive watch, but it's accessible. It's not, you know, you have to sell a child and a kidney. It's just a kidney.
Everett It's less than the price of a used car. Depends on the used car you're buying. It's less than the price of many used cars.
Andrew Yeah. You see Honda Civics for sale all the time for 500 bucks.
Everett Yeah, well, and right, I mean, there is... to go back to the topic of pure in-house versus distilled in-house, right? Where you're, you're taking parts. So I think, I believe this is still true, but Cameron Weiss is now making, I believe two or three quote unquote in-house movements. I think people, some people take umbrage, uh, to that reference because a, It's based on, you know, his movements are based on a unitis movement. I believe all, all of them are. Um, and, and so he's, he's using existing engineering, which is smart. That's what you should do. He's making many parts, including screws, bridges, gears in house. He's purchasing hairsprings. He's purchasing rubies. And this is the part where I say, I believe this is still true. So with that in mind, if we can, if we can figure out what's important, you know, in this instance, I think there's a couple of priorities that we can parse out there. In-house design. How important is in-house design? In-house manufacture of major parts, bridges, rotors, gears, screws, cases, hands, dials, in-house manufacture of more special parts. Um, we, we, we've, I think those are three things that we can sort of focus on. Um, and, and without setting any clear rules, it gives us an opportunity to kind of explore what's important. Now, if I buy some sort of Swiss at a module and then, or Swiss edit, Ibashe, Ibashe, and then put a modular component on the top of it, maybe a trivial or maybe a truly unique complication. And I've done something really special and I hand finish it and do hand chamfering and... Englage.
Andrew Englage. Englage.
Everett You know, there, I might not be able to call that in-house, but it may be really fucking cool. You know, it's an ETA movement, but I've done all this neat complication work on top of it. Um, so it's not that we need to set rules. It's that we need to, as consumers know what we're buying. That's the only, that's the only thing that matters here, but also not be lied to by brands. Yeah. Well, and I don't see a ton of evidence of brands lying. You know, you brought up that Bremont example. I think both Cameron Weiss and Shinola have run into problems with the FTC about marketing terms they've used. You know, there, there are a few other important examples here, but having transparency, brand transparency is wonderful, but also just as a consumer, know what you're buying. Know what you're buying. Know what your priorities are. If what you care about is employing United States people, people in the United States to do the labor, well, look at brands like Shinola or Veyr or whoever. If you're comfortable with prioritizing that, that's your priority. You can find those things. That's why I sort of bristle a little bit this notion of Is in-house good or bad? Is it valuable? Is it not? You and I value different things than watches.
Andrew Yeah. I want to know what it is. That's what I want to know. I want to know when a brand says we have in-house movements. I want to know what that means. And there's a lot and a very wide range of definitions industry wide that you'd go from Shinola who's They're transparent about the fact they buy Ronda movements, disassembled, and then they build them out.
Everett Yeah. And in particular in Switzerland, I think that that in-house can mean a lot of different things. And I think that that rubs people wrong.
Andrew Yeah. Plenty of, plenty of folks are getting all their manufacturing done, but for a few key components that are real expensive to manufacture, they're going to get done in China.
Everett You know, I read something today. So the McLaren F1, fastest naturally aspirated production car ever made, still today, the fastest naturally aspirated production car ever made. $1 million when they sold, I think in 92, um, they're auctioning for 20 million, you know, every year one gets auctioned off for 20 million. I mean, it's just this, that's a good investment, right? It's this vehicle that is one of one of the top five or six best cars, production cars ever made. And they didn't make a ton of them. I think only 300 of them or something like that.
Andrew There aren't limited edition cars ever.
Everett But this, you know, this car uses a BMW movement. I was going to say movement BMW engine caliber caliber. And this is the this is the thing that I actually took note of today and I thought was just incredible. taillights on a McLaren F1 are partsman taillights, and they're from a 1980s bus. There's this bus that I think is... Like a Yellowbird? Yeah, it's like a passenger bus, like a tour bus. I believe they're German. Coaches. Coach, yeah. And the taillights from the McLaren, it's a partsman taillight from this bus. It's the same part. And it's okay, right? Yes. Everything else on that vehicle is meticulously engineered and designed from the ground up. I think that the reverse mirrors on that are from something else too.
Andrew I'm going to put those taillights on my truck.
Everett Yeah. Yeah, right.
Andrew Because they're the McLaren taillights. They also happen to be from a bus.
Everett So, you know, Is that important? Does it matter? Does it matter where the rubies come from? So there's two schools of thought.
Andrew So, uh, are they natural or synthetic rubies? That's important to me.
Everett Yeah. You know, does that either mean it's way less important or does it mean that maybe these like middle of the road sub like 500 or, you know, sub $2,000 in-house movements don't provide a tremendous value. You know, there's a few companies, Nomos being one of them, that makes really, really wonderful, almost entirely vertically integrated in house movements. Uh, and they sell them for like two grand. It's impossible. The whole watch, not just the movement, the whole fucking watch for two grand, which is crazy. It's crazy. Um, and, and, and they're truly in house. I don't know about rubies, but I know like their escapement mechanism, totally engineered. I think they may be using like Navarrox Hairsprings. I'm not sure about that, but... That's for the love of the game, man. You know, they're really doing this stuff in-house and they're inexpensive, but then... Well, they're not inexpensive, but they're accessible. Relatively inexpensive. And then you've got the $200 Seiko movements, which is just a byproduct of scale, right? Yeah.
Andrew Same with Orient, same with Timex and Casio. It's just a byproduct of scale.
Everett And so... Is there a ton, so if I've got a choice between a Miota 9015 and an Aorus 400, Caliber 400, is there value? Or let's say the Powermatic, right? Or whatever, whatever that movement is, you know, those may be more comparable. Is there value? I'm losing money for something that's probably going to operate very similarly and maybe not be a ton prettier. The Calibre 400 is an attractive movement, but it's not like highly hand finished or anything.
Andrew It's fast pennies or slow nickels. Yeah. Like really slow nickels or slower dimes. There's something there. There's something to an in-house movement, a vertically integrated, a brand who's willing to not just design a watch, but reinvent the wheel. And there's a lot of information sharing, right? This isn't Bach talk, truly reinventing the wheel in a vacuum. There's, there's more lateral collaboration than that, but there's something there. Yeah. I just want brands to tell me what's there. When you rename your caliber, I want to know why you renamed it rather than you bought it and you have the right to.
Everett And the good news is with the democratization of our community, the information is there. If you know where to look, you're going to be able to find it. If you see someone saying in-house, ask the question.
Andrew How in-house?
Everett Yeah. What does this mean? And, and, you know, like in the instance of Oris, Oris announced it's caliber 400, I think like a year before they put it in a watch. Right. Uh, I think they had the movement. So, um, the information was out there. Oris was transparent. Um, there's an opportunity for you to learn more, uh, for you to understand what your priorities are. Don't let anybody tell you what you need.
Andrew Well, you need an in-house movement. Duh.
Everett Figure out what your priorities are. Figure out what your comfort level is. And don't let anybody tell you what you don't need either. I mean, that's the big, that's... That rubs you the wrong way.
Andrew That like gets you fired the fuck up.
Everett It does. And I appreciate you saying that. I don't think you're complimenting me, but I do appreciate you pointing it out in any event, because it does, right? That, I think more than any single thing that we do, Having other people put down a gauntlet regarding what a good value is, or what a bad value is, more importantly, I'm a defender of the things that are interesting.
Andrew Even if you disagreed with the position you were supporting, if I were to tell you, you don't need self-whitening leather, or self, we'll go here. You don't need self-scuffing leather. I can see it in your face. You disagree.
Everett Yeah, no, I think, I mean this, I'll just take a moment here and maybe we can wrap this up because I think this is important for this conversation really.
Andrew Absolutely. That's why I'm willing to dive into it here.
Everett I bristle at this thing that we do, all of us, where we say, that's stupid. That's stupid. Sometimes it's stupid, right? Uh, but more often what it is, is a set of, uh, a set of things that together for me, the sum is not greater or even equal to the parts. And when I say me, I mean, whoever the person talking is, right? So the Oris movement is a great example. Five day power reserve is stupid. In-house movement doesn't bring anything to the table.
Andrew Concur. Concur.
Everett Oris shouldn't be making movements when you can get an Eta or a Solita. And the implication being someone who buys that is a fool or who has mixed or even worse, uh, uh, ignorant sets of priorities. I do not dig it. I think if the consumer is knowledgeable about what they're buying and they prioritize any of those things, if you want a five day power reserve, you're going to have to pay $4,000 for it.
Andrew And it's cool as fuck. It's not for me, but it's cool as fuck.
Everett Look at a caliber 400. If you want a movement that Oris is making, look at the caliber 400. If you want a movement from a company that's dedicated to sort of R&D into movement manufacture, modern automatic movement manufacture. Look at a caliber 400. There's all sorts of reasons that a reasonable person could want that movement and want to support AORUS.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett In that endeavor. So I'm not gonna buy a caliber 400 Diver 65 or probably any other caliber 4. I'm just not going to. I don't want it. But we need to be careful that we don't tell other people what's important. Concur. And that we allow for diversity of these things. So, yes, I do get fired up.
Andrew You get fired up. And I get fired up in the same way, but way less passionate about it. And we agree on this. Everyone can recognize stupid. Everyone.
Everett You don't need me to tell you in a review on my podcast, in an Instagram post. In a conversation. That a watch is ugly. You know. Because you know if you don't like that watch.
Andrew Yeah, but you also know if it's ugly.
Everett You don't need me to tell you that you're not willing to pay a $2,000 premium for an Orison House movement. You don't need me to tell you that stuff.
Andrew But you do need to pay a $2,000 premium for an Orison House movement because that's what it costs. If you want it. And there's no reason to not want it. It's cool. It's It's techie. It's all the things that we as watch people like. It's innovative. It's new. It's beautiful. It's unique. They tried hard.
Everett It's a wonderful machine crafted from nothing, crafted from the mind of a watchmaker.
Andrew It blows our minds out of the water. It blows other movements in the power reserve world out of the water. The best power reserves we're looking at up to this point are 80 hours, 100 hours.
Everett Yeah, I think the Caliber 110 has 100, or excuse me, a 10-day power reserve.
Andrew That's insane.
Everett Yeah, it's a hand cranker, but yeah. There are so many reasons. It's huge, by the way, whereas Caliber 110 is enormous. To dig that.
Andrew And to try to talk somebody out of it, that's not our jam. It's not my jam. It's not your jam. It doesn't bug me as much as it bugs you. I love, like, I'll kick things out into our group chat and just, like, come back six hours later when I wake up, like, God damn. Yeah. But I appreciate that because we don't want, we want to group think in that we want to put our heads together and share ideas and talk about ideas and the whole reason we have this podcast is to talk about this shit because our wives don't want to listen to it. We don't need to sit around and talk about how stupid shit is or how not valuable things are because there's something there. Maybe it's not for me though and I'm okay with saying it's not for me. Big picture with in-house. Hopefully big picture with in-house is that we've done a little bit to define the ill-defined nature of what an in-house movement is. And hopefully, we've prompted some thought on what is an in-house movement, and is that something that I value? Because if it's something you value, it shouldn't matter if it's a $70 Seiko, or Orient, or Timex, or Casio, or a $100,000, the dude makes a watch a year, and he takes his order in January and there's a 25-year waiting list, and you probably won't get your watch because he's going to die before he grinds all that steel down. Prioritizing for me, prioritizing an in-house movement over all others or assigning value to a watch because of the in-house movement, and I'm air-quoting in-house movement, is silly if you don't know why.
Everett Know what you want. Make sure that the thing you're buying has what you want. Yeah. Know what your priorities are.
Andrew Know why. You should not buy a Tudor because they do in-house manufacturing. You shouldn't buy a Rolex because they do in-house manufacturing. That can be a component. And if that's what you want, then you should buy anyone doing in-house manufacturing. You should be buying an Oris if in-house manufacturing of movements is why you're buying a watch. There's no why. I know what that brand is telling you. Just because it has their seal or their stamp or their logo on the rotor, and they've changed the caliber name, does not make it in-house.
Everett Yeah. And an El Primero powered Daytona is still just fine.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. And maybe more expensive. Because when did Rolex move away from Zenith?
Everett They moved away in... 2006, I think. Yeah, recently. Yeah, pretty recently. Andrew, Do you got anything to add on this on this topic? I mean, there's we could just keep going. I mean, we could actually just the two of us sit here and drink beer and whiskey for probably about five hours.
Andrew We might. Anything you want to add? No, I think we've sufficiently not covered this topic.
Everett Other things. What you got? Oh, I got a cookbook.
Andrew And it's a book I've had for some time. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you about the cookbook. And then I'm gonna tell you about my favorite recipe, which I've made some tweaks to. It's called the American Craft Beer Cookbook. It's written by John Hole. H-O-L-L.
Everett Not Holmes.
Andrew Nope. And not H-O-L-E. Can't be Hall. That's not what an O sound makes. It's gotta be Hole. I'm wondering what the origin of that name is. With a foreword by Garrett Olivier, an American Oliver. It is a compilation of 155 recipes from brewpubs across America. And let me just, I'll give you a couple examples. So they go state by state. They've got, I believe, something from all 50 states. We're going to highlight Oregon because I don't care where you guys live. We're going to get to the O's. It's nicely indexed, so you know state by state. This is happening in real time, people. In Oregon, they've got the Caldera Brewing Company in Ashland, Deschutes in Bend. Great, great. They've got several of the Deschutes locations in Bend. They've got Full Sail in Hood River, Ninkasi in Eugene. Oakshire and Eugene, Pelican and Pacific City, Rogue and Newport, Standing Stone in Ashland, Upright in Portland, and Widmer in Portland. My favorite recipe in here is the cheddar ale soup. And you might think, oh beer cheese soup, it's super easy. My favorite recipe in here is cheddar ale soup. It's from O'Fallon Brewery in O'Fallon, Missouri. Missouri, for those of you in Missouri. It's super simple. It's exactly what you'd expect of a beer cheese soup. Butter, flour, milk, broth, cheese, garlic, and beer. They use an O'Fallon smoked porter. So I don't have a Fallon smoked porter available to me, nor do I have smoked beers available to me. So I said, what can I do to give it that smoke? And I used smoked paprika and smoked sausages. And I gotta tell you, the smoke aspect of this beer cheese soup was a game changer. Everyone's had a beer cheese soup with an ale, with a brown, with a porter, that dark flavor. But adding that smoke was a game changer for me. I will make this as a soup, as a dip, as nacho cheese topping. It is terrific. And I gotta say, if you're making beer cheese soup with, you know, ever, liquid smoke, smoked sausage, add something smoky because it brightens up the cheese. It makes it so good. But this graft beer cookbook, I've made, I don't know, two thirds of the recipes in here. And you know, some of them are like with like cheese pizza. I don't give a shit about your cheese pizza. I don't care if you use beer in the dough. I'm not going to make it because I'm just not going to make, I'm not going to do that. Everything's easy because it's all restaurant food. They do require some ingredients because, you know, restaurants have a bunch of ingredients in hand. But if you're looking for something to kind of mix up your cooking, to mix up your cookbook, cause I get stale with cookbooks. I buy cookbooks a lot. Um, cause I just get kind of bored of the things that I'm making. I find I get stuck in these ruts and I'm like making the same shit over and over again. So I buy a couple of new cookbooks and then I make the same shit over and over again. This craft beer cookbook, I don't remember how much the label says. $19.95 U.S. money. I didn't look it up on Amazon today. It's probably less than that. If you like cooking with beer, which I like, because I get to drink half a beer and then put the other half in the recipe and feel totally guilt-free about drinking the next beer because that's still my first beer. You're just being efficient. Exactly. That first beer doesn't count because half of it went into the food. Check this out. They've got great recipes. The beer cheese soup is my favorite, but everything else has been terrific.
Everett Amazon link in the show notes. Yes. I have another thing. Do me. I don't think I've had a show for a couple weeks because I think I got a little tired of talking about shows.
Andrew You've been watching a lot because you're, you know, gimpy. I'm gimpy.
Everett Apple, Apple TV. Apple TV. So I don't own an Apple TV device because I'm a Roku man for no good reason.
Andrew I just bought a Roku and now you're brand loyal. You'll never go without a Roku again. Maybe. I'm a fire stick guy, so let's fight. Right.
Everett But it just very, very recently was explained to me that I don't need to have an Apple TV device in order to enjoy Apple TV programming.
Andrew I was unaware of that till this moment.
Everett So, so I, I figured this out and I thought, well, gosh, another streaming service is going to be annoying. I realized I'm paying for already Apple music because that's how I get my streaming music. And I'm paying, I have an iCloud subscription, so storage through iCloud. Between those two things, I was paying, was in the past tense, $20 per month for 50 gigs of iCloud storage for my family, as well as Apple Music. 20 bucks. For 20 bucks, you can get a bundle from Apple of Apple Music, 200 gigs of iCloud storage and Apple TV. So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Andrew That's the same price.
Everett So doing the sensible thing, I have changed my subscription. I now have Apple TV and the underlying reason for me having any interest in Apple TV is a good friend of mine's recommendation that I watch this show called Ted Lasso. Uh, I know what the show is. It's a show about an American football coach, college football coach, coach of the Shockers, I believe. And I'm making Hansel, um, who gets hired to be a premier league soccer coach. It, it makes no sense. The general premise is totally ridiculous. It would not ever happen. Okay. Start there. I assumed that this was going to be a show about that. how ridiculous that is, and probably Jason Sudeikis' comedy. It's going to be a comedy about a football coach becoming a soccer coach and general humor.
Andrew Even the trailers look different than that.
Everett That is not what this show is about at all. It is about that thing. Very loosely premised around that thing. But what I will tell you is having watched all of season one and now I think all of the available season two, this show is about empathy. The whole show is about optimism and empathy. And it, that sounds terrible when I say it like that, like who wants to watch a show about empathy? It is one of the most delightful television shows I've ever watched in my life.
Andrew Every moment's a gift. That's why I call it the present.
Everett It's not. the best acting. It's certainly not the most realistic premise. Clearly. Continuity is a tremendous issue in multiple regards and it just doesn't matter. That's good. It just simply doesn't matter. And they don't even care. They clearly don't care about any of those things. It's like lost. It works so well. You've got this tiny little cast of characters. in this, you know, multi-million dollar, I mean, realistically, multi-billion dollar company. Maybe there are small Premier League teams, but, you know, you've got this tiny little cast of characters. Anyway, it's ridiculous. Every aspect of this is ridiculous, and the show is so stinking good. So good.
Andrew I think I pay about that for all of my Apple subscriptions.
Everett It's just amazing. Ted Lasso. I just am totally enamored by the characters. There is one villain in the show, and with that one exception, you like everybody. Every other character is likable. And that may, again, may not sound like a good thing, but it is. It totally is. I like everybody. I'm pulling for everybody. I'm rarely annoyed with any of the characters. It's just absolutely delightful.
Andrew I think the only shows I can think of where you're pulling for everyone, there's no villains, are like weird kind of rom-com sitcoms. Like The Office, there's no real villain.
Everett It is that. It is that. It's different than The Office, obviously. But similar in some really significant ways.
Andrew And Jason Sudeikis is something else. He's great. He's like one of the most underrated actors of his time.
Everett He is so good in this.
Andrew Yeah. I might get Apple TV. There's a Jason Momoa show that's going to come out. Also, maybe you want Apple TV.
Everett Andrew, what do you got for us before we let him go?
Andrew I still have a lot about in-house movements that I want to talk about and question and think about and ponder on, but I'm not going to pontificate into the wee hours with these gracious listeners.
Everett Well, we'll do so after we turn it off, perhaps. Hey, thanks you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20, the watch clicker podcast.
Andrew We really appreciate you. We do such that we're going to let you go.
Everett If you want, you can check us out on Instagram, new posts, you post reels occasionally, whatever that is, uh, at watch clicker at 40 and 20. You can check us out at our website, watch clicker.com. That's where we post reviews and every single episode of this podcast. If you'd like to support us and Lord help us, we hope you do. That's how we pay for all of our hosting, microphones, hardware, software, etc. You can do so at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. And don't forget to check us out next week for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye. Oh,