Episode 207 - The Golden Age of Watchmaking

Published on Wed, 12 Oct 2022 23:09:47 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode discusses the "golden age" of watches and watchmaking throughout history. The hosts trace the evolution of watch designs and innovations from the 1920s through the present day, highlighting influential eras like the post-World War II period with functional yet stylish watches, the 1960s with iconic designs like the Speedmaster and Submariner, the experimental 1970s, and the modern era with the rise of microbrands and social media. They also clarify that their podcast aims to provide enthusiastic yet honest discussion about affordable watches from an independent perspective, without being influenced by brand sponsorships or paid promotions.

In addition to the historical retrospective, the hosts discuss their recent struggles finding the popular Bang energy drink due to the company's bankruptcy filing, and recommend the liquid water enhancer Mio Energy as an alternative way to increase water intake with added caffeine. One host also reviews his new DJI Osmo Mobile 6 smartphone gimbal and its promising filming capabilities for an upcoming vlog project.

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 Yo, yo, yo. I'm fine. Can you turn my headphones up just a touch? I can turn your headphones up.
Andrew Just a touch. There it is. There's the one.
Everett Yeah. We're just, we're like, we're doing it live. We, we produce in flight. We do. We actually produce in flight.
Andrew We tell it to guests all the time and they're like, what? Like, no, we, there's no producer here, like sound engineering. We do it in flight. You get the raw audio of most episodes. Occasionally I say something inappropriate and everyone has to remove it. That does happen. That does happen. But more often than not you get the
Everett the first hand experience. I do really like seeing a guest's face light up when they realize what we're doing as they see me as they see me like live mixing on the board the intro and like when they realize what's happening. There's like a look of understanding and I like that. It makes me feel like I'm doing something cool.
Andrew I always really like when we get people who listen to the show.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Like that is a fun thing. Like people who are listeners, not just brand owners, cause brand owners are always really fun. But some of my favorite interviews have been people who have also been listeners.
Everett Yeah. And they see, they see that thing happen that they've heard 50 to a hundred times or whatever.
Andrew Yeah. Like they get, they get like woo girly, like fangirly about us. And then there's just nothing that anyone should ever fangirl or fanboy about either of us.
Everett But it happens. It's a moment in my life every time it happens.
Andrew Now I know what Scarlett Johansson feels like and I have to say I like it. Andrew, how are you? I am good. I have a very long week. I have to work six days consecutively and I'm accustomed to working like three days and four if I can't find a way to not work the fourth. Yeah. But I have to work six days this week. So I'm, I just finished day three and I am tired.
Everett I don't know how I'm going to do three more days. Well, you're just going to continue to go.
Andrew Yeah. And I'm not going to put in my best effort. I'm just going to put in like a low medium effort.
Everett Yeah. Like a simmer effort. Was it Lincoln that said 90% of life is just showing up? I don't know. Probably like.
Andrew I'm sure he said that at least once. Most people say that, especially when they're tired.
Everett And if most people say a thing, it probably came from Lincoln.
Andrew Definitely. You, my friend, how are you?
Everett I'm doing great. Yeah. Here we are. We're just, we're just here. We're doing our thing. We're going to talk about watches. I'm pretty pumped for this episode.
Andrew I am too. But before we dive into it, I think we need to do something that we haven't done in some time. And I think maybe we haven't done it since we became the watch clicker family. And I think we need to be really clear about why we're doing this. Cause we often talk about, Oh, you know, we do this cause it's fun and we like it. We like talking about watches and it's a good reason for us to drink beer totally judgment free at one night a week. Our wives do not say shit about it. In fact, they ask, Hey, are you recording tonight? Like, like I could, but I think it's important that we clarify.
Everett Hmm. Yeah. So first of all, for, for, for new listeners, if this is your first episode, well, congratulations. You're welcome. You've made it and you're welcome. Or if you're an old listener, um, have been listening since the dawn of time, just to sort of revisit who we are, what we're doing.
Andrew So, so we're just a couple dudes, right? That are... Bros, even. Bros, even. Right? We began, Everett and I, began as just a couple assholes who don't and didn't really know shit about fuck. That's how we're going to do this, huh? We just, we just didn't, but we were like, Hey, we like watches.
Everett We don't know a ton about them.
Andrew And we, we found that there was a great lack of information of media, of media coverage in the affordable watch category. You can read about SKX. You could read about SNK. You could read about Orient as an entire brand, but there wasn't much else out there. Even when you dug deep, it existed, but it was lacking. And our goal was to be able to speak to ourselves. And Will started WatchClicker because the man is a terrific photographer who also liked watches. And he liked taking pictures of watches and talking about them. And then the three of us hooked up. It was magical. It's beautiful. You can't share any of the photos from that night, but it worked. So between us as a podcast and Will running the website with various people writing and contributing, we became the Watch Clicker family. which is how 40 and 20 became the Watch Clicker podcast. And that's who we are. We're some dudes who love watches and we love talking about watches. We have hours, thousands, hundreds of thousands, I think is maybe even appropriate of text messages talking about watches. It's gotta be hundreds of thousands. I've woken up to like 500 message days. But that's us. We are dudes who love watches and love talking about watches, who happen to have a media outlet in that vein.
Everett Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I think it's important to note, and I think one of the things that you're, um, skipping past, maybe not skipping past, maybe you're still getting there, is that this is not a professional enterprise. Correct. We are not a professional enterprise. So we are supported through Patreon. If you go to our Patreon page, we don't have our donations public, I don't think, but we do have the amount of supporters are made public. And if you make a reasonable guess at what the average support is, you would see that we make very, very little on this. We also have some income from advertising dollars, like traditional Google sense advertising dollars. We also have some income from the YouTube channel, but when you add it all up, it's, it is not very much money. It's about enough money right now, presently to pay for all of our hard costs. Mm. to pay for a portion of travel to watch events and for nothing else. So we pay for a small portion of our current travel to watch events at the rate we're traveling, and we pay for all of our hosting, image hosting, web hosting, and audio hosting.
Andrew And all of our equipment.
Everett And we're also able to now pay for our recording equipment. We're still not paying for photography equipment and all of us have photography equipment outside of this. So I want to make that a point. That's not because we want to not make money, because I think we'd all love it if we could make this a full-time job. But it's just because we've made decisions to keep our income low to allow us a certain freedom We're not beholden to brands. We're not chasing the dollar in terms of reviews. It's a nice place to be. We're all gainfully employed elsewhere. Other-wers. Other-wers, elsewhere. And this is a hobby. It's a hobby that's turned into something bigger than a hobby. And we like it that way, I think.
Andrew Yes. And we Nobody, something that's always kind of like got to me about the, the little place of the world that we exist in is the pay to play. And we don't do that. That's not us. We will turn people down. You know, we've got a good number of contributors to the website. We have people who get review pieces and they write that we have people who write about non-review pieces. We review pieces. Will reviews pieces. Pieces being watches. I hate when people say that. I don't like pieces. We all review watches. Some of us more than others, but we don't charge for it. There's plenty of watches. There's a good number of watches that have come through the door that we have enjoyed that have been sent back respectfully. I'm not comfortable writing review at all. about this. There's a good number of watches that we didn't even make it to the door. I'm not comfortable writing a review about, about this, but when we don't, our reviews are our own, they are based on our opinion, our take on the watch and are not informed by getting a paycheck for it.
Everett Yeah. And we never, we never, we never ask money. We never accept money. We simply don't do that. And that's not to say there's anything wrong with that. And I think each of us at this point has received a watch after writing a review where... On the back end, yeah. The owner says, why don't you just hang on to that? Thank you so much for your kind words or whatever. But that's never the expectation. And frankly, there's a bit of discomfort with that scenario.
Andrew Yeah. So that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to remind everyone that we love watches. Sometimes we partner with people, as you've seen with Nick Mankey and as you've seen with Notice. We've partnered with them to do a collaborative effort and they gave us something in return. Which we were really clear about and will always be very clear about because if you are going to be giving us money, we want you to know that you're giving us money. Not just as listeners, but as brands and as anyone out there in the world.
Everett And I think it's also important to say there's nothing wrong with the pay to play model. Nope. And there's nothing wrong. Frankly, I'm a vocal defender of Hodinkee and Worn and Wound and these companies that started off as purely media and have, because of the way media works in 2020, in the 2020s, let's say, you can't make money on traditional media. And so if you're going to be a going professional enterprise, you've got to figure out revenue sources. And so there's nothing wrong with that. We are in a place where we've decided we're not going to figure out revenue sources.
Andrew No, we're just not.
Everett We're just going to bro down and talk watches. Or worse. So that's who we are. That's what we're doing. We're so glad you're here. We love it if you want to be here. We love it if you want to support us and you want to make this more doable and you want to increase our ability to become a more professional venture.
Andrew So with that, we've had a quick redefinition, not even a mission statement. We don't have a mission statement because we're just some dudes who like bro down and talk about watches. But that's who we are. We're not we're not going to become Hodinke. We're not going to do any of that stuff because it's not what we want to do. We just want to keep talking about the stuff that we like.
Everett Unless and until someone comes in and offers us a bucket load of money to continue to do.
Andrew Yeah, no, if Hodinke comes in and offers us full-time jobs compensated at 10 to 15% more than we each make currently, where we do not have to relocate. We are for sale.
Everett Andrew, we're talking about golden ages. Oh, I thought we were talking about other things. We will. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. But first, can we please... So this idea of the golden age, we talked a few months ago about flagship watches. And I think that the notion of a flagship watch caused a bit of confusion, both internally prior to... Consternation. Consternation, yeah. Both internally as we prepped for the episode, but then afterwards as we feel the comments from people.
Andrew You. You can say we politely, but it was you.
Everett The idea of a... It's a word that gets used with a lot of diversity, I'd say. The use... Flippantly.
Andrew It's not used appropriately. I think that's right. So... It's like phenomena, phenomenon.
Everett Or orange. And so I think Golden Age is a little bit less specific, but by way of being less specific, I think it's also open to interpretation. So we made a task for today's episode to explore the golden ages of watches. And I think we're going to have some food for thought. We'll make some decisions at the end as to our opinions. And you at home also have the opportunity to make your own decisions based on your own opinions.
Andrew Responsibility, not opportunity.
Everett You have the responsibility. There is homework. And there is no wrong answer, I think. It could be that there's an era of watchmaking that you think is better than anything we talk about today, and we would be overjoyed to hear your thoughts. But with that, Andrew, when you think about a golden age of watches, what are your criteria? What are you thinking about?
Andrew So when I think of a golden age, just generally, I think not necessarily of the pinnacle. Right? Because I think we exist in the golden age of everything, right? In this very moment, everything is at the pinnacle of its quality, of its design, of its production, of its appreciation. When I think golden age, I think back or I think it's the era that right now aspires to recreate better.
Everett Hmm.
Andrew Right, when I think about watches, I think of the golden age, kind of the 50s, 60s, post-World War II, right, pre-70s, where watches were utilitarian, they were functional, they were simple, but everyone needed one, so the design had to appeal to everyone. So I'm thinking boring designs. I'm thinking simplicity, functionality. And that's the goal. How do I make this white sheet of paper more attractive than the white sheet of paper next to it? So we're talking quality of design, quality of craftsmanship. And that's really where I'm seeing where I see what we're doing today trying to recreate and I'm really appreciative of that because that's the watch that I like the most. But that's for me what a golden age is, is what are we honing in on right now at the peak of our manufacturing and production and design capabilities? What are we reaching back to to try to redo?
Everett Interesting. Interesting. You know, I, I think that, um, well, I think that's great.
Andrew Can I, can I ask you actually what your opinion is?
Everett Yeah. No, I think that that's, that's fantastic. Uh, and I'm, I, I feel like I have a slightly different criteria, but I, at the end of the day, I think it winds up being the same thing. When I think of the golden age, I, I want it to be the time when the watches were the coolest when they had both mechanical qualities and build qualities and design qualities that were the most effective and the most plentiful. And so I consider that, you know, when you were talking, I was like, well, I would think about it a little differently, but I think ultimately It's the same thing. When we look back, what is the best, right? It seems a little simple to say that, but what is the, what was the best time for watches? And so with that, I thought we could take a trip down memory lane and kind of walk through the various, the candidates, I think, for the golden era of watches.
Andrew Are you okay with that? I am. And I think as we walk down this memory lane, it's really interesting because of how new watches are. And we're only looking at a modern history of watches because watches are a modern thing.
Everett Yeah, that's right.
Andrew We're going to go back into the 20s really at our origin.
Everett A hundred years ago. We're going to go back a hundred years and no further than that. But frankly, it's only like another 30 years before that, that we have modern wristwatches.
Andrew Right. So we're, we're looking at 130 years of history. So it's maybe a little unfair to declare any one of them the golden age because I think we're, living, you know, as history will ultimately look back on it by century. It's interesting to try to define a golden age in such a short history. There is a clear golden age. There is a winner. And we and I will opine on that later.
Everett So as discussed, we're going to go back to the 1920s and we're going to start our journey here. Prior to the 1920s, there were watches. There were cool watches. famously the Cartier Santos, you know, perhaps the coolest watch of all time, perhaps was designed just before the twenties. And so starting in the twenties, we really start to see a consolidation. The players have identified themselves and shown up to the play.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett They've shown up Rolexes around. Although I think it's not at the beginning of the twenties, at least it's still not, I think, Davis and Wilsdorf or whatever it's called. But the players are there. Vacheron's there. Cartier is there. Rolex is there. Patek is there.
Andrew JLC's there, aren't they?
Everett Oh, geez, man. This is a period of watches that is typified by wild, non-homogeneous designs. It is a very design-heavy period of watches. influenced by Art Deco almost always. Because that's the thing. And influenced by the lack of rules. I think the defining characteristic of 1920s watch design is there are no rules for what a watch looked like because there were literally no rules. There were no expectations. JLC was there. There were no rules. We've got, you know, the Santos is now sort of 10 years old but still a player. Rolex releases its Oyster. You've got Patek Philippe Tannos coming out. You've got tanks from everybody and their mother. I mean we did not at the time know what a watch looked like.
Andrew And everyone's trying to be the defining player in the game. This is what a watch is. I am watch.
Everett And so while I don't think that the 20s could be the golden age because it's clearly such an awkward teenage phase. I think it is a candidate and certainly bears mentioning in this conversation.
Andrew And it gets called back throughout history. Correct.
Everett Correct. With that said, I think we can scoot right along into the next phase. And if the 20s are our awkward teens, The 20s, or the war years, excuse me, that come just on the tail of the 20s are our utilitarian, Spartan, one-room apartment with a Totino's in the freezer. Perhaps even studios. Because of the war efforts, materials are limited. Luxury goods are limited.
Andrew And everyone needs a watch, because everyone's going to war. That's right.
Everett So the warriors are typified by Spartan designs, much less showy designs. You've got flat dials. Everything looks basically the same because it needs to look the same because it's literally a regulation that's dictating what these designs look like. We get loom, which is exciting. And really, really what we get is the first phase of the hyper-masculine, I will say sport watch, although it's not really a sport watch yet. It's the seed. It's the seed of the sport watch, these masculine A11 watches, the WWW Dirty Dozen watches from Britain, the Bjorns, Panerai releases its Radiomir.
Andrew These are... We start getting research into tech functionality to support the war effort. That's right.
Everett Yeah. These are brutal sometimes. Very simple, but also very, very essential timepieces, watches. I mean, these, the watches that are made at this time are still amongst the most popular watches for people to wear right now, today.
Andrew It's almost a callback to the unadorned railroad pocket watches, right? It's, hey, we have this tool. It's meant to be a tool. We're not going to adorn it because it's going to be used as such and will probably get broken. That's right. Real master washes. Yeah. Of the pocket watch era.
Everett Yeah. So coming right on the tail of the war years, we get the baby boom. There's a sex joke there. I didn't think about it. I'm sorry.
Andrew However, everyone's coming back from war, blue balled up and ready to punch them out.
Everett Well, that's actually just what happened. Uh, as opposed to a joke.
Andrew But that's what I'm going to just say.
Everett And in the baby boom, we've got a couple of things that happen. One, global economics get kind of weird. Several sort of global systems for currency and wealth are established. Fail and succeed. Correct. Particular to our story is the Bretton Woods arrangement, which It's kind of complicated. It's interesting. You should read about it. However, the result in Switzerland was what the franc was artificially reduced in value. And that led itself to a situation where, in certain places, the United States, for instance, very difficult for the pre-existing watch industry to kind of come back after the war. However, in Switzerland... Who abstained. Yes, correct. In Switzerland, We've got, you know, we've told the story of Swiss watchmaking here on this show before, or at least our version of it. In Switzerland, we've got now this fantastic cottage industry that's maturing and consolidating itself. And by way of the Bretton Woods arrangement, we've got this artificially deflated Swiss franc. These folks, what that means is these folks are allowed to take a lot of time, make very good shit, and make money hand over fist as a result. And what we see in the 50s, in the baby boom era, is a proliferation of beautiful movements, beautiful dials, and beautiful cases. Everything being handmade, everything being oversized, intricate, and just absolutely gorgeous chronometers everywhere.
Andrew While every other developed industrial nation in the world is converting their tank factories back into other manufacturing platforms. Right.
Everett And eating TV dinners.
Andrew Yeah. Because of America and stuff.
Everett The Swiss are pushing out some of the best watches ever made. A hundred percent. Atom RPK 5072. Yeah. 2526 Calatrava. I mean, these are some of the best watches ever made. They're all, these are all perfectly modern watch cases and beautiful executions. There probably haven't been, watches have not been made that well at any time before or after.
Andrew And they remain sought after regardless of condition.
Everett Yes. And another thing happens in the 50s, which we're just going to foreshadow. But another thing happens. In 1954, three watches are debuted. The Sub, the Fifty Fathoms, and the Panerai Luminor. So pause. Beautiful, handmade, chronometer-grade, three-hand dress watches, and a handful of watches get debuted. It's like, oh, those are interesting. Moving along. Let's get to the 60s. Because the 60s, the 60s look spacing, racing and diving.
Andrew Because everyone's got money.
Everett Yes.
Andrew Everyone's working. Everyone's doing it. Maybe that's not fair. Not everyone has money. Everyone who's buying watches or is in the market to buy a watch has got money. We're talking affordable everything. And a bunch of dudes who have some disposable income, and some sentimental feelings about the watch that they wore.
Everett Yeah, that's right. So people are, are doing things, we're scuba diving, we're racing cars, we're
Andrew Trying to get about space. Trying to get that adrenaline rush back.
Everett Let's get deeper. Let's get higher. Faster. And let's go faster. And the watches from the era reflect that. The 60s is when the chronograph really goes off, too. We've had chronographs for a very long time. The 60s is where the chronograph really happens. Famously, the Zenith El Primero, the Seiko 6139, and the Calibre 11 all all get debuted in the 60s, the latter half of the decade. But that's all coming about because chronograph development through the entirety of the decade is just really, really killing it. Breitling is killing it. Omega's killing it. We've got some great movements and great watches that are happening, particularly with chronographs at this time.
Andrew And we also have the proliferation of television. and television marketing and everyone wants to be that guy. They want to be Neil Armstrong. They want to be a Steve McQueen. They want to be these people. They want to see the drivers, the divers, the astronauts that they're seeing on television with the watch on their wrist because watch marketing is exploding. It existed before, but not to the scale that television provided.
Everett Gimme Jacques Cousteau's Gimme it. Sub, gimme Jacques Cousteau's Doxa Sub, gimme Paul Newman's Daytona, gimme Neil Armstrong's Speedmaster. These are the watches that become icons for forever and ever, amen. And then later, obviously, in the era, we get the Zenith El Primeros, and we get this is the time when watches go off.
Andrew And we're also looking at the explorer period where we're looking at these adventurous, these people who I want to be like, and I can have the shit that they have. And everyone in the world is seeing the gear that made this person the man. Yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett 1970s. Okay. No longer. Are we taking the longest time on the best watches? But rather now, mass production is fully embraced. Because everyone wants it and everyone can have it. In Switzerland and everywhere, mass production. Let's make watches good and fast. Good enough. And let's emphasize, let's emphasize design. Let's emphasize design. We can make watches fast. Let's make watches funky.
Andrew I do not need... Which is the callback to the 20s. That's right. Now we're pioneering design. Now we're going to be individuals. Now we're going to see where the envelope ends.
Everett We're going to be weird. We're going to be sexy. Rather than talk anymore about the 70s, I'm just going to read off a quick list. Gerald Genta Royal Oak. Gerald Genta Nautilus. Portia Orphina Coronagraph. I don't know. I can't talk. Seiko Tuna. Vacheron 222. Piaget Polo. Rolex Explorer 2.
Andrew Which is the weirdest fucking watch?
Everett Omega Ploprof.
Andrew Oh, let's get it weird. This is straight 20s design. Let's see how far we can push it. Let's see what people are willing to buy. These brands are established. They can afford to take risks. They are in a window where they get to say, we are watch.
Everett This beer that we're drinking. This is a new Belgium... Are you drinking a different beer? You are, huh? Yeah, there's three varieties. This new Belgium Voodoo Weiss IPA tastes like straight grapefruit. Oh.
Andrew It tastes like grapefruit juice. These are all mean. I'll warn you, they're all 7%.
Everett All right, so a thing happens here in our story. We got drunk. Wah, wah. At the end of the 70s, as you know, Really, starting in the 60s and through the 70s, the quartz and electronic watches proliferate.
Andrew And boy, do they.
Everett So before the 70s, if you wanted to know what time it was, you either, A, had to call like a number. Which is super cool. And the number would tell you what time it is. Set your watch. You'd have to like be in a city with a big clock. Or you'd have to like have a friend that you knew his watch ran better than you. Or go to a train station. Yeah, that's right. There was no... I mean, you didn't know what time it was, frankly. You didn't know. You had to call that number. It's in the 70s with the introduction first of these LCD watches and with quartz timekeeping, that it finally becomes towards the latter half of the decade, cost-effective and easily available to have a device on your wrist that would keep very good time reliably.
Andrew All the time. That's right. You knew what time it was for sure.
Everett And so when we talk today, when I hear people say, Oh, well, a quartz watch doesn't have a soul or, you know, whatever other stupid things people say about quartz watches in the seventies, it's like, well, fuck, I can actually tell what time, like in an effective way. It's not until the 70s that there is reasonably available individual timekeeping methodologies. And so when the quartz watch becomes affordable, you better believe I'm getting one if I'm there. Yeah. I'm getting two. And it makes sense that this happens. What we know now is that the mechanical watch will struggle to survive for about 15 years. The mechanical watch will struggle to survive, but we also know that it makes it. And so I'm gonna move us straight through that dark, dark period known as the 80s and into the 90s. Someone finds the 7750 design, pulls it out, and we're back Baby, a few things happen in the 90s. We get the internet.
Andrew And boy do we. Pornography for all.
Everett And we also, we also get cell phones, beepers, and personal computers. Yep. Everybody, everybody, increasingly everybody, and really by the end of the 90s, it is. Everybody has access to personal timekeeping all of the time.
Andrew Atomic timekeeping.
Everett And it makes the wristwatch completely redundant. Obsolete. And obsolete. Which does not sound like fertile ground for a revival. However...
Andrew even more obsolete technology.
Everett I believe that Ariel Adams has coined the phrase, the golden revival. And I think it's apt. The golden revival starting in the nineties because of the now superfluous nature of watches led to a revival. And we are currently living in an environment that was made possible by the fact that watches were jewelry. Nobody needs them. And now we can have them because we want them. We don't need courts because we know what fucking time it is. We need cool, interesting shit. Watches are impractical, so fuck it. Everyone at this time is being bought by LVMH, Richemont, or Swatch Group. We've all got budgets. And we're going to throw the spaghetti at the wall. A couple notable events that happened in the 90s. We get the first modern Rolex. Yep. 14 to 70 Explorer. We get the Seiko SKX. We get the Omega Seamaster 300. We get the Royal Oak Offshore, which legend has it, Gerald Genta threw a fit about. But also we get the G-Shock. We get the Iron Man. Yep. We get brash, big, fun watches. We get tools.
Andrew We get the things that a watch maybe should have been before, but now needed to be. Right? I mean, in the pre-quartz crisis, The G-Shock has no place. During the quartz crisis, the G-Shock has no place. In the era of the internet, the watch that you can destroy and afford to destroy because you're just going to get another one, the G-Shock has a place. It's awesome. You also get collectorship, right? People who want to acquire beanie babies, beanie babies, Pokemon cards, and watches. Cause the, the, the people who collect things will always exist, have always existed, but it used to be you could collect the things from where you are willing to drive to. But now you have the proliferation of the internet and eBay. Suddenly, that 30-year-old watch that you very much like, that somehow you know existed, became accessible to you across the globe. And we get people who are collecting watches globally. amassing proper collections from the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, from the watches that they like, because somebody is like, Hey, this is my grandpa's watch that he wore. I don't know how it works, nor do I care about it. And suddenly I have a platform with which to part with it. That isn't the goodwill. I could maybe make some money on this. and people are becoming aware of stuff and driving this industry of watch collecting, of watch hobbyism, and of jewelry collecting.
Everett Jewelry collecting. You know, every, every description of this era that I've been able to read describes this era as having concluded that it likely peaked sometime between 2006 and 2012, which I can respect. I can respect the sentiments there.
Andrew There's an important transition in the early 2010s.
Everett That's right. That's right. And that after that, the era is waning, that this golden revival era is reigning, which I think gives us an opportunity, Andrew, to ask what is the era we're in now and where does it fit in this conversation?
Andrew Are we about to coin an era?
Everett You know, it could be. It could be. I think that we're currently in an era that's typified by a consolidation of the major players is in some ways distasteful. Can be. To a lot of people, which has, and this is not just true of watches, this is true of many things that corporate ownership and overseas manufacture, and you know, this idea of your watch being made by a giant conglomerate corporation rubs people wrong. And so within that, we've had a proliferation of brands that is sort of a callback to the 60s, perhaps a little bit the 50s, but it's different. It's different. The skills to make a watch and the ability the rational ability to be able to afford those skills is no longer here. And so what we have is this outsourced cottage industry that's arisen from the ashes, that's sort of taken off. We've got zombie brands as we've described them. We've got micro brands as the world has described them and boutique brands. as some snobby people describe them. But really what we have is a hundred billion brands coming out and saying, I can make a watch too. I'm not going to make it. Someone else is going to make it in a factory pre-existing me that is specialized in making them in a movement that is made somewhere, I'm not even sure where, but don't worry about it because it doesn't matter. This is just as good as anything else you can buy.
Andrew It today is what you're already buying.
Everett That's right. That's right. So today we've got any number of watch makers. What I don't feel like we have today is any design. And I've lamented this in the past that we don't have folks designing watches. We've got homogenous designs.
Andrew A lot of off the shelf.
Everett We've got boring designs. We've got retread designs. There is no active watch designing happening. And when I say no, I mean not very much. Please don't come at me. Don't slide into my DMs.
Andrew Because Designing a watch from the ground up, this was air quoted, isn't the same as watch design. I get it that you can draw a watch, that you can put it into a 3D render, and you can force a manufacturer to design a watch to your specs. That is different than design. A custom design that is a amalgam of things that you like is very close to design in the way of boundary pressing, boundary pushing. Just because it's a tonneau case to your specs, doesn't make it a new tonneau case. It's a tonneau case to your specs, which is manufacturing that has existed from day one. No one's windmill was the same size and shape. This isn't the Sims where you drag a windmill from the bottom and drop it on your plot. I get that. You're not going off the shelf. You're doing what you want, what you like. And I don't want to take away from that. And I think that's important. It's, it's, this is not to detract from brands who have started from a blank sheet of paper and gone to a watch on the wrist because you've done something really special on the shoulders, not with boot prints on backs, But on the shoulders of the people who have come before.
Everett And we, and you know, we've, we've gotten in trouble with, with, uh, segments of our fans before, um, and having this conversation. So we'll be careful, but we do have folks today that are designing watches. We've got, you know, obviously Jason Lim at Hallios is making really great watches. I think Christopher Ward is doing some really, really neat things. with case design. Yeah. I think there are watches that are being released today that are interesting. Formex. I love Formex and I love what they're doing, but I don't, but I love what they're doing. We're, we're, we're, I think in a little bit of a void when it comes to creativity and when it comes to ambition. We're in the fifties.
Andrew Yeah. We're in the post war era where we know what people like, where we know what they're familiar with. And honestly, I'm not lamenting this because I love this. This is my thing. Watches right now are being designed for me. But I lament that no one's trying to change that for me.
Everett It's coming, man. It's coming.
Andrew What would you define the era we live in as?
Everett I think we're in a
Andrew No, you have to call it. You have to name the era.
Everett Oh yeah. Well, I would, I'm going to call this the micro brand era. Okay. Because I think it's going to be typified by enthusiasts. Um, we see, we'd seen as of late, really as of the last four or five years, um, micro brands finding a space and finding traction in a way that's influenced bigger brands. Um, We now see Timex and, you know, to a lesser extent brands like Boulevard and Tissot and Hamilton. We see these companies coming to the table in a way that they weren't 10 years ago because of this influence of the microbrand watch. And that is, I think, going to be the defining characteristic of this era. What we're missing, what we're missing is truly great watch design.
Andrew I'm gonna call it the social media era.
Everett Okay.
Andrew And I'm gonna call it that because I think brands... And I think these two things, I think these two things are intertwined very closely. They're 100% intertwined. This era doesn't exist without either one of the two. And maybe it's the globalization, maybe we call it the outsourcing era, But those two things, micro brands and social media have a really unique impact on the industry at large. There are brands unaffected. Those brands that are unaffected are hanging their laurels on the past. Right? I mean, we look at Rolex and we could talk about Rolex all day and night. We could have an entire Rolex show. Even brands like Audemars Piguet and Patek are... They're doing the same things they've been doing for the last 60 years. Playing very safe. Oh, we have an update. Yeah. It's blue. I mean, they're hanging their hat on a hook that they hung
Everett 50 years ago, and it works. The most popular watches this year have been revivals. Andrew, it's time. I need you to make a decision. What, in your opinion, is the golden age of watches? We're living in it.
Andrew You can get any watch you want, any specs that you want, whether it be vintage, a vintage revival, A zombie. You can have the same watch made by three different companies sitting in your watch box in the next week. Because you're going to have to get one of them from eBay, certainly. Which means there's going to be some shipping delay. But we're living in it. There's nothing you could possibly imagine that you can't get. And we're in it. There's, it's not just the world is your oyster. There is no watch that you can imagine that you can't buy this calendar year with the appropriate funding, right? There's, there's some limitations there, but it will become available. We're in it. We're in the golden age.
Everett Yeah. You know, I'm going to disagree with you wholly. Uh, I don't think we're in the golden age. I think we're in something different. I think platinum, like I think we're at the foothills of something that might be pretty special. Uh, but you know, TBD, um, for me it is that period at the end. So when we talked about the baby boom period, we talked about these very well-made Swiss watches. And then as a footnote at the end of that, we say, Also in 1954 introduced the Sub, the Fifty Fathoms, the Luminor. However, these things gained traction in the end of the 50s and moving into the 60s. The 60s, we get, I think, almost every notable design being employed in watches today, barring like three. Barring the 70s designs, the integrated bracelet sport watches from the 70s.
Andrew And the Santos that is virtually unchanged since 1903.
Everett Correct. So take away the sport watches, take away the Santos, the 60s gives us everything. We get the Speedmaster, we get the Daytona, we get all the fucking dive watches, all of the dive watches, we get our automatic chronographs, we get all of the watches that I care about today come out of the 60s, or at least are inspired by the 60s. And I don't think it's close. I don't think it's close. I think that there's an argument to be made for the design of the 70s, but it's the 60s where we move the ball into the modern era of watches.
Andrew Yes.
Everett And I'm comfortable that there are exceptions to this, right? Obviously, the 70s designs by Genta and Porsche Raffina and Seiko, you can't take those away.
Andrew Those are on the shoulders of the modernization of the industry the decade before, though. That's right. And the hobbyism of the industry the decade before. And we're making watches for the shit that you want to do. The specific shit that you want to do, not The one watch that you will own.
Everett That's right. That's right. So for me, it's the 60s and I don't think it's close.
Andrew Well, I can get all those watches from the 60s today and some cool shit too.
Everett You can get them because Laurier or Baltic or.
Andrew And eBay. Everybody and their mother. And I mean, take your pick of secondary market and vintage watch dealers, you know, Time Titans. He's, man, I, I, I go on Time Titans often and just like lament.
Everett Andrew, we've done it. Once again, we'd like you to tell us what you think is the golden era of watches. If we've missed an era that you think deserves mention, feel free to tell us.
Andrew The 1540s, that was an important thing.
Everett We basically talked about the entire period the wristwatches have been popular. The modern era. I think it's unlikely that we've missed an entire era. With that said, some of you may argue that the courts crisis is a golden era. If you do, you're wrong. Don't at me. But. Or us. I think it would be hard to say that we haven't covered at least all of the options. We've made decisions. What are your decisions? That's it. Moving along. Andrew, my friend, other things. What do you got?
Andrew A little bit of a two-parter.
Everett That is clearly cheating.
Andrew Well, no. One makes the other important. As some of you may or may not know, Bang Energy drinks.
Everett Do you remember when they only used to sell Bang Energy drinks at like GNC, like you had to go to like somewhere special to get them? I do.
Andrew They went into bankruptcy protection this week. Which is shocking. And I wondered about it on Monday when I went to my 7-Eleven. And they had none bang. I was like, that's weird. Previously had a whole shelf. And I got a replacement and I went to another 7-Eleven. None bang. I was like, I don't think I've ever left a 7-Eleven without making a purchase. But here I go twice in a row. No, because I bought a replacement at a different set. Got it. My at my 7-Eleven. Got it. I hear you. I'm out of town on Tuesday. And go into a different chain. None bang. I say this is unacceptable. Go to another one. They have one flavor of bang. It's the wild and watermelon iced tea. and don't want that can is brown. And I come to realize today, so we're on Wednesday. So, you know, after two days of hunting, bang went into bankruptcy protections because they're no longer being distributed by Pepsi and they have, there's a whole other, it's a, it's a large company going bankrupt, right? That's, that's going to happen. Um, but I was saved for my caffeine need by a product called Mio and I'm sure you've seen Mio commercials. I'm sure you have because they're advertised everywhere. So Mio is a water enhancing squeeze bottle in a teardrop shaped bottle that has regular flavors and they have like a vitamin flavor but I have been big fan of the energy flavor, which comes with caffeine additives. So what the last three days have done to me is forced me to drink more water and I drink a lot of water. I'm like a 80 to a hundred ounces a day kind of guy. Cause I just, I drink water or beer as an activity. It's just, it's whatever. But if you're somebody who's looking to Maybe transition to drinking more water, even if it has additives. I can't say for sure if it's the same as drinking just regular water, which just bums me out because I spent enough of my life just drinking plain, boring, old water. I can't do it anymore. Mio Energy is clutch in the, I need a little bit of a caffeine fix, I need a little bit of flavor fix. My go-to has been Black Cherry for years. They've got a couple other flavors that are not so good. They're not bad, but they're black cherry is just black cherry water. If you're looking to maybe drink more water and less energy drinks, coffee, beer, check these out. They're like, I don't know.
Everett Andrew, Andrew, can I ask you a question about Mio? Have you tried the 2X volume bottles of Mio?
Andrew That's all I buy now because they are cheaper than buying the like little three ounce bottles.
Everett And they work better.
Andrew Yes, they do.
Everett And they squeeze function works better.
Andrew It's because it's bigger. You get more purchase on it. It sucks more oxygen back in through the valve.
Everett It's more precise. Yep. You can measure out your squirt better. Yeah, the two X bottles of Mio are where it's at.
Andrew Yes. So if you next time you're walking through the like juice aisle in your store, and if you haven't tried these, I'm a hundred percent behind them. I've been drinking them for, I don't know, 10 years, like since the onset of Mio, like water enhancers, because they, they're liquid. They're better than a powder. They mix better. You don't get chunks at the bottom of your bottle. You squirt it in, give it a little shake, give it a taste test, squirt a little more. or you pour it into another vessel and dilute it a little bit. I'm all about the Mio Energy. These are, they've not replaced energy drinks for me, but they are like they are how I consume a hundred-ish ounces of water a day.
Everett Yeah, no, I'm all about it. I'm all about it. I've got another thing.
Andrew Is that a fart? I hope I picked it up on the mic.
Everett Do me. So I, Have we mentioned that we're going to wind up in New York?
Andrew I don't think so.
Everett We are going to be at wind up in New York. We'll be in New York on October 20th. We'd love to see you. We'll be there the whole weekend. We'd love to see you. We'd love to have a beer with you. We'd love to show you our watches and to shoot the shit and to talk about watches and to talk about not watches. So if you're in New York, and you want to talk to us, hit us up on the Instagram, and let's kick it. With that said... We'll be there to party. With that said, that's not my other thing. Oh. So in anticipation of Wind Up, one of our writers, our senior writer, Frank Affronti, has approached me and said, hey, I would like to talk to you about some video stuff. I want to make a vlog style video regarding our experiences that wind up. And I want to talk to you about shots you need to take, etc, etc. And so with that, I have now in planning our shots, purchased a gimbal, a selfie stick style gimbal. The market for these things is a little bit crazy in that there are a handful of items that everybody recommends that cost kind of a lot of money. And then there are a handful of things that get sometimes or occasionally mentioned that cost less money. And I'm a frugal fellow and I don't know anything about this market. And so I'm looking at these options and trying to come up with ways not to bite the bullet, not to spend the money, not to buy once, cry once, and ultimately decided what I really need to do is just get the good shit because it's not that much money. So the newest, biggest player in cell phone gimbals is by a company called DJI, which you've probably heard of. And they have just released their sixth iteration of the Osmo mobile gimbal and I bought one. And I bought it on Amazon and it arrived at my house about three days ago. And so I've just for the very first time started using this gimbal and I'm really impressed with it. So this like all modern equipment from a big company like DJI fully integrates with my cell phone. I do understand that this, the DJI products are sort of targeted at Apple users, at iPhone users, which I am. If you're not, you may not have exactly as good an experience, but for Apple users, this is the product that everybody recommends, and I've loved it. So I pulled this thing out of the box, I turned it on, I would say it is not 100% intuitive, but it's not unintuitive. I was able to, in about 20 minutes, get this thing sort of fully set up, plugged in, had recorded a few videos, and felt like I had a pretty good grasp of the basic controls. Build quality is fantastic. The functionality is fantastic. The feel, when you, like, are operating this thing, it's like, oh yeah, this feels good. And I think that with just a little bit of use, it will be intuitive. Buttons do most of the things you need to do. You're not sort of constantly going into your phone, because going into the app is a little bit awkward. You can do most of the things you need to do to control the gimbal with buttons with just your hand on the gimbal. I think it's pretty cool, and I think it's pretty fun.
Andrew I've liked the videos you've made with it so far.
Everett And so the videos I've made at this point are all just sort of playful, goofy, um, you know, cause I'm not really making, I'm more just trying to figure out how to use this thing.
Andrew Yeah. You're getting the, what would you say your, like your learning curve on it is? Um, 10 minutes to video or like, or are we talking in the minutes or hours?
Everett Yeah, no, I think in order to get it like plugged in, and start to use it, 20 minutes is what I think. In order to sort of master it, I think it's probably much longer than that.
Andrew Oh yeah, I mean that's any video making, to master anything. But we're not talking about master, we're talking about like do something that you intended to do.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, I think probably 10 minutes to sort of plug it in and use it in a functional way, probably a few days to get pretty comfortable with it in terms of all the different functions. And then of course, you know, your mileage is going to vary after that because it's sort Like how experienced are you at lighting and yada, yada, yada. But for it to do basic gimbal things very quick, you plug your phone in, the gyro just kind of works automatically. The centering functions and the turning functions are all very intuitive. So pretty quick. And I like it. I've never used another gimbal, so I can't compare it to anything else. It doesn't have like a, like a subject tracking function. It does. Okay. It does. And it, and it just works. You don't have to do anything. You turn that thing around, so it's the selfie camera, and it's like, oh, hey, here you are, and I'm going to follow you around.
Andrew What about if there's two people on the screen? Have you tried that?
Everett I haven't. And I would say I tracked Larry, my dog, with it for a little while, and it didn't do super good at that, but I understand. Because he's fast. He is fast. I understand there are some functions that you can use to make that better.
Andrew All right.
Everett Yeah. Again, $160. probably too much money for me to have spent on this toy, but also America. So, but also America, you know, I have the outsourcing era. That's right. And it feels great. It looks good. Uh, it's a little goofy. I am probably going to mortify you when I pull it out at the airport and live vlog as we're walking through. Uh, I'm sorry, Andrew, it's going to happen.
Andrew Um, just the prospect of that stresses me. I,
Everett It's going to happen. Andrew, we've done it.
Andrew As always, we've talked about all the things waxed poetically and made really horological history. Yeah. I mean, this is the canon through which you can all, you know, define the golden age as right now.
Everett Is there anything else you want to say to me or these fine, fine people at home?
Andrew Were you soliciting an apology for something?
Everett No. Hey, you guys, thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast. If you'd like, you can check us out on our website. It's it's called Watch Clicker dot com. We also have Instagram pages at Watch Clicker at 40 and 20. You can check us out there. If here's the big one, if you want to support us and we really hope you do, you can do that at Patreon. dot com slash 40 and 20. You can you can give us whatever amount of money you want a buck a month, two bucks a month, 30 bucks a month. We'd love to have you as a supporter. And it really does help us keep this thing going. Yeah. And other than that, don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life and other things we like. Bye bye.