Episode 250 - Objectively Best Field Watch Under $1000

Published on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 22:33:22 -0700

Synopsis

Andrew and Everett discuss the objectively best field watches under $1000, ultimately selecting the Ferrer Exmor as their top pick. They review their scoring rubric for categories like water resistance, size, movement, bracelet, aesthetics, durability, lume, and an "X factor." They provide honorable mentions like the CWC G10, Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical, Marathon Officer Mechanical, and Seiko Alpinist before counting down their joint top 6 picks, which includes watches from Traska, Serica, Hamilton, and Formex among others. They also discuss other random topics like an Australian opal mining town that has a reciprocal agreement to play at St. Andrews Golf Club, staplers made in Oregon, and the extreme heat expected the following week.

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 and your pompadour hairstyle. How are you? I'm killing it, man. The Mariners have won six in a row. Out of their 374 game season, they were tied when I left the house. I have to admit, there is some part of me that still cares about what happens. Still tied bottom of the game. So the Mariners won six in a row. That's a good game. I like when it goes to the ninth inning. There's so many games that just like come the seventh inning stretch, it's just over. And then you have to deal with two full innings left. And obviously there's comebacks, but frequently there are not. Yeah. This is a little bit other thingy. In your watching of this baseball season, how has the pitch timer changed your enjoyment of the game? Has it made it a more enjoyable experience or has it been kind of unchanged? Well, I will tell you games are shorter. On average, games are quite a bit shorter. You know, there's, there's two things they've done, which has sped up the game. So one is the pitch clocks, right? Uh, and so, you know, you don't normally notice it cause it's just happening and everybody figured it out really quickly. Like I'd say 15 games into the season, you didn't even notice it anymore. Um, and so it doesn't really change your moment to moment viewing experience, but it does make the game shorter, which is nice. The other thing they did, and this is the bigger thing, is starting in the 10th inning, you start the inning with a man on second. Oh, interesting. And so the Mariners playing the Angels earlier this week went into the 10th inning. We started with a guy on second. They start with a guy on second too, right? We started with a guy on second. You know, he quickly scores. Now it's all of a sudden. four to three or whatever, I can't remember what the score was. That's a huge, you know, like that increases your odds of scoring in any given inning. Well, and bigger bags. So you're like forcing steals and it's supposed to make for a faster paced, higher scoring game. Steals are up this year. I don't think the change is quite as big as they thought it might be. You know, people were talking about Ricky Henderson numbers. I don't see that happening anytime real soon. Uh, but yeah, there have been more steals. So yeah, it is, there's been more scoring on average this year, more stolen bases and just shorter games. So I think that's how it changes, right? It's like game starts at six. It's usually over, you know, or game starts at six 30. It's usually over by by nine, right? You're getting these pretty quick, pretty quick games. So that's a good thing. Has it improved your enjoyment of watching or increased, not improved, increased? I don't think so. I mean, has it decreased? No. So it was an effective change. Yeah. I, I, I think it has been effective. I, it hasn't decreased. No. The guy starting on second. That's, that's like, that's like college rules football over time. Right? Like you start from the 35 Godspeed. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. It's good though. It's a good change. Awesome. Andrew, how are you? I am well, I'm a little sunburnt. I burnt my noggin today and I didn't spend a lot of time without a cover on my melon. So, um, that speaks to the temperature that we've been dealing with. And next week is supposed to be just seventh circle of hell hot. Is it? I haven't read that. Yeah. We're in like nineties to hundreds all week is the expectation. Sucks. Get to the swimming pool. I don't do that either. Cause it's not safe. Yeah. Not for the water part, but for the sun part. That's right. You know, I've never burnt my scalp, Andrew. I don't know why. It must be your, uh, your luscious locks. Oh yeah. That's right. I've never had that. Never in my life. And then it started to fall away. And now I just get my nugget burnt. I'm sorry. You're not. Nope. Not even a little bit. Well, we're not talking about burnt scalps or 10th run, 10th inning runner rules. We're talking today. We're talking about watches. As we do sometimes. And specifically, I'm going to say, I don't know if this is true or not, inspired by this morning's release of the Vero Smoky. It didn't hurt. We decided to revisit an oldie, but a goodie, an old 40 and 20 theme, which is the best. Objectively best, scientifically objectively best. And today we're going to do the objectively best field watch under $1,000. Which is kind of hard. Kind of hard. There's weird price increments here. And then there's a, there's a whole class in the 1000 to 1500 zone that like should be in the affordable conversation, but just aren't at our arbitrary number of a thousand. Yeah. I would actually say this is, I think that this is the first area, the first of these we've done where at right above our category, that thousand dollar category, you get some fucking bangers. Yes. Um, some top tier shit. That's right. And it's not very far up. For instance, the C 65 Sandhurst comes in at like 1300 bucks and the triumph. That's right. It's quite a bit more, but yeah, the triumph is what? 1300 bucks. I think 17. Oh yeah, it is. Yeah. So, but you've got some options for fairer. You've got some options from There's a lot of options out there that are just north of that $1,000. But we're not talking about those watches. No, we're not. Because those aren't affordable. Well, those are hoity-toity, snooty watches for rich people. We are talking about the best, as he looks at his wrist, we are talking about the best field watches under $1,000. And I was actually pleasantly surprised. There are some highfalutin options in here. There are. I was actually, I was kind of surprised by one that landed in our joint top five.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Cause this, I, I went to this, I was like, Oh, this is kind, this has got to be in the zone. And then it came in and zone. And I was like, this is a surprise. Yeah. We got some, so I, Andrew, you can, you can dictate if, if you disagree with this, I think what we do is we kind of start with some honorable mentions. I agree. And then we're going to get to a top, our top five, which is actually a top six because we couldn't agree. There's, there's, there's one watch on each of our lists. That was an outlier on the others. Yeah, that's right. There's two watches total. One of them made Andrews, one of them made mine and we're just going to burn them up. Tie for it's, it's tied for fifth. I agree. Even though it's mathematically, that's not true. It's tied for fifth. It's tied for fifth. So Do you want to start? So there's some some watches that didn't make our list. I think some big ones. So when are you going to start? We need to start with CWC and we start with the CWC G10, which is arguably the field watch. I agree. It is kind of the thing that inspired the thing. Right. It's it's in a class of watches. that inspired what became how we identify the field watch. And the reason it's in a class of watches because it was a spec watch and a bunch of different companies made it. And CWC happens to just be the one who's continuing to make it. And I think continuing to make it the best. Yeah. Well, this is the current MOD field watch. This is the current spec theoretically issued Ministry of Defense field watch. And Um, you know, it's got some problems in the way that we score, which is the scientifically proven and objectively best way to evaluate a watch. Namely it's water resistance. Uh, and, and for us, for those of you who, uh, have maybe forgotten or for some reason or somehow unfamiliar, I'm going to run through our rubric real quick. So, uh, our first scoring category is water resistance. And for water resistance, you can get for every 10 meters, one point. So up to a hundred meters, you get 10 points. Anything north of a hundred meters, you get one point. Because anything north of a hundred meters is sort of frivolous. So 1200 meters is 11 points. 110 meters, 11 points. Next is size. And about two years ago we decided to expand our size range to include from 38 to 40. I think we were getting some funny results in the scoring metric and we were like, this doesn't make sense the way we're doing it. Right. So from 38 to 40 is a perfect score. For every half millimeter off of that size range is the loss of a point. And there's a 37.7 on here, and I'm curious how you scored it. I scored it a 9. I did too. OK, so we don't round up. We round away from the point. I think if it had been 37.8, I would have scored it a 10. OK. Yeah. All right. Every half millimeter away, you lose a point. Movement. We both have kind of different outlooks on the movement, but the general kind of senses a, what would you call a 10? We're calling it like a handmade Swiss Kosk kind of zone. That's right. I don't think I've ever given a watch a 10 on movement. That is a very, very high mark. You're going to have to be, I mean, we're talking about something like. Like DM Tiffany making all the components and then a fella under a loop. hand filing everything to precision, plus or minus a half a second a day. That's right. We're talking about show par. We're talking about, um, you know, certainly anything bespoke. Um, I'd give a bel canto a 10, but we've never put that on an objectively best list. We've never gotten into the realm of a bel canto getting scored. I think a bel canto is the most for me, this is, this is interesting, right? Cause we're, we're, we're talking about this. I think really for the first time we've talked about other things, but what is a 10? I think a bel canto is the most accessible 10 that I can think of. I think I agree. So, so I gave one just, just for context, I gave one nine today for movements. Uh, no, that's not true. I did not give a nine is a very nice production movement. I think I think I've given a coaxial a nine before. I think a coax gets a nine, yeah. I think your standard Rolex movements get a nine. Okay. And that's probably the floor, right? That's a floor for a nine. Eight is a big, a wide margin. I'm giving sort of luxury, like that second tier of Swiss movements an eight. Um, super in-house, like we'll even like I, I could even tolerate a Salida or a soap rod made in and then turned into an in-house with like, I think of like, uh, what's it Foliot who's doing jumping hours with production movements. I can push that into an eight zone if we have some reliability, right? Some, some history, of success into the eight zone. And yeah, right. We got to get some, some bedazzling in there. We got to get some perlage, some, some upgrades. Seven, sevens are going to be your, your base Salidas, your base Etas, your Miyota nines. I give Ego Drive a seven. Almost, almost universally because it's such a cool technology. Better Seiko movements are getting a 7. So like a 6R is getting a 7 for me. Um, 6s are your NH, your Miyota 8. Just some standard, like throw it in, plug and play kind of zone. That's right. These are, these are not great movements, but they're fine. Timex mechanical, Timex courts are getting 5s for me. Kind of 6s for me. Oh, 6s? Yeah. Well, the Timex mechanicals are oftentimes Seagulls and they're pretty decent. Um, I give a six to the Miota 8s that show up in some of these Timex watches. But that's kind of how we're... It's not subjective. The $1 Chinese stuff is getting probably a two or a three. I actually think I'm giving quarts these days, depending on the movement, slightly higher scores. So Uh, yeah, that's, that's where we are with movements. What else do we got? Now we're moving into shoes. We're moving into bracelet strap, not just options, but quality, right? So we're moving into, are you using some bullshit hollow end links that we know to be like a most Seiko bracelets for me are in the five to six zone because they're totally okay. and nothing more. Totally. Okay. Right. A Nighthawk is like a, is like an eight for me because that bracelet is just dope. And then we move into companies that are offering a bracelet with a rubber strap and I don't necessarily know what the rubber strap is, but when we're offering that combination, we got some quality and shoes there, right? Yes. Uh, then we're looking at finishing quality of the bracelet. So shoes are important for me, but that's where we're kind of looking at with that aesthetic. Also, totally. Oh, sorry. I gave exactly one nine for shoes today. I gave a few sixes. I gave a bunch of sevens, a bunch of eights for shoes. I gave no nines today. I gave exactly one nine. Who was your nine? For a bracelet. We'll talk about it when we get there. Okay. Cause you have experience. I was on the fence about that one and I know what you're talking about. I was really on the fence and I stuck with an eight. So durability? Aesthetic. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. This is the only even... Just slightly subjective category besides another category that we're going to talk about later, which is inherently objective. This is the overall design, how we interpret the design, whether just just as a whole. We're talking K shape, we're talking finishing, we're talking dial, we're talking markers, whether how the loom is applied, indices, the the whole picture. How does it come together as an overall top down view? And I really love field watches. So today I've got a bunch of eights, a bunch of nines and a 10.
Everett I don't have any.
Andrew Oh no. Durability, durability. This is, uh, this is going to be how well does this thing fare in multiple environments? Yes. In, in use? Yes. This is another one where it incorporates some other categories. Yeah. Next up is loom and loom. Honestly, we could probably do away with loom because everyone is using. Like we could go to like one or zero for loom, probably us. Valiant effort. Everyone's using super, super lumen of our BGW nine. And if they're not using loom, it's, it's, they're not right. I haven't come across a watch in a long time where their loom application, their loom material was more than a step below Seiko. We've got a couple, we've got a couple of watches today that have sus loom, uh, that we're going to talk about a couple of watches that we're going to talk about with sus loom. So I, We have a watch brand that I'm going to talk about that rates their own lume as a 6 out of 10. I have a pretty strict... So lume is the first category where we only get 5 points. And I've got a pretty strict rubric for what I apply. So if you've got a decent application of Super LumiNova or something of that ilk, I'm giving you a 4. If you've got something better than that, And the only one I can think of right now is, well, I can think of two different things. I'm going to give Balls, Tritium, Rainbow Shit a five. I'm going to give Indiglo a five.
Everett Okay. Okay.
Andrew Anything that's slightly below Super LumiNova quality, and you know, there's a few watches out there that you're like, oh, Lume's not great. I'm giving those a three. You've got Lume, but it's not great. I also include loom pad size, right? Because some watches have loomed markers that are just objectively not big enough. So that in corp, that, that like you could have super Luminova on little pencil, thin razors, and that's not enough for me. That's going to score lower than a five, right? Imagine if you, if like, If just the peaks on the Bambino had loom, it's still going to get a one. It's got loom. You tried, but it's insufficient. That's right. Your loom material and your loom legibility matters to me. If you've got tiny little loom plots, pass. Okay. Last up. The X factor. And this is the only slightly objective. You said that about aesthetics too, but. No, aesthetics is, is pretty objective. There's a little bit of, you know, how I feel, but the X factor is where we allow a little bit of our, of our own opinions and biases. I treat. To influence it. And X factor. I treat this one more objectively than I treat aesthetics by the way. It's our other. five point category. So we have an 11 point for water for resistance, 10 points for size movement, shoes, aesthetics, durability, five points for loom and five points for X factor and X factor accounts for the coolness of the watch. And maybe it's the coolness because of the design, maybe the material, maybe also the, the, uh, legacy of the watch, right? Like a, like a G10 from CWC, that's a full five and X factor for me because it's representative of this bygone era and the super cool thing that still exists. Right. You know, a, a sub is a 10 for me, a doc or a 10, a five, a doc says a five for me because it represents the, the origin of dive watches. That's where the X factor comes in. Atraska is a five for me because they've introduced this hardening process that doesn't exist in other affordable watches. They've done a cool thing and it's worth noting. Yeah. I scored a little bit differently and I think I lean more on towards giving higher scores to more iconic watches. So, uh, New kids on the block, cool as they may be, typically get a little bit less X-Factor. When you're doing the coolest thing on the block, though, you get some points. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, we can talk about X-Factor as we walk through, but that's a good refresher. It's been a while since we've done these, so I'm glad that I'm glad that you took the time to do that, Andrew. So we were talking about the CWCG10, which is the Field Watch. Yeah, well, it is the Field Watch because the MOD says it's the Field Watch. Exactly. And it doesn't do great on our list. It doesn't score well because it's not spec'd well. A field watch, you know, traditionally 30 to 50 millimeters of water resistance. That's just insufficient for the application in my opinion, right? I've, I've in a military capacity have been sitting in a firing position on a range actually submerged in water with a spray bottle of CLP for which to spray on my bolt carrying group between firing iterations. I believe that a 30 to 50 meter water resistant watch would survive that. Yeah. But it was 10 hours in a pool. Yeah. Yes, a 30 meter watch can be submerged up to 30 meters before there's intrusion. Well, this isn't a 30 meter watch. It's a 50 meter. A 50 meter watch can survive for, for that amount, for, for that depth of intrusion, but perhaps not that duration. And there are countless stories of the Kaki mechanical getting fogged in the shower. 50 meters is insufficient for a true prolonged exposure to the elements. And I'll say it like you can, you can add us all you want. 50 meters is insufficient for prolonged exposure to the elements. Yeah. Well, I, I think that it is for, for most dry land activities, it's going to be fine, but this is typical of field watches as you, as you said. So, Um, yeah, it gets marked down and, but a lot of the field watches we're going to talk about today don't. So it's fair. It's fair. It also gets marked down in size of a full three points because it's 36 and a half. Is that fair? I don't know. It's objective. You guys movement. We've got a quartz movement. It gets seven points cause it's a nice quartz movement. Yeah, it's a good quartz movement, but it's, it's losing some points there versus the others. It's coming with on a, it's got fixed lugs. So we're talking about, Uh, you know, whatever, a five NATO straps shoe for me getting low scores there. So I think it's fair to say we love this watch, but it just doesn't make the cut and it can't because it's built to be a spec watch, but it's just not spec'd right for the true application, right? This is an MOD watch, which means that it costs nothing. to issue it to the troop. Yeah, it's a freebie. It is an F91, but it's a field watch, right? The government just gives it to you. I broke mine. Cool. Here's a new one. So next up and almost the same exact criticism, my pick for the field watch. is the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical. I own one. I've owned a number of them. I own one now. I'm looking at buying another one. I want one. I'm looking at buying another one coming up pretty quickly. But for the same reasons, this just struggles a little bit to make our list. In particular, the water resistance. The water resistance and size. So, well, the size is fine. It gets a 10 on size at 38. But there's a, well, I like the 42 better. I don't know why, but I like it better. Yeah. Well, that's that's too big. The 38 millimeter Hamilton khaki field mechanical. That is my for sure must be on the honorable mention list. And it doesn't make it for fair reasons. But it's actually pretty close. I've got that at fifty nine. My winners come in. It's my list starts at sixty one. So it wasn't that far off. Certainly losing five points on water resistance. You can see. If that's just a hundred meters of water resistance, it's tops on my list. I see. It loses a bunch of durability for me and it's water resistance. Yeah, no, it's super durable. I've worn a shit out of mine and it's fine, but didn't you have on the fog? Nope. Oh, nope. Never had one that fogged. Well, it loses durability for me because it doesn't have all the water resistance that I want. It's a double whammy. You got any more honorable mentions that you feel like we've got to talk about? Uh, I want to talk about, did we, Oh, I want to talk about the marathon officer mechanical. Okay. For the same reason that we talked about the last two, this watch, I, is this the general purpose mechanical? No, not the GPs of 36. The officers of 30, the GPM comes in at 39. What did I score? Um, I've got, I've got one at a six in size, the GPM. I've got it at a 55. Well, if we add four, it's still the 43, 50 meters of water resistance. That's the issue is 50 meters of water resistance. We are in an era that to achieve a hundred meters of water resistance adds no effort. 50 meters of water resistance. for a field, sport, any of that varietal watch is unacceptable. You can get to a hundred, we deserve it, fix the problem. And we can see most of these companies are. Yes. It seems like that's the new. It's the kind of heritage companies that are not. Yeah. That, that, that does seem to be the new normal. So. Yes. So we've, we've gone through honorable mentions because the marathon officer is dope. So is the the GPM, the general purpose mechanical in the in thirty nine, which makes the list. The 36 is not all that close. Yeah. And I really like both of those. They're probably on like a purchase list in the next couple of years for me because they're dope and they're tubes like that's a full five for me. Trits of tritium tubes or a five period. So tied for fifth. I'm going to let you make the case for your entry on the tide for fifth. OK, first, what's what is it? I think for you, it was the Seiko Alpinist. Okay, so Al's penis. I don't think there's much of an argument to be made. This watch is specced terrifically, right? It is an 11 on water resistance. It's a 10 for size. It's got the six hour movement, which is a seven for me. The bracelet is solid end links but also a Seiko bracelet so it's not going to get north of a 7. It holds at a 7 for me. It's the SAR bracelet. If you have one on a bracelet it's the SAR bracelet. With solid end links. Yes. It is a 9 for aesthetic. This is as close to perfect as you can get for me. It is a tool watch that has well integrated functionality. It is elegant but also rugged. It's durability maybe should be a little bit lower than an 8 because I did probably break the movement or maybe got a lemon. It's hard to say exactly. It's a Seiko lume so it's a 5. And the heritage of the evolution of this watch makes it a 5x factor for me. I love this watch. Mine is broken and I still wear it. It does not keep time and I still wear it. Yeah, this was so I think I agree with everything you're saying, Andrew. This is this was so close for me. I think it loses points on shoes because it primarily comes on a strap these days. And if you have one on a bracelet, it's it's a SAR bracelet. It's the worst part of that watch. It is. But it's not bad. With that said, this is one point out of being in the money for me. And so it's right there. This comes in at a 60. My fifth place. is up 61. In fact, this is a 62 for me. My fourth, fifth and sixth places are all 61. So it's right there. I don't disagree with you. It just didn't quite have the gas. This is also our top sport watch under a thousand. I think that's right. Which is appropriate. Now, here's the thing. One of the thing, one of the, uh, kind of successions, secessions that I made. Concessions? Concessions. That's the word I'm looking for. What I wanted in a field watch was a 12, 24 hour. That was important. There were some watches that brought some other components to the game that let me look over a 12 and 24. This was one of those, this twin stick internal rotating bezel. This is a field watch, not in a military sense, right? Cause cause so much of the field watch, is based off of the traditional 12, 24 hour ring, military spec'd watch, which is kind of what I wanted to build my list around and really where I focused my attentions. Though this is more of a sport watch, this is still a field watch. It serves all the functions. It has all of the things. This met my criteria because of the other things that it brought to the table. So my fifth place watch, also a concession in that regard, does not have a 24-hour ring. And I do think that's a problem. I have in this spot, or tied for fifth, the Formex Field Automatic. The Formex Field Automatic comes in at just under $1,000. It's a terrific... It's like $995, but it's there. That's right. It's a terrific value at under $1,000. It is... grade two titanium. Um, I ding it a little bit because it does not come on. It lost a lot of points for me not coming on a bracelet. Yeah. And so I, I ding it a little bit in that regard. Um, maybe not quite as much as you do. Uh, but everything else is there, right? So let's just, let's just go through the spec list. 41 millimeters, so it lose a couple points there, but grade two titanium, uh, surface coating up to 145 Vickers, uh, or from 145 up to 900 Vickers, super light hypoallergenic, a really cool sandwich dial, old radium loom, not a huge fan, but it glows, uh, super light, a fairly cool nylon, strap. That's where it lost some points for me too. Carbon composites last class, which is phenomenal. Um, and the dimensions are really good. This watch is super thin, uh, and it's just cool. It's no secret that we love titanium. That's right. And 150 meters of water resistance. So it gets that 11. So I, I, I think this one, for me, is slightly more capable, slightly sexier, objectively better than the... Oh, and movement. We've got a Salida 200 in here, that's better. The problem with the Alpinist is it's so beefy. It's a little bit of a thick bitch. It's a little thick because of that six-hour movement. 10.6 on the Form X. 150 meters water resistance. 10, six, which is, which should be the standard that this is being achieved. It's inexcusable to be thicker for less water resistance, unless you're doing some stacked up multi complication chronograph moon phase. Yeah. So two watches that are as different as can be. Mm-hmm. Yeah, really. But really, really close. You know, you had the you had the Form X ranked high, even though you downgraded it in some areas that I didn't. I had the the Seiko ranked really high, even though I downgraded in some areas that you didn't. These are both really great watches. A perfect tide for five. Andrew, what's our number four watch? I think if we actually. We're not even averaging it out. We're the camel. the Hamilton khaki titanium. And this is, I had to close all my tabs cause I had like 95 tabs open to try to score watches. And this is specifically the 38 mil, the 38 millimeter Hamilton khaki titanium. Yeah. So the Hamilton khaki titanium is Coming in at my count, 995. This is getting a full hundred meters of water resistance. It's a 10 for size. It is, I scored it a seven for movement. I scored it a five for its shoes because it only comes on leather. Yeah. If you're going to get it under a thousand, I don't think there's a bracelet option for it though. Yeah. I gave it a seven for that, but that's a pretty score, pretty low score for me. It's aesthetic as at a seven. It's durability at a nine for me and loom and X factor at a five. Um, this is maybe the, the khaki field that I get because it's coming in titanium. I love titanium. I love the finish of titanium. I love the look of titanium. The durability of titanium is unmatched and it's the khaki field that we all recognize. There's not much more to say than that. It's specced terrifically. It's not going to fog on you. It's going to withstand anything that you deal with, anything that you try to do to it. This was our unanimous number five. Yeah, that's right. You know, I will say, I will say something about this watch. I don't, I give it a much lower X factor score. This gets a three for me. The Hamilton almost universally gets a five for me. The Hamilton khaki field gets a much better score than that. Um, a five versus a three. I don't think this is the watch, right? The Hamilton khaki field is the watch. This is a newer watch. It's not as iconic. It's not as popular. It's better, but that's why I scored it better in the other places. It's better where it's better, which makes it better, which is why it got points in that place. X factor. It doesn't win. It simply cannot beat the Hamilton khaki field mechanical in terms of that X factor. Um, the other, the other reason that I don't love this watch, and this is not fair to it is that for my money, I am going to buy the Seiko five sports field watch. They look nearly identical and I'm going to pay basically a quarter as much for a watch that I think is cooler. I think it's cooler. It's not made out of titanium. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. Although it is $800 worth of titanium worth it. I don't know. 700. Yeah. You still get a hundred meters of water resistance. You get a decent, you know, you have basically the same thickness. I mean, yeah, for my money. So that takes away from this watch a little bit for me. that I can get something so close that's also really fucking cool. Uh, yeah, that's not fair to it, but that's not, that's where my head's at. It's a really objective of you. I didn't score it down there. I'm just telling you that's the only reason I don't love this watch as much. Saying a super objective. I didn't score it down anywhere for that. I'm just saying it's something that takes away from it for me. Okay. Do you want to go to your number four that made Also my list. Let's talk about the Traska Summitier 38. So the Summitier, I think is probably my, the 36 Summitier is probably my favorite of the Summitiers. We scored the 38 here because for obvious reasons, it scores better. This is a hundred meters of water resistance. The size fits in the 10 category. It's got a great movement. It has got, this is the one watch on my list today that got a nine on bracelet because Traska's bracelet is a banger. I don't know what they do. They sprinkle some sort of sexy dust in that bracelet. It lays well, it fits well, it moves well, it tapers well, it's comfortable and it just works. Traska is the king of doing boring shit. perfectly. I have for no money. How do you afford it? How do you do it? I have two watches that have never come off their bracelet. That one, the Santos and the commuter. Uh, yeah. So it, and that includes a Manta, like that includes a Christopher Ward. The bracelet on the, on the Trask is not as good as the Manta bracelet, but I've really fucking close and it's, but I chose to put an Everest on the Manta, right? I did take the Manta bracelet off. It's also not as good as Christopher Ward, but it's really fucking close. Still, I have a half of the price. I have a Christopher Ward on a manky right now that you're wearing. I'm wearing I'm where it's happening right now. I have not taken the commuter's bracelet off. I gave this a terrific durability score. So here's my scores. Ten, ten, eight for movement, nine for shoes, eight for looks, nine for durability, four for loom, And I gave it a three for x-factor because it's a fucking Traska. You don't get the X, the hardening part of their finishing is unmatched. You give it under $2,000. That's why I gave it a great durability score because that doesn't make sense to give it extra points. It gets points in two categories. No, because it's game changer. You know what? I gave it higher scores in water resistance because of surely that hardening gives it and also size because it probably makes it smaller. It's size is perfect. Alright, what's next? Okay, so another watch. This scored number four for me and number two for you. This is the Serica 4512.
Everett And what's happening?
Andrew I don't think this watch was on your initial list. It wasn't on my initial list. And I was like, you got to score this. You sent it to me and I was like, Oh, fucking duh. This needs to be on the list. So I scored it and it landed in my top five. Um, so there, it comes in three iterations. The W M B the commando, which in the California, What's the difference between the WMB and the Commando? Uh, left hand, right hand. Oh yeah. I prefer the left hand and all things being equal. Uh, so sizing on this first, let's talk 316L stainless steel. Oh my gosh. Crazy. 37.7 millimeters. So that was kind of the wrinkle. Yeah. Did you take two points off? Just one. Just one. So did I. Yeah, it's a nine. Yeah. Okay. Sapphire. It's got a two millimeter anti-reflective domed crystal. It's using a Soprod P24 manual. Which is a rad movement. Super cool movement. Now, 200 meters of water resistance. Here's where really was a banger for me it got an eight in shoes because that bracelet i got to see these in person i like these watches i like their design i like their finishing everything about this watch i really like i was very concerned about the bracelets yeah this is a bond clip because it's a bond clip it looks like it should be flimsy maybe too light like just kind of like an afterthought. And I put this watch on and I was like, Oh my goodness, you've done it. I love this bracelet. I think for today, the only two watches that matched its score as an eight was the Ferrer which we'll talk about later because their bracelet was so comfortable and the Traska also so comfortable. This was simultaneously the best balanced and lightest bracelet I've ever put on. I was like taken by it because it didn't make sense. So this for me scored not as well as you somehow. Yeah. So first let me tell you where I scored it down because I think the places where I scored it down are interesting. So for loom I scored it down. I gave this a three and a half on loom which is one of my low scores of the day for loom. The loom on this guy is not great. The hands are really well illuminated. The markers are I think a little small. They're small and the loom application is weak. And so I gave it a three and a half on loom, which is a pretty low score. Uh, I also, you know, as, as we noted 37, seven marked it down a point on size because we have to, um, pretty much everywhere else. It's it's not water resistance. It gets the full marks of 11. I also gave it an eight, which you don't expect for a watch that looks like this, this really classic military field watch you expect. 30 to 70 meters of water resistance and you get the full 200, which is why it's so inexcusable to show up as less than a hundred. I also gave it, so it's got a great, it's got a fantastic movement. I also gave it an eight on shoes, Andrew, because I think that bond clip is really freaking neat. This is my one watch today that got full marks for aesthetics. Um, I prefer, I prefer the WMB. I think that this is a quintessential field watch dial. It is perfect. It's so perfectly boring and exactly what you want out of it. The brush to polish finishes do everything I want. The case profile is fantastic. Yeah. It almost looks disproportionate because of the case shape to a 20 millimeter lug. It almost looks like it should be maybe a 34 sized case, but it's not. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's not, it's, it winds up still wearing pretty thin, which is, is an effective use of that space. Yeah. Um, yeah. Durability gets great marks X factor. I gave it a four, which is above average. Um, and it just, with all those things put together, it's damn near tops of my list. Yeah. It is dope. And Andrew, Our number one watch, would you lead the way, sir?
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Because I think this one actually kind of surprised both of us. It really surprised me. So I was, uh, when I'm looking through this, I'm like going through brands of people that make sense. And I was like, you know what? I bet, I bet Ferrer's got something in here. They've got to have something in the zone. And it turns out they have one true watch in the zone and it comes in a different different couple of different iterations. There's a black iteration and a green iteration. We used the green iteration, the Farrer Exmor. I don't remember what the blacks called. The objectively best field watch under a thousand dollars. Yes. It comes in at nine hundred and ninety five dollars. Comes on a bracelet at nine hundred and ninety five dollars. And I'll tell you if you haven't experienced the Ferrer bracelet, you know, you might take issue with the clasp being, um, a butterfly. I take no issue with butterfly clasps. The bracelet is so comfortable. It's a seven link. Is it seven? It's a five link. I don't know. I don't count good. Um, Here's here's the kind of wrinkle. It's not a 1224. It's got a 12 hour ring with a pointer date. But here's where it starts to just blow everything out of the water. Gets 11 points for water resistance because it's 200 meters of water resistance. Perfect score for size. It's using a Salida SW221 movement, which is a 28 eight four Hertz movement. So we've got a great movement with, uh, what's the power reserve on it? 38 hours of power reserve. It's specific. That's specifically the, the date hand. Uh, that's specifically the date hand Salida. Yeah. Great brace with a built in shock. It's it's it's a full meal deal. Yes, it's got great shock resistance. So not only are we just in the shock resistance zone, but we're also in the aesthetic of this really fairer. Tons of color, but not like because Ferrer's got some watches that are a little bit offensive in the amount of color they use. The Exmor is a green dial with some really great color accents. It's got a blue second hand. an orange date wheel and a 20 minute countdown timer in that date wheel to be used against your second hand. It's got some faux patina, loom plots, like just all of the things to make it fairer and really colorful without being kind of their like lunar lander like oranges and teals and like like just crazy. In this application, I don't think I'd call that faux Tina. I think that they've used the color of the loom to be a color. It's not, it's not faux Tina cause they have white. It is that color. You're right. But they have white loom on everything else. They've used that to be an accent color, which I think is a much more honest use of toned loom. All that to say it, it is, I agree with you a hundred percent. This is a stunning watch. Couple things about this watch that jump out to me. One, you buy this thing, you get all three straps. You get the bracelet, you get the leather, you get the blue pass-through nylon. Wow. Way to not infringe. You get a huge amount of watch. At $995, right? Most watches, it's like, it's $800 on a nylon, but it's $1,300 with a nylon and the bracelet. They're like, nope, we're just going to give them all to you. You get some of the best loom in the business. You get, I mean, dimensions are all great. It is a little thick. So 12 and a half is the thickness on this thing. So it's not a dainty watch, but it's a field watch, but it's a field watch 30 and 38 and a half by 12, five. That is a fine, fine dimension, especially when they're giving you all of that water resistance. Yes. 200 meters. And it basically just across the board gets fantastic numbers. Four for X-Factor, uh, excuse me, four for, four for X-Factor, four for loom, nine for durability, nine for looks, eight for shoes, eight for movement, 10 for size, 11 for water resistance. So just for reference, maximum score is a 71. This is pulled a 63 on my list. And it's pulled a... 61 on my list. Yeah. This is the guy. This is the objectively best field watch. Who would have thought a pointer date would have from fairer from fairer with land than objectively best. And this isn't like I scored it super high. Everett scored it super low. Everett scored it as his number one and I scored it as my number two, which includes what was your number one? The owl's penis. Oh, yeah. I love owl. I wear a broken watch. That's how much I love that watch. Yeah, you do. It's a five for X Factor, always. Andrew, I think we've done it. It's just... This shocked me. You have any parting thoughts for this category? I actually think that at $1,000, you have the... best options available to you. And that's even before you consider the 4512 and the Exmor. You've got the CWC G10 at well under a thousand. And you've also got a lot of a lot of other options that could fit into this category, right? Like you've got Christopher Ward's C63 series and the C36. You've got a lot of sport watches that can fill this void. These are field watches. And so more so, I mean, with dive watches, right? You've got, you kind of start at a thousand and go from there with sport watches. Certainly you have some sub thousand dollar ranges, but I don't think like field watches, I don't think the players are quite as contained, you know, although it didn't make our list, it wasn't honorable mention. I think that there are a lot of very snooty high-end luxury watch snobs that will say the Hamilton khaki field mechanical is the modern quintessential field watch. And I rated a lot of Veyr watches because Veyr's got a huge lineup of field watches that just don't score well because of their size. And so this category, this grouping of watches, unlike other areas, I really think at sub $1,000, you're getting more bang for your buck in terms of, in terms of cachet, right? A Hamilton khaki field mechanical is cachet. A CWC G10 is cachet. And you're getting these watches, if you're lucky for like 250, 350 bucks, right? You could get an issued G10 for under five. That was issued to somebody in the British military. I have an issued G10 Pulsar that was actually worn by a soldier with an NSN number on the back that I picked up for, you know, under 200 bucks. That is the kind of the predecessor to the CWC. You know, you can get in this, in the field watch, the military field watch area, you're getting really, really high cache watches for not a lot of money. And of course, cool watches. You can spend a lot of money on field watches. You can spend a bucket load, right? You know, you can get into the IWC zone, you can get, you know, you can be in the $10,000 zone. Easy. But are they as cool? And you don't have to be. I guess that's the bigger picture. I don't know that they're just as cool, right? It's not like a sub, right? Where a sub has been a military issued watch and you got to spend $13,000 to get into a sub. You can get it in for less, but you maybe shouldn't. You can get into a CWC for under a thousand and that's arguably more cool. Well, with that, I think we've done it. Andrew, I'm going to ask you a question tonight. Okay. Other things. What do you got? I have another thing. Are you familiar with the St. Andrews Golf Club? Yes. Okay. I mean, it's the most famous. Okay. Yes, I'm familiar. Are you aware that they have only one reciprocity agreement. I was aware of this. I don't know who it's with off the top of my head. In the world. I recently became aware of a Australian mining town known as Coober Petty, which is a translation of the aboriginal language. For white guy in a hole. Cooper Petty. White guy in a hole. This is a small town about 700 miles north of Adelaide, Australia, that is famous for its opal mines. And it was an opal mining town that exists entirely subterranean because it's so hot in the summer and it's also so dry so they don't have to worry about moisture infestation into their subterranean digouts or dugouts as they call their domiciles. A few years ago they decided to build a golf club there. This place has a population of 2,500. It's in the wastelands of Australia. So they decided to build a golf course. But the problem is there's no grass there. So in order to golf there, they carry around a chunk of turf and they find their ball and they place it on that chunk of turf and they smack it toward the hole. And a reporter showed up and they were kind of tongue in cheek talking about this golf club and they decided as part of this kind of comical discussion to bring in a greens manager from St. Andrews to talk about the way they were managing their greens, which then prompted a back and forth between these two golf clubs and resulted in St. Andrews providing the only reciprocity to any golf club in the world to this tiny Opal Fields golf course from one month a year where they can go play St. Andrews. Opal Fields has no grass, so these guys get to go play St. Andrews every year in January, which isn't great because Scotland in January is not great. So maybe they get to golf or they don't. But the bigger story is the city, city, town, that exists entirely underground. And I believe they've, they've made some of these opal mines into a, like a luxury ish hotel, right? Yes. So some of them are luxury hotels. There's a, uh, there's an Orthodox church underground. The, um, one of the hotels was doing an expansion and this is how rich the opal mining was in this area. This hotel is doing an expansion. And it all exists in limestone, which is super soft. So if you're in your house and you're like, hey, I need an extra bedroom, you just grab a shovel and you just dig it out. This hotel, while doing their expansion, found about a million dollars worth of opal. Just like what a cool find. We paid for the expansion. We've done it. What a magical discovery. So this town exists primarily on tourism because it's like totally subterranean town with tourist attractions and hotels. There's a comfort inn that exists underground. It's super cool. And I don't know if my other thing is this town that exists under the earth, or if it's the fact that it's the only place that has reciprocity with St. Andrews, um, but is my new retirement goal, which means that I'm going to move to Australia to retire. in this little tiny town where I have to live under the ground, which sounds amazing. And then get to go to the United Kingdom every year and golf St. Andrews. In February. January. Yeah. Fine. January. It's going to be fun. It will be unpleasant. Yeah. There's got to be one good day. Right? We're at about the same latitude. Are we? I think this is, I think this is not going to work out well for you, but I really like your excitement about it. Andrew, I've got another thing. Do me. I'm going to, I'm going to expect it and warn everybody you're about to, um, interrupt with the latitude of Oregon versus San Andrews golf course. That's fine. We'll, we'll deal with that when it happens. Uh, I've got an, Oh, they're way further north than we are. I've got another thing. And my other thing is a, it is a stapler, Andrew. It would be, they are way further north than we, uh, I've got, I've got, Another thing that's a sailor like Edmonton, I am north of that, have a stapler that I bought after doing a buy it for life. I wanted a stapler. I need a stapler. And I don't just want to go to Office Depot and buy like one of the new fangled spring ones. I don't want to buy a red swing line because I have one. It's right in front of you. Basic bitch. I want something kind of cool, but I'm never going to replace. And I found out that there is a company in Bend, Oregon. Bend is about a hundred miles from us, maybe not quite. It is central Oregon. It's high desert. It is a lovely place filled with celebrities. Maybe not filled. Willie Nelson was just there. We've got world-class skiing in Bend. We've got world-class steelhead fishing. It is, it's, A really, really neat place. And in terms of Oregon, it's probably the coolest place. And Bend at large. You've got, I think, five or six mountains within 20 miles that you can summit. Fantastic hiking. A number of really good search and rescue so that when you are a little bit overambitious about your attempt to summit, they will come get you. They do have a substantial search and rescue operation out there. It's just a really cool place. But they have a company called Oregon Stapler, which is, yeah, that's a little bit on the nose. But they make in the United States, fully made in the USA, which as we know, means something much more than made in Switzerland. Swiss made. A fully United States made mechanical stapler that is made like an like a classic stapler. I own one of these. It is red. Mine's cooler. I own a red Oregon stapler and I was using it today cause I had to staple about 500 things. And I was like, you know, this thing is so freaking good. I can't believe I've never taught a, I can't believe I've never talked about it on the show because it's made in the United States. No, it isn't made in the United States. It's made in Oregon. It is, you can just tell. As you're pushing on it, this thing's bulletproof. It's got a warranty. And here's the best part. 22 bucks. Okay. Now you have me. Right? Cause you read about this thing and you look and you're like, okay, what do you want? You want 70 bucks? You want 80 bucks? Which I might've even paid. I'll pay it. Yeah. Yeah. 22 bucks. All right. And I'm like, why would anybody buy any other stapler? Like why would you buy a Chinese made swing line? or anything else. That's like a 60 year old swing lane. Now what I will say is this is not a bulk stapler. Right. I had to do 200 documents today and like you know you you can get stapling machines or whatever. If you're stapling a bunch of stuff you should be doing it with your copier. Yeah. Right. You use something different. If you if you're like stapling all day every day this maybe isn't for you but for the five to ten things I staple on a weekly basis, it is a peach. What a pleasure of an item. What's your like thickness that you're stapling? Yeah, a standard thickness. You're talking like 20 pages-ish? Yeah, I would say between 2 and 20 pages. And it just, I mean, of course, it handles that just fine. This is a basic stapler. So the one I have is the Oregon Stapler Praxis Pro is what they call it. If you go to Oregon Stapler, you'll find this thing. Affordable, good, made in the USA. Made in Oregon.
Everett Made in Oregon, man.
Andrew I think it's a perfect other thing. I think I agree with you. I think it's the objectively, if we had a rubric, this would be the objectively best other thing. Have you seen Game of Thrones? So yeah, that's my other thing. I'm ready for it.
Everett I'm here.
Andrew Andrew, today we have made a list of the objectively best field watch under $1,000. We have discussed Scottish and Australian golf. We've talked about some subterranean culture. Mm-hmm. We've talked about $22 American-made staplers. This is maybe our diverse episode. I think we've accomplished a lot. Maybe too much. Is there anything you'd like to add as we prepare for termination? No. Hey, you guys, I want to thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20, the WatchClicker podcast. Do me a favor, go to WatchClicker.com. It's a lot of cool things that we post on a weekly basis. including every single episode of this of this podcast. Also, check us out on socials at Watch Clicker or at 40 and 20 underscore Watch Clicker on Instagram. More importantly, most importantly, perhaps, if you want to support what we're doing every single week without fail, never miss a damn week. Come on, guys. This is episode 250. You can do that at Patreon. Yes, it is. You can do that at Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's how we got all the money to keep this thing going. And don't forget to tune in next week for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.