Episode 212 - Watches Roundup for November 17, 2022

Published on Wed, 16 Nov 2022 19:52:00 -0800

Synopsis

The podcast covers various topics related to watches, including new releases, collaborations, and innovations in the industry. Andrew shares his thoughts on the Worn & Wound x Timex collaboration watch and the new Bell & Ross BR05 watch he got to try on. Everett discusses his recent acquisition of a Cartier Santos and the experience of visiting the Cartier mansion. They also talk about the Christopher Ward C1 Bel Canto watch with a chiming movement and Yema's upcoming Kickstarter campaign for a new watch with an in-house micro-rotor movement. Additionally, they mention reviews published on their website, including videos by Frank Affronti and articles about various watch accessories and cases. Towards the end, Andrew recommends the Netflix show "Drink Masters" and shares his newfound appreciation for a titanium split ring screwdriver bit for keychains.

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 host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, welcome back.
Everett Hello. And how are you? I'm doing well. I'm sorry I couldn't join you last week.
Andrew Yeah, it was kind of a bummer. Like, I love, you know, it's daddy, right? It just it feels unusual. running a show without my side. Yeah.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. No real talk. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun coming on the show to talk about this thing that I've been working on so long. And we were kind of in it right now. Right. We're like in the thick of this thing. And I just recorded with the guys from Whiskey and Watches.
Andrew You did, I know you're in my house.
Everett We recorded from your office. I went down to the Notice Intersect event this weekend. I met Patrick Bremer, for the first time. Oh, fun. I met Ben from the Imperial Watch Company, which is a super neat new group. I met Steve Laughlin, who I've been trying to meet for years.
Andrew He's lining up in his DMs and he's been just denying, denying.
Everett I think I've broken through that wall. And so, you know, it was, it's just like, we're kind of on right now, you know? And so there's been a lot of, of go, go, go, but also it's cool to be really like deep into this other side of the industry. It's been different. It's been fun. I'm excited about it, but it's, it's also exhausting, man. I'm fucking exhausted.
Andrew Well, yeah, you're, you're, you're holding down two full-time jobs and a part-time job. And also, by the way, you're married and have kids.
Everett It turns out. So all that to say, all that to say, Andrew, this, this thing that we just did feels so comfortable and safe and happy to me.
Andrew Like, this is like... I don't like the way you phrased that at all.
Everett Oh, I hope it didn't feel like an insult or anything. No, no, no.
Andrew I just felt really uncomfortable by the terminology.
Everett Oh, well, all I mean to say was this feels like a really like relaxed and good place to be. So I'm happy to be here. Happy to be doing this. It's like a night. It's almost like a deep breath. I feel yucky. It's like when you, when you like are in a hotel for two weeks and you come home and you sleep in your bed for the first time, it's like, ah, yes, this is what I wanted. Okay. Yeah.
Andrew How are you, Andrew? I am great. I don't know why I'm great. Everything's just good right now. Got a lot of yard work done today. Watch some good TV. Everyone's being like normal human people in my house, because when you have kids, you know that you go through these like periods where you have a bunch of fucking aliens in your house. And then occasionally you get these couple of day periods where it's like, oh, these are humans. And they're behaving as such. I've had that going on for the last couple of days. And I'm feeling.
Everett Good bum bum bum. No.
Andrew OK. Nope. But yeah, good. Other than that, I'm like I slept a weird amount, like I kind of accidentally fucked up my sleep sleep schedule this weekend by sleeping too much. Uh, by sleeping at the wrong times. Oh yeah. That can happen. Yesterday I put the kids to bed at, uh, you know, they're normal, like between like the, the two year old goes to bed about seven, seven year old, about seven 38 is when we're like into that bed zone. And I fell asleep at eight o'clock. It's too early. Way too early. Cause I woke up at midnight and I was like, Oh, it's a good night of sleep. And I woke up and I looked at my watch and I was like, Oh, this is bad. Yeah, it's too early. This is not great. And I was up to like three and that's kind of the nightmare of working an overnight, like my normal sleep schedule is during the day. So when I sleep at night, it's just kind of weird. But that meant that I slept from midnight or from eight to midnight and then from three to seven and I took a little nap today too. So I've had like all kinds of sleep in weird increments. You're well rested. We'll see how tonight goes. I hope I can get to sleep in about two hours.
Everett You'll be fine.
Andrew You're, you're, you're a resilient dude. I'm a, I'm a durable guy. And if I don't sleep, I'm fine. And if I do sleep, I'm better. So.
Everett And you work tomorrow.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew You're going to be fine. But also tomorrow's nap day. So tomorrow, noon to four, lights out.
Everett You're going to, you're going to catch up.
Andrew Everything's good. Yeah. I think over the last two days, I'll have, I'll have done a good sleep catch up. It's just not conducive to being a, A day walker.
Everett Yeah. And you are a day walker. Yeah. I mean, then I'm good. Night walker. You're a night walker.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Genetically day walker, though. It's a weird juxtaposition.
Everett Well, good. Here we are. We're recording an episode of 40 and 20.
Andrew And we are.
Everett The Watch Clicker podcast.
Andrew And we have some things to talk about because we haven't really talked since before Windup.
Everett That's true.
Andrew Right. We've been busy. We had Windup. We had Post wind up. We had, uh, Abingdon. We had Abingdon. Yeah. And then we had another brand that's kind of like, we'll see how it goes. It's kind of one of those like flyers. Uh, but now here we are. So we're like four weeks post wind up four weeks since we've just sat down at the mic without much to say. There's a couple of things that I know we want to talk about.
Everett Okay.
Andrew Number one, the rumors are true. I did make an acquisition.
Everett Yeah, a big acquisition. Quite. The biggest acquisition in the history of 40 and 20.
Andrew Indeed. In the way of a Cartier. Cartier?
Everett Yeah, I think that's how you pronounce it.
Andrew Santos.
Everett It's Santos. Oh. Cartier. It's the the Cartier Santos.
Andrew So, yes, I did make a Cartier Santos acquisition. Woo wee! And I am smitten. Mm hmm. As you should be. Totally and completely comfortable with the amount of money that was spent and what I got in return. So we had a pretty like a run and gun experience at WindUp. There wasn't really downtime, right? Like, it's not that everything was scheduled, but it's that we were just constantly going. Go, go, go. We would, we woke up on day one and started, right? We got there Friday morning, very early. Yeah. What is most for most people Thursday night? Pizza. Pizza. Bed. Bed. Woke up. And then we just hit it. Right. We got food. We met with people. We went to wind up. And then we were with people for the rest of the night. Right. We were with friends. We were catching up. We were building like it wasn't obligatory by any means, but it certainly did not
Everett What were we building? When you said that, I had a feeling you were going to say building forts, but we didn't.
Andrew Friendships, like in relationships. And we're like with these people who we know.
Everett We're building forts?
Andrew No we didn't, Andrew. But we did. You're lying. Guys, we didn't sleep in our two twin beds. We slept betwixt them in the fort that we built. But we're with all of these people that we're trying to catch up with. And then we would stumble back to our hotel room. and fall asleep and we woke up and we did exactly the same thing.
Everett Run it back.
Andrew So there wasn't a lot, there wasn't any unallocated time. This is not a lamentation, right? I'm not complaining about our weekend. It was just busy. It was constant. But we were really deliberate in carving out some time to go to the Cartier mansion Which was so cool. Number one, this is a mansion. This is a place that people lived. It was once a residence. Right. And I can't even imagine it as a residence. It was beautiful. Should you ever find yourself with some unallocated time in New York City? Just drop by the Cartier mansion. The service was what you'd expect of a luxury good boutique. I'm sure it's probably better if you're there like with a scheduled appointment and you're looking for something deliberate.
Everett Yeah. Don't walk in off the street with six knuckleheads.
Andrew No, don't do that. But we, while we are there, we went, we just kind of wandered the mansion and we were up on like the fourth floor, I believe. I think that's right. And which was what their, one of their jewelry floors. And there were these two people sitting with one of their sales associates. I would imagine they probably called them sales executives. Talking about... Seems reasonable. Bridal jewelry. And they were discussing the ins and outs of their wedding set and stuff. And I watched them for a few minutes, just listening to their conversation. I was like, what world do you fucking live in? You're at the Cartier mansion. shopping for your bridal set and your your groom's jewelry and gifts. Like, who are these people that I'm looking at? Because you're not famous, but damn, you rich. It was a cool experience. It was just it was cool to be there. It's cool to be in this place. I you know, and we weren't like. Shirked off by The sales folks, you know, they were like, they were very attentive and they were very reasonable and they did all the things to give you that experience. Um, it was, it was pretty clear to me that she sniffed out right away that she wasn't dealing with like a normal person off the street, nor was she dealing with like a car TA person who had happened to find themselves there. So it was clear if she knew she wasn't making a sale. Right. but she was still there for it and engaged with the process, which is cool. Um, and then, uh, you know, I, I went by another Avenue to, to make the acquisition. Um, and I couldn't be happier. This thing only comes off my wrist because it has to, cause I'm not comfortable wearing this to work in my, you know, my night job.
Everett I would love to hear the story about you like beating someone up in this watch though.
Andrew I'd love to tell that story, but it doesn't exist yet. It might. We'll see. We're just going to give it some time.
Everett Well, Andrew, with that in mind, we've been talking about watches, specifically a watch. A watch. Although we still at some point need to hear more about your wear experience. But tonight, tonight we're going to talk
Andrew about all of the things, all the things, because there's been a lot happening in the last five weeks.
Everett There have been things that have been happening. And so I'd like for us to dive right in. We're going to round it up. We're rounding it up. And I'm going to talk about I'm going to I'm going to kick us off. Are you OK with that? I'm going to kick us off with the probably most talked about watch in our space this week, which is the worn and wound Timex Collaboration. WW75 is what they're referring to this as. Warner One and Timex did a collab and it's dope.
Andrew I was kind of taken by this because Warner One has done a lot of collaborations.
Everett A ton. That's kind of how, that's one of the ways they make their income.
Andrew Timex has done a lot of collaborations, but this one's different. Yeah. And it's different than I think a lot of really important ways. And the first and most important way for me that it isn't a collab, we're air quoting collab. Sure. Watch. It doesn't seem novel. It seems like it's been here forever. Yeah. And I dug that. First time I saw it, I was like, Ooh, I know that, but it's new.
Everett Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is not, I mean, this is, this looks like an old watch, right? It's, it's this cushion case, uh, that there's two dial colors. There's sort of like a teal with an off white, and then there's like a black dial with sort of a, like a green, a muted green chapter. They're both what I would call sector dials. Although I don't know, this is actually a sector dial, but they've got this. really pronounced difference between the outer track and the inner track, waffle on the inside, the teal being pretty straightforward, and the black like, what the fuck? With like red and orange loom in the hands. I mean, these watches are both pretty radical, super accessible at 200 bucks, and just like, Joyful. These are joyful watches. Tiny. Manual wheel and seagull movement.
Andrew Yo, what, 36s?
Everett I think 37. So not tiny, but pretty small. 50 meters of water resistance. Pretty, pretty accessible lug to lug, 43 millimeters. These are cool, man. Acrylic crystals. I think they made $500 per color. I think these things are rad.
Andrew Which seems really small and I wonder how they get Timex to agree to such a small run. Because Timex deals in volume. And for Timex to do such a small run of something is a big ask. Yeah. Timex wants to make $10,000 and sell $9,800. to sell, you know, 600, a thousand watches. Yeah.
Everett It's, it's, it's something, you know, as far as I can tell, these are still available to, which kind of surprises me. I thought these would be kind of Insta cells, but they're still available as of when we're recording on Tuesday. Um, yeah, I really like these watches, man. I like that black and green waffle. Yeah. I think the, I think the black and green is nice because all of the colors are unexpected. It looks really, it looks really straightforward. And then you get into it and you're like, Ooh, it's kind of tactical.
Andrew And then as you, as you dive more into it, it becomes less tactical and more just like, Oh, this is a nice palette. This is cool. The teal is, is, I mean, it's like somewhere between teal and Tiffany.
Everett Yeah. Right.
Andrew With just like a little bit of a cream outer ring.
Everett I'd say it's a nice blue.
Andrew Yeah. It's, it's okay. Yeah. Which is how I described the BB 58 blue. So, you know, it's pretty okay. Pretty okay. It's kind of reminiscent of like fairer seventies, eighties design with approachable yet bold colors.
Everett You know, and they've done the thing here where they've sort of said, this is a watch for being cool. It's not a spec watch. This is a watch for looking good, feeling good, which I love.
Andrew You'd look good in it naked. I can guarantee that.
Everett I would. Yeah.
Andrew And it's a Warner One, Warner One collaboration. You know, it's going to be pretty okay.
Everett So that's what I got. That's my first watch. What do you got, Andrew? I want to talk about my first watch.
Andrew So also while at, well, we weren't at wind up, we were at watch time. I got to try on the Bell and Ross BR05. Yeah. And I don't think I've ever been so surprised by how much I like to watch.
Everett You know, Andrew, this is interesting because I don't know if you remember, but last year when I went to watch time, I came back and I said something to the effect of, I don't remember being so impressed by watch that I didn't expect to be impressed by.
Andrew Yeah. And I knew I was going to like it. Right. I knew it was going to be pretty okay. Cause it's lovely. It's iconic. It's a luxury, right? It's it there. There's not going to be anything wrong with it, but I'm I didn't expect to still like it. I expected to be perfectly medium on the thing. And I put on the 05. And I was like, fuck. God damn it. Yeah. It is almost exactly the same way I felt when I put on a Santos for the first time.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew And that is a problem. For a lot of reasons. For 4,600 reasons. Sure. It's problematic. But there's something, and we're not, this isn't a hot take, right? Maybe we're the ones who are not hip to this. Number one, the Bell and Ross website on mobile is butts.
Everett Oh yeah. Not good.
Andrew And not in a good way. It's like butts, uncleansed in your face. The user interface is not great, but we've got the BRX five line.
Everett Yeah, so this was released a few weeks ago, so this is not exactly a new drop, but I think since we're talking about this, it makes sense to kind of dive into it, and I kind of implored you, and you not reluctantly agreed. This is a watch that from the top down kind of looks a lot like the BR05, but it's actually significantly different.
Andrew It is... It's a tricked out 05, is what it is. It is... It took the O5, all the good parts, kept them, and then sported it out into the X5 line.
Everett Yeah, really. I mean, and maybe even a little bit more than that, Andrew, because I think that that's a fair analysis, but it really sort of like broke it down from zero and restarted again with a watch that at first glance looks the same, but is entirely different.
Andrew I'll accept that as an assessment.
Everett You know, not really a one-piece case. It's a multi-dimensional, like, very complicated case.
Andrew Yeah, it's, what, 30 parts in the case?
Everett A totally different movement. You know, Bill and Ross now working with Kinesi, so I think they call this the Bill and Ross caliber, you know, whatever. But it's a Kinesi movement. Kinesi is kind of the hibache du jour. Yeah, it's the thing. Yeah, this is a really cool watch. I think it's a really cool iteration, as you like to say, of this model. Bell & Ross is doing things, man. I dig it. They're sort of leaning into what can be done.
Andrew Which is interesting for a brand position like Bell & Ross, where they don't really need to, right? They're well positioned to just maintain the status quo. And I'm, I'm kind of intrigued by their desire to be innovators. Sure. Cause that's a cool place in the market to be innovating. And that like four to $10,000 range, which is sort of like a static place, right? Like high grade range. I'd even call that like, like, low to mid grade in that four to ten zone, right? Because north of ten, you're starting to get into like really, really custom, really, really handmade. But for a brand like Bell and Ross, who's still working in generally mass produced, generally manufactured components to be innovating and changing things up. That's that's an intriguing, position to take right now. Yeah. Well, cause you're not getting handmade shit here. You're not getting, you're not getting like Sven with a file and a loop on his eye filing things. You're still getting things out of a CNC machine. You're getting, you're, you're, you're almost certainly getting Sven with a loop filing and doing touch-ups, but you're not getting him actually milling the part out on his table, wearing his finger condoms of neuro loop. You're just not getting that out of a company like this. Yeah. You're getting the same, you're getting something cool and something great. And for them to be like really leaning into innovation is cool because you're not seeing that in that segment generally. Right. I mean there's some, but, but for the most part you're not seeing, new stuff.
Everett And I'm here for it. You know, the one thing I wish they'd do is, is thin this thing down a little bit. I think there's still a little chunky.
Andrew Um, I don't know that they will. Cause I think that's, that's the, the aesthetic they want out of that line.
Everett We'll see. We'll see.
Andrew Uh, I think you're right though, Andrew, but trying it on, I was, I was like sorely happily disappointed. It does. So,
Everett I was bummed how much I liked it. It does this thing that it's like, oh yeah, I might want to have this watch.
Andrew It's cause it's, it's cause of that really short lug to lug. Yeah. Relative to the, to the case size. I was, I was bummed. And even with terrible people at the counter, right? A lot of these brands at, at watch time had, you know, the watchmaker, they had people who were intimate with the watch or watches that were there. Bell and Ross did not.
Everett Yeah. I'll say last year, the staffing at the Bell and Ross table was really good. In fact, it was part of the reason that I had so much fun at that table. And this year and this year, it was not as meaningful, at least when we were there. And that might not have been the case the whole weekend.
Andrew We were maybe there on lunch break, but while we were there, it was clearly just people from who, who were not Americans, but it was clearly people who were from like, maybe they're like, I can't even, guess. They weren't a US based, they weren't a New York based AD staff, but they also were not, uh, people intimate with the watches.
Everett That's right. Yeah. So not to move us along, but we should move it along. Yeah, we should. I've got a, another brand that I think is leaning into really cool shit and um, I'd like to talk about Yema, which is a French brand. I think we've talked about Yema on the show before, but I think we've talked about Yema in context of their various sort of failings in terms of QC and basic manufacturing standards.
Andrew And doing weird shit and like just kind of some being somewhere between a fashion brand and a not brand. This is not to talk shit on other brands, right? I'm not this isn't a No, I mean it is. I have considered Yema to be like Jack Mason, to be like other brands of that ilk, to be kind of Aviate, to be kind of Spinnaker. Like not exactly in the world, but not exactly out of the world. Having a bit of an identity crisis between do I want to be cool in the watch world or do I want to be cool to the greater market? And that's a bit of an identity crisis that's hard to Yeah. That's hard to figure out and hard to balance. And that reconciliation came.
Everett Yeah, I think it did. I think it did or it has or it is. But the story here is Yema has released, well, perhaps not released is the right word. They have announced a Kickstarter. This is a whole other subject. I think we skip it for tonight, Andrew. Yeah, we move on. Can you agree?
Andrew We move past that.
Everett Okay, because Jesus Christ. But, Yemma has released via Kickstarter a new version of not a new watch. So this is what they have called the Wristmaster Traveler, and which they will continue to call the Wristmaster Traveler. So this is an iteration of an existing watch in their line, but the money here is in the movement. So Yema has developed an in-house micro-rotor automatic movement in their new wrist master traveler. So they're calling this the Yema Caliber CMM20. I believe there may be a different way to combine those letters and numbers that people are using. That's what I'm going to call this, the CMM20. And they're leaning into this, right? They're leaning into the watchmaking aspects. I've seen a couple pictures of this movement and I think that they're working on refining the movement to make it more beautiful. But these movements... It kind of looks like Mario to me. Like what? Mario. Oh, yeah. Interesting.
Andrew Right? I mean, it's like strange color choices with a really minty green purple. Yeah. Not a minty green purple. Minty green, purple. And then a silver micro rotor.
Everett And so we aren't seeing something that I don't think I've seen before, but they're making movements whose plates and bridges are color matched to a dial, which is very cool. I like it. It sort of gets them away from like Geneva striping or high polish or whatever on the movement, gives them a little bit of latitude to make this movement attractive and interesting without being hyper-expensive finishing.
Andrew Don't PVD it. The micro-rotor is sufficient.
Everett Look, we gotta talk about the most important part. This movement, I think, is 3.4 millimeters thick, which has allowed them to take the Wristmaster Traveler, which is already a nice, attractive, thin watch at 12 millimeters, and get it down to 9.4 millimeters. I do not care what you think about this watch. I don't. The generalist says, I do not care what you think about Kickstarter. I do not care what you think about any of the rest of the bullshit. This is doing something. Yeah, they have done something.
Andrew So this watch I don't have the 70 hour power reserve minus three to plus seven almost cost. on a micro rotor that's being done in-house, oddly colored, aside.
Everett This is... 9.2, excuse me.
Andrew Something.
Everett Yeah. It's something. This is terrific. Look, I'm here for this, man. I am a new convert to the thin watch game, and I gotta say, man, I think that this watch is really compelling. So Kickstarter price I think is like roughly 1,500 and I think their expected retail on this is 3,000. So this may be an opportunity. Those are euros. So 1,500 euros on Kickstarter, 3,000 for retail price, which right now is about one-to-one. But man, I'm I'm here for this for the movement alone, right?
Andrew That's the Kickstarter prices almost.
Everett At 1500 bucks, this is less than the price of a Manta. Yeah.
Andrew I mean, this this is maybe. The best use. Of Kickstarter. For the consumer that we've seen.
Everett Look, I've heard some I've heard some arguments both ways on this, And again, I think it's best for us to maybe move on from that because I don't think we get anywhere on it. But I'm cool with it. Yeah. Like, look, we need this capital to have made this thing happen. We need to produce these movements. I'm cool with it. And if you want to buy in, you're going to get a terrific deal. I think that there's there's some sense there.
Andrew Yeah. And which is unlike a lot of Kickstarter campaigns and this.
Everett We're not approving of Yema doing this, by the way.
Andrew No, but it's from a consumer position.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew this Kickstarter campaign within the context of other Kickstarter brands. Maybe we make an entire episode of it. Just our waxing poetically on, on Kickstarter. Cause we've talked about Kickstarter and other crowdfunding ad nauseum. Yeah. We've, we have had episodes almost entirely dedicated to it. This one's interesting because it's a little bit different. It's not a dude bringing to market a new thing and saying, Hey, I can't, I'm not ready to put the capital forward or I don't have the capital to do it. And this is an established brand who maybe should move away from this, but they're also saying, Hey, we have this thing that is awesome. And if you help us fund it, you're going to get a great discount. It's also very awesome. It's a little bit of a confusing proposition for me, and I don't know how I feel.
Everett But it's good enough to be like... I'm intrigued. It's awesome.
Andrew I'm a little ready for it. Yeah. I mean, I'm... Yeah. I don't know. It's problematic.
Everett Yeah. Can we... I'm considering... Look, if you want my King Seiko, got a King Seiko. Charcoal dial. If you want my King Seiko, reach out to me, I'll make you a good deal, and I will use those funds to get on this Kickstarter. I'm just telling you right now, reach out to me, make me a reasonable offer. Don't fucking lowball me. I got the box of the papers. I haven't worn it a ton.
Andrew I've worn it a ton. I've also licked it.
Everett That might be a plus. Andrew put his feet on it.
Andrew If you need feet pictures with it, we can make that happen.
Everett If you want my King Seiko, Make me a not terrible offer and I will, I will guarantee you, I will take all of those funds and put it towards this Kickstarter.
Andrew I think we invented a porn genre just now. And this could be pretty lucrative.
Everett Here we go. Here we go.
Andrew Watch out for it. Can we talk about something very different?
Everett Will you do it? Just fucking talk about it.
Andrew We're in the innovation conversation right now. Yeah, we are. And we're not the first to talk about this because we've been busy.
Everett We've been busy, man. I've been busy. You've been busy. You got a Cartier.
Andrew But we were among the first to see it.
Everett Okay. Oh, shit. I know what you're doing.
Andrew So let me set the stage for you. What was the name of the building?
Everett I don't know. I, what building are you talking about? I wind up. Oh man.
Andrew The, uh, doesn't matter. Yeah. We're at some building that has a name. Has everything in New York has a name. I'm like, unlike anywhere else you ever were. It's like, oh, it's this building or that building or this building.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Who the fuck just give me the address. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, Altman building. Altman building. And it's also a totally insignificant building on a weird random street with a pay to park across the street. Yeah. Yeah. So we're at the Altman.
Everett As as as you do.
Andrew And I see Mike with Everett. Everett's texting me right now.
Everett Don't tell them. Then they'll know what I said.
Andrew He's texting me dick pics. It doesn't matter. You see Mike. I'm like, Mike is super good to meet you in person. And, and Mike is more charming in person than he is over zoom. And then you, then you would ever expect him to be, I would expect Mike to be like as, as charming as, as he's been to be just a little busy, right? Like not quite ready to devote his time to interacting with us because there's more important people
Everett We're not important. Disagree. Holy.
Andrew You meet Mike in person.
Everett Mike, just to make Mike France. Yes. Of Christopher Ward.
Andrew And he gives you a super affectionate handshake, real interaction. And we're chatting with him a little bit. He says, Hey, I have something to show you. No cameras.
Everett And I was like, as he opens up his trench coat and I was like,
Andrew Should we do this here in front of everyone? And he pulls out this black leather watch roll. And he opens it up. And he shows us something that I'm not really prepared to take in. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You don't know what you're looking at when you see it.
Everett I didn't know. Yeah, no, you're right.
Andrew He showed it to me and I was like, OK, I was like, what? What? But then. It comes. The chime. And, you know, unfortunately, when you're with Mike France, he is busier than I am. Not true.
Everett Not true.
Andrew No, he is. Nobody's busier than you. No, that's that. No, he's busier than me. And we have to part ways. And I was like, what did I just see? Yeah. And you come back. And you get to talk to other folks at the team. And you get introduced to the C1 Bel Canto. I got to talk to Mike about it, and I got to talk to Jörg about it. And those are the only folks with Christopher Ward that I talked to about it. Did you talk to anyone else?
Everett Nope. I mean, those are really the guys, right? It's Mike and Jörg.
Andrew Right. But there were a couple other people there who were involved with the process, and I only talked to Mike and Jörg. And Mike, being Mike, did his super polished presentation on it. Yeah. And Jörg... gave us the like in the trenches, loathing and absolute adoration of this watch. This thing is one of the most special watches to come out of this segment. I think ever. Yeah. I think you're right. This is like a pivotal moment in what affordable and accessible watches can achieve. And I say that because the repeater movement, the chiming action has otherwise been only of extraordinary luxury because it's totally superfluous. Yeah. Did I say that word right? I think so. I'm not sure I've ever used it because I'm not really confident with its enunciations. That's the only word that's appropriate for a chiming watch. Yeah. And it's, you know, there's a lot of function in it. But there's also a lot of function in a bell tower and I don't know of many of those that remain. This thing is cool. And when I talked to Jorg about it, he described to me the, the work process of designing this movement and, and the, the struggle that it was to not create it from scratch, right? Because this thing already exists. but to make it their own, right? The months that went in to just sourcing and shaping materials to create the chime tone that they wanted, which is so hard to describe, right? It's so visceral. What is, what chime do I like?
Everett Can I back us up a little bit, Andrew? Please. So you and I have known Mike France for a while now, and we've had a chance to talk to Mike a lot. Um, and last March I got invited to Mike actually invited me to join him for coffee. He said, Hey, before we get going this week, I'd love to just sit down, um, have a coffee and just, and just talk. No, no microphones or anything. I'd just like to get to know you, which was like really kind of humbling. And so Frank and I actually, that was the first time I met Frank.
Andrew Frank and I sat- That's an interesting meeting.
Everett Yeah, yeah. Frank and I sat down with Mike France and Jorg. Jorg. So I don't know what Jorg's position title is, but I think he's the chief of production design or something at Christopher Ward. Chief alchemist. That's right. So it quickly became apparent to me that these guys are the dudes at Christopher Ward, right? So I knew all along that Mike was kind of the big brand vision guy. And then, you know, meeting York and having a chance to meet with him, like, oh, well, York is the guy who's got vision.
Andrew And it's just a bundle of energy, just untethered, untamed ideas, energy, and momentum. He's not a big guy. He's like, he's tiny. He's smaller than me. I'm not a big guy.
Everett I'd say, I'd say York is probably five, six, five, seven ish ish. And he's very Swiss super. And he's a little bit irreverent and he's dismissive of things and, and, and also excited about things, but he's, he's not one to, to pull punches. Um, he's just, and he's, he'll like criticize his own products. Yes. And he's this really exciting guy. Self-loathing, beautiful guy. And so meeting meeting Jörg was really a fun experience for me. But I think it's important to note that Jörg is Jörg Bader. He's this fellow who really wants to to make cool things. Right. Like he's less interested in making money than he is in making things that he wants to make. I want to make cool things. And so, um, in showing me this watch, I think Jörg was for the first time that I've ever talked to him. So now that was March and now I've talked to Jörg a lot and I feel like he's, I'm, I'm like very familiar with him and close to him. And that was the first time I ever saw your like, want to try to explain to me why one of their watches was astounding. And, um, you know, we talked a little bit, he, he was like, look, the things we've done here are from a horology standpoint, incredible. Like we've done really credible things here. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say this, but whatever, I'll just say it. He was talking to me about. you know, component costs. So there's a spring in this Belcanto. You shouldn't talk about that. And he was just talking to me about the finishing costs on the spring, like, like, excited, like, we've done this, but but here's what you need to know. This costs a lot of money. There's the one. To do what we're doing. This costs a lot of money to do what we're doing. And, and Mike let me do it, right? That was the That was the punchline. And you could just tell he's excited about this watch in a way that I haven't seen him excited about other watches. This is a watchmaker's watch. The things they've done here, so I think that they've sort of described this as an evolution of the C60, but this is something different. It's not an evolution of the C60. And there's something else going on here. So these are all sold out. I think the green is coming out next. And so there will be more of these on the list. They'll make more. But but look, you might have a hard time getting these. But like whatever. What was this? Thirty thirty three to one hundred thirty two hundred.
Andrew Between three thousand and thirty five.
Everett This is called horology. This is accessible horology. You guys. Yeah. You. Yeah. This doesn't exist.
Andrew When I talk to him about using like how they chose materials because there's not This is unlike anywhere else in the watch world where there's a playbook. It has to be designed right there in house, right? Your tonal qualities, the shape of your case as a resonating chamber for the tone of the hammer striking the spring. This is all, all designed. There's not a single component in this watch. That isn't intentional. Up to and including that it's a subdial that tells the time.
Everett Right. The actual time telling is done on a subdial. Yeah.
Andrew Right. Which is like if you want to choose a critique, this isn't a time telling watch. This is just a cool fucking watch. It alerts you to the time you don't read it. This was the highlight of wind up for me. It's a really great watch was getting to see this and getting to hear the story behind it. The see the. Emotion of the people who. Made it happen, right? We've talked to a lot of brand owners. We've talked to a lot of people who invested a lot of time and energy and money out of their pocket to make a watch. I've not seen this level of energy from a brand talking about a watch. It was super cool. And this is a really cool watch that changes the landscape of the affordable market. I think.
Everett I'm into it. Andrew, can we quickly talk about some of the stuff that's appeared on our own website here in the last few weeks? I think we need to. I'd like to first bring up a review. This is actually a YouTube review and it was made by Frank Affronti. Who's the man? Who's the man? The dude. Uh, Frank is our newest partner. So, uh, newest, newest, newest partner and creative director at watch clicker, Frank, a friend, he's come in, he's coming in hard.
Andrew He is coming in hot. He's making us work harder. Yeah. He like showed up. He's like, Hey guys, you guys are fucking it up. Let's do this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, Hey Frank, I sort of like the status quo.
Everett You're not doing enough. So, uh, Frank did a review on the Christopher Ward C60 Trident, the new pro 300. Um, and he did this review as part of a vacation he was already taking, which also seemed to be a little bit watch driven.
Andrew Frank is an interesting guy for the record. His honeymoon was also used to film this review. That's right.
Everett Yeah. So YouTube review and it's about a 15 minute review, which I think is a pretty long review, but sitting and watching this thing, totally transfixed and not just at Frank's just excellent body. Yeah. But also at filmography and and his and his really lovely description of this watch. Andrew, have you have you checked out the video?
Andrew I've watched it on mute.
Everett I think this is one of the better videos that we've you know, we're huge fans of Will's photography, obviously, which is you know, really the basis of our approaching watch clicker to make this marriage. Um, Frank, I think brings a different dynamic to what we're doing.
Andrew He rounds us out. He, he fully rounds out the team. His filmography is terrific. And, and for those of you unfamiliar with Frank, he's also a phenomenal adventure videographer, not just in taking good videos, but taking good videos in weird environments like underwater. He's a diver. He's an outdoor enthusiast. He's far more active than any of the rest of us. So all the cool shit you're going to see, like, like cool outdoor shit you're going to see is coming from Frank. He's also way better looking than the rest of us.
Everett Combined even yeah, that's true. He's he's definitely the sexiest watch clicker partner at this point Moving on another sexy fella Writing I'm gonna tease something.
Andrew Okay teased. There is some next-level cool shit Coming from Frank in the future stay tuned for Frank's videos because his diving videos have kind of only just scratched the surface thus far
Everett Okay, next. Do it. Another rider from the WatchCooker staff. Furry Wrist Abroad. Our man. He got a chance to do a review of a different item, something we don't normally do. This is the Temporal Goods. Temporal? Yeah, I think Temporal. Temporal Goods. This is a hard case. They call it the Rigid Watch Case. This is a travel case. I think this thing's pretty cool. Have you checked this thing out?
Andrew I haven't read the review yet. He was one of my most fun meets. Yeah. Wind up. Yeah. Same for me. Everyone at like, I looked forward to meeting. I was like, Oh, I met you. You're awesome. You're exactly who I'd hoped you'd be meeting the furry rest. I was like, Holy fucking shit. Let's move in together. Let's be roommates, dude.
Everett Let's be roommates. So first you meet this guy. He's, he is furry. Let's just vary. Yeah. Uh, but he's got this fantastic voice. Uh, yes. And he's just like you, you meet him and you're like, all right, I want to kick it with you.
Andrew Yeah. I want to, you're immediately taken aback by how, how disarming he is. Like there's, there's no insecurity in interacting with him. You're just totally comfortable with the guy right away.
Everett So he got a chance to review this rigid case from temporal goods. Now I just, I'm just going to clear the air here. This is a, fucking outrageously expensive single watch travel case made of carbon fiber with an air tag placement opportunity. So this is a luxury good, right?
Andrew So you're traveling with a couple thousand dollars in watches.
Everett It's pretty neat. It's pretty neat. So, uh, water resistant air tags coming out of Canada from temporal goods. I think this is a lot of fun and, and if you, if you care to read about it, the review is really good. You can decide on whether or not you want it or not, but you should check out that review for a rigid case with
Andrew an insert for an AirTag, 350 bucks is pretty reasonable. Like when that, for whatever reason you have to put your very, like more than $350 watch in your carry-on luggage, that's a reasonable price.
Everett And I think finally, we've got a review from Will that came up. This is actually came up on the second of November. So this has been a couple of weeks now, but we didn't get a chance to talk about it last week. Will, the watch clicker, as it were, daddy, uh, got an opportunity to review a new watch from a new company called the Trafford watch company. Uh, and I think this thing is pretty great. So this is different than a lot of the watches that come through, but in so, so it's a Texas price brand. But similar and familiar and comfortable in a way that kind of made me feel a little excited. So this is a 36 millimeter, but it's TV dial. So I think it's going to wear much more like a 38 or a 40 millimeter watch from Trafford Watch Company. Andrew, have you checked out the review? Have you checked out the watch? What are your thoughts, good or bad?
Andrew I've checked out the review. And the watch, I'd like to see it in person. It has very brew feel. It has very, like, 60s design aesthetics. And I think, I mean, just based on their proximity to brew, I think this one's going to be a winner. You mean aesthetic proximity? Yeah. And not just the aesthetics, but in true case shape. Sure. Right. This is a case shape that we all in this space are familiar with at this point. This isn't a novelty case shape anymore. Yeah. Would you call this a TV dial? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Man, I'm intrigued by it. I'd like to handle one in person.
Everett Yeah, these are good. So I'm going to say the first thing. So when I saw this, I thought, Oh, this has a fairer look to it.
Andrew Oh yeah. Well, the color is kind of down with it and I'm going to, I'm going to drop a, Hot take TM phrase. Ready for it? Sure. We've got sport watches. We've got dress watches. This is a wreck watch. Wreck watch? This is a recreational watch. This isn't a go anywhere, do anything. This is a t-shirt and jeans watch. T-shirt and jeans watch. This isn't high speed. This isn't low drag. This is just a cool watch. that can go with you when you're doing normal human person things, not going anywhere, doing anything. I'm not diving with sharks, right? That's not my jam. In fact, I probably won't even get wet, but I'm certainly not going to put on a jacket and a collar. This is the wreck watch and it's TM'd by the watch cooker. Here it is.
Everett Andrew, I'm so glad you debuted this tonight because I think you nailed it. That's a term that we should have debuted a long time ago, and you nailed it. It just happened right here.
Andrew It happened. You heard it live. The Wreck Watch. This is it. Fuck it, we did it live. This is a Wreck Watch, and I'm here for it, right? I'm here for the color scheme. I have always really loved Farrah's colors, right? Seeing them in person, I have to say, they're not quite as vibrant as I was hoping for in person, which is maybe like a me problem, right? I had this hyped up view of what these colors were going to be because I get to see them in these perfect photographs. Their colors are phenomenal and I loved them. They didn't quite live up to their photographs, which was, which was interesting, right? It was the only, I wouldn't say let down, but it was the only kind of like reality check that I had with a watch in person. Um, I imagine these are going to be similar. They're really warm. They're really vibrant, but they're not going to match their colors because colors like these lend themselves really well to photography. But this case shape, this color, this whole design aesthetic is the t-shirt and jeans. Look, it's it.
Everett Well, and so I've watched. It's a rack watch, and I think we've got an interesting proposition. Now, this is a Kickstarter watch, but it's a debut watch, so we let them get away with it. We accept. 46 millimeter lug-to-lug, 11 millimeters of case thickness, 60 grams is the total weight on this thing, although it does not come on a bracelet, just on a leather strap. Miota 9039, which is a fantastic movement.
Andrew The fonts are super good. The fucking hand set is perfect against that, right? You'd expect- That's right, like a syringe handset, a skeletonized syringe. But skeletonized, and that's important because you'd expect with a color and font set like that, you're gonna get a handset that takes itself too seriously, and you get this playful syringe skeleton handset that's just perfect.
Everett Full review on Watch Clicker, link in the show notes. Please check it out. I think it's a really cool watch. Andrew, We shared a lot of links tonight. I don't think that we've talked about them all. Anything else you're dying to talk about?
Andrew No, I'm already dreading the show notes.
Everett Other things. What do you got?
Andrew Other things. So, uh, I, I love second screening. And for those of you somehow unfamiliar, it's when you have a television show on and also something on your phone. So I like finding shows that are still really enjoyable and captivating without being captivated by the show. Drinkmasters. Drinkmasters. Drinkmasters on Netflix. It is a summation of all of your favorite cooking, baking and otherwise culinary shows based around cocktails. And I'll tell you that it's gotten some mixed reviews. It's mixed reviews are primarily surrounding the personalities, but let's be honest here. Who are you going to staff up for a bartending reality competition show? Super hipsters. Who you fucking hate. But they make a damn good cocktail. Sure. And I have been thoroughly enjoying watching like I found myself transitioning from sink from from second screening to just single screening to the television, because just like any other cooking show or culinary based show, visually engaging. It's interesting. It's something that kind of scratches the itch that I have of like creating things within that space. Right, right. And it has been fascinating. Nothing groundbreaking.
Everett Are you finding yourself getting more drunk than usual as a result of having watched it?
Andrew Nope. Same amount of drunk. Okay, perfect. Which is good, right? I'm not getting more drunk. Um, It's captivating, like seeing these things. And that's one of the things I like about cooking shows, right, is seeing the innovation that's happening in real time in front of you within the cocktail space. Because my cocktail game is poor.
Everett Yeah, you think so? It is. All right.
Andrew I think you're being hard on yourself. No, I'm a pretty simple cocktail guy, right? Like if I'm going to do cocktails, I'm going to do mint juleps, I'm going old fashioned, so I'm gonna do like, if it's like dead heat of summer and I'm doing something big, I'm gonna do like Mai Tais or something of that ilk, like real simple, real easy.
Everett This is- I think you're being unnecessarily hard on yourself, but I hear what you're saying.
Andrew My inclination though is to do something real simple and then beer, right? Cause that's easy. But what I'm learning from this is it's, is it's sprouting my creativity in the cocktail space to be able to branch out a little bit, do something a little bit more creative. Sure. And it's also fun to watch people make cocktails. Just like, it's fun to watch people cook and do cool things. Scratch the itch, you know, like, Oh, what's the word? Living, um, vicarious. Yeah. Living vicariously through their cocktail drinking. Right. I also, have been, uh, super impressed by the judge's ability to take but a single sip and then move on to the next cocktail. I'm like, sorry, we got to taste 10 others. Yeah. Yeah. We can't, we can't get hammered. I'm like, man, you are just as sober on the last contestant as you were on the first.
Everett It's like those folks that, that taste wine and they spit it.
Andrew No, you don't do that. That's wasteful. But it's, it's, There's one season available on Netflix right now. It's enjoyable. It's a perfect second screen if you're not really feeling like something heavy or really even something you have to get into because the personal drama of it, you can just totally move past that. That's a perfect real scrolling time zone. But seeing these cocktails, seeing what goes into them, I've been a little inspired. I'm sure you got something for me.
Everett I've got another thing. Do me. So I recently had all my shit stolen. You did. Everything in my life. Um, and that included a set of keys, right? I had my keys stolen, Andrew. And in losing my keys, I have now had to replace my keys. But one of the things that I noticed is that I didn't have a split ring. Uh, I didn't have a split ring around the house. I didn't, I, you know, I went to the hardware store and I didn't find a split ring at the hardware store. I was like, well, where does people buy split rings? Like everybody has one, everybody's keys are on a split ring. Um, and so I just Googled like split rings. Cause I thought, well, there's gotta be a good split ring you can buy. And frankly, I was like unimpressed by. the offerings. However, in looking for this, I found a product by a company called Big Design. Big Design. Big Idea Design. Big Idea Design. And I don't actually know a lot about this company, but I do recognize they make some pretty neat products. This is like sort of a generic style EDC company, but they make a product which is A split ring. And when I say a split ring, I just, this is the round ring that you put your keys on.
Andrew Most people would say key ring.
Everett A key ring. It's a split ring, right? Am I using the wrong term?
Andrew No, split ring is appropriate. Most people would recognize key ring.
Everett It's a key ring, but they sell a key ring that comes on a titanium screwdriver bit. And this isn't like one you'd shove in your, uh, drill or whatever, although maybe you could, but it's just a very short bit with a drill hole down the middle, a hole drilled down the middle and made a titanium. And I saw this thing and I was like, well, is this practical? It's got a flathead on one side, it's got a Phillips on the other. And I was kind of like thinking about it in my head. I was like, Oh, I'll try that. I ordered this thing on Amazon. It comes two days later. I put my new keys on it and I instantly decide, well, what I'm going to do is go into my kitchen and test this thing to tighten up my kitchen hardware.
Andrew Cause that's what you do.
Everett Cause that's all I could think to do with it. Um, and I was like, this is the shit. It's bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Andrew A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Everett Uh, So I think what you may not realize when you look at this thing is that it provides, it's just a tiny little bit. How do you make a tiny little bit? Leverage is the problem, right? Because of the way this thing sits on your key ring.
Andrew It gives you great torque.
Everett It's totally functional. And so I now have a screwdriver that I can carry around anywhere. Now this isn't a perfect fit for every situation. However, when you are in that situation, You're like out and about and you're like, I just need a Phillips head screwdriver, just a new flathead screwdriver.
Andrew You're not even on about, you're just doing normal day. Whatever you're doing, it's less out and about than it is like, man, fuck the, the knob just fell off of my desk drawer.
Everett So this thing isn't, isn't cheap, right? So 20 bucks. That's not expensive. It's not expensive, but it's also not cheap. It's a lot of money kind of for what it is. With that said, I'm so pumped about it. Right. Like it's just it's a thing that's going to be in your pocket 90 percent of the time because it's on your keys and most people keep their keys in their pocket. And I was able to tighten up all the hardware in my kitchen you know and it was totally comfortable. There was one screw that because of the place where it was at and like because of the way you kind of have to get your whole hand in like right on the screw I wasn't able to do it. So if you need you need like this isn't going to work but I was like, this is such a perfect thing. It's so simple. It doesn't, it's so simple, right? It's one of those things that's so simple. You're like, here we go. This is a perfect solution to such as to such an obvious problem.
Andrew 60% of the problems you are faced with by a screw.
Everett That's right. That's right. So I got one of these things. I recommend you get one too. I'm not getting any money. I don't know anything about this company. Um, But yeah, if you look at it, I mean, I think this is probably a thing you could do yourself, right? Like you could probably just drill a hole. Drill bits are probably hard and it might be really hard. Anyway, I don't know.
Andrew If you have a drill press and a decent vise, you're probably going to be able to do it. But it's also perhaps more than $20 of your time.
Everett That may be true. So I got one of these things. I love it. I think you should go get one. It's just such a stupid thing. The way I got there was stupid. Everything was stupid and then I got it and I was like, I'm really fucking glad I got this thing.
Andrew It uses the key on your key ring as the friction point to hold the bit in place.
Everett And as the leverage. And as the leverage. That's right. It's using a thing that you already have to create a mechanical advantage.
Andrew It's a super cool use of what's already in your pocket. Are we done? We've never been done. We're two hundred and twelve, twelve episodes or so episodes in and we're still going.
Everett Here we go.
Andrew We're not done.
Everett We're still here in any event. I want to thank you folks for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast. I do want you to check us out on Watch Clicker dot com. There'll be plenty of links in the show notes to get you there. I also want you to check us out on Instagram. at watch clicker and at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker.
Andrew Yeah, we had a thing happen.
Everett We had a thing. We'll talk about it. If you want to support what we're doing here, you can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look, you guys, that's how we, that's how we pay for the things we do. And it, and it all costs money hosting software hardware. It all costs money. So if you want to support us, patreon.com slash 40 and 20, we really appreciate you. And, uh, yeah, Don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Andrew Bye bye.