Episode 251 - Watches Roundup for August 17, 2023

Published on Thu, 17 Aug 2023 07:20:31 -0700

Synopsis

The hosts, Andrew and Everett, discuss recent watch releases and news in a roundup episode. They cover the new Hamilton Field Automatic Titanium on a bracelet, Vero's Smoky bear-themed field watch, Traska's recent restock of affordable watches, Tissot's new Heritage 1938 Chronometer and small seconds models, additions to the Tissot PRX 35mm line, Hanhart's minimalist Pioneer Silva field watch, a new affordable wood pellet grill Andrew purchased, and Everett's positive experience with a rechargeable milk frother. The episode is filled with their insights, opinions, and casual banter on these topics.

They also remind listeners to check out their website watchclicker.com, social media, and support them on Patreon as they approach the podcast's 5-year anniversary.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett I'm doing all right. We're starting this a little bit later than we normally do. So I did get to see the final score in the Mariners game. was positive. They beat the KC Royals tonight in extra inning. I was going to say innings, but it was just a single extra. Just the one. Yeah, that's good. So Mariners won. It's hot. It's smoky. AQI and Eugene is hovering between 300 and 400 with our forest fires. Yeah, but I'm doing OK. Notwithstanding that.
Andrew Yeah, it's been kind of a bummer here. It's been like 100 degrees and foggy.
Everett I've had about a beer and a drink. of what of the next beer. So, yeah, I'm doing all right. Andrew, how are you doing? I'm about a beer and a drink, too.
Andrew This is a sip of beer and a sip, but I got two open ones. So, you know, we'll see where we go. I'm I'm pretty OK. You know, I have you guys don't know, but Everett knows I have two extra kids at my house.
Everett He has tried to tell you guys this, but you weren't listening. Yeah. What the fuck, man?
Andrew Uh, so I have two extra kids at my house. Uh, one of our friends had a, uh, she had a congenital heart issue that a couple of cardiologists were like, it's kind of, it's not great. And then one cardiologist was like, that's pretty bad. Um, let's get you scheduled for surgery in September. Uh, and in the interim, I'd like you to come in for weekly checkups just to make sure she went in on Friday with a scheduled you know, surgery in late September, went in on Friday and he said, uh, you're, you have two choices. You can stay here and you can have surgery on Monday, or you can probably die in the next two weeks. Your call, totally up to you. So she went in for emergency heart surgery yesterday. Uh, and you know, with the, uh, you know, planning for late September, surgery. She like kind of had things lined out for then, um, which it didn't really, you know, incorporate like today. So anyway, I'm plus two kids, uh, cause obviously she's, uh, you know, she had surgery and everything went really well, right? It's the, that's the benefit of not being like a morbidly obese late seventies year old going into heart surgery is that, you know, when you're 30 and you go in for heart surgery, it's, It typically goes pretty well because you're not really unhealthy. You just have like an issue. Um, cool thing. Uh, my, her husband, my friend, uh, came over today to like, he went and picked up his kids from school and he brought them over cause they're staying with me. That's why I'm plus two. Um, his kids are staying with me cause he's in the hospital. He's like, he's got shit. Uh, but he goes, do you want to see the pictures? I was like, obviously I want to see the pictures. So he showed me a bunch of stills that the surgeon took during the surgery, which shows like the totally like opened chest cavity and the heart, like the heart, like in somebody's hands and then like removing valves and installing stuff. She has a bionic heart. It's super cool. But like showed me this kind of like step by step of the surgery, which was crazy, which was really, really cool. And I'm going to, when I see her probably early next week, I'm going to ask the super inappropriate question of like, I do need you to take your shirt off. I need to see the scar. And I'm really intrigued to see the bruising because surgical bruising is so fascinating when they have to really rip you open. Yeah. And like the way it seeps around and like, I just, so I'm going to ask that question cause I do want to see the bruising. Um, And I feel like I've earned it because I've been caring for their children for an ill-defined period of time. But other than that, you know, like it's, it's tiring to go from two to four, uh, you know, like for lunches, for drop-off locations, for schedules, for, you know, bedtimes, it's, it's been a challenge, but I am going to get to see some post-surgical bruising. So, you know, Boobs. That's and they're going to be purple. So purple boobs are still boobs.
Everett Well, in any event, we're not talking about boobs or surgery or extra kids or even baseball. Much. We are. Much to my chagrin. We are talking about. However, we are talking about watches. This is going to be a roundup episode, what we refer to as a round up. Like what is roundup? Like Woody's Roundup from Toy Story. What we do in these episodes is we talk about the most recent watch happenings. If you're new here, I should say.
Andrew If you're new here, this isn't the episode to be listening to. Circle back to quartz watches. Hook, Huygens, and Hairsprings.
Everett What we do in these episodes is we review watch news as opposed to our more in-depth deep dive episodes or our three, four, or our objectively best watches. Um, with that said, there was a lot that happened in the last couple of weeks. And so we wanted to get a chance to review some watches or review, uh, or discuss some, some new releases and some other interesting things we came across all that to say, we're talking about watches, Andrew, what do you got?
Andrew Can I talk about one of the hottest things to be released since 1920? Yeah, please do. So this is for the first time tonight. This is something that I don't know how I wasn't aware of. Right. It's one of those things like it's like a like a five year old seeing a chick with big boobs like, oh, those are big. Interesting. But then you get to be eight and you're like, I need five minutes by myself. Um, this is one of those wake up moments for me. And it's the JLC caliber one zero one, which is not a new movement, even kind of right. This is a movement kind of, this is a movement that was pioneered in the twenties in support of women's jewelry watches. And it, is miraculous. It's a split plate, super weird, split stacked movement that is the size of a match head. And I read this article on Fratello this last week and I like, cause I just kind of like peruse as we all do peruse articles. I'm like, when less is more, JLC's 101 smallest watch movement ever. Which I wasn't really willing to accept on its title. I sort of I was like, oh, that's clickbait. I don't accept. Because, you know, in the last five years, we've seen these huge releases, you know, prominently from Bulgari and Citizen, who are just like just razor thin movements, but also kind of like big watches. And these are 3.4 mm tall movement.
Everett And it is small match head size, splitting and stacking. They split the main plate in half and stacked it and connected the two halves by an additional gear. So when you consider that it's three point four millimeters tall and it's actually a double tall, I think what do they call these? The dual plane, dual plane construction, dual plan construction. And additionally, they stuck the crown out of the back instead of out of the side. to further minimize that x-axis. It's like, wow.
Andrew And it's only 14 millimeters long. So we have 14 long by 4.8 wide by 3.4 tall or yeah, by 3.4 tall. This thing is tiny, teeny, teeny, tiny. It is a mechanical movement with a really cool, innovative, crown design to go on the back of the movement against your wrist in support of the women's jewelry bracelet watches. And like I said, I've seen these before. I just always assumed they were quartz because it's reasonable in my brain to make a quartz movement this size. But for a mechanical movement to exist this size and to still see like 15 millimeter thick dive watch movements, it's like, um, I have a problem here. I understand that this isn't the most accurate movement. This is a jewelry movement. You know, this is kind of like in the, in the roaring twenties era, There's some car TA partnerships that exist to employ the one on one. Like I get these things, but this technology exists. Why not innovate on it? Uh, iterate from it and give me a razor thin dive watch.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. So actually in the history of this is, is actually kind of fascinating. So, Back in the first part of the 20th century, Anton LeCoultre invented a measuring device called, I believe it's called the milliometer. Milliometer. Milliometer.
Andrew Yeah. Because I assume that he is French. Oh, well, Swiss.
Everett No. Which allowed measurements down to the micron. So in and of itself, a pretty neat device. And from the mind of a genius. That device is really what guides JLC's production for the next handful of years. So famously, LeCoultre and Edmond Jaeger, I think it's Jaeger, hook up right about that time. And they also link up with another company, not a huge player in the watch world called Cartier, Um, for a thing, what was it? The, the European watch EWC, EWC, European watch and clock company, which is sort of, uh, uh, a cohort or a conglomerate. And so what you see among the first, what you see is both JLC and Cartier watches in this 1920s times coming out with this one-on-one movement. Um, And so these are not particularly uncommon. They actually made a bunch of these considering the scale they were making on relative to the scale they were making these on. You see these in a ton of watches, and it's a pretty terrific movement. 78 parts, double main plate.
Andrew At the origin, right? So now we're looking at about 100 parts. Yeah, that's right. Only 33 hours of power reserve. Sorry, Powermatic, that this thing is about half as good as you. And I think they're still making these, right? Yeah, the one on one still exists. Yeah. Yeah. In its modern iteration, it's at 98 parts. It's a twenty one six VPH, 33 hours of power reserve. This is like a not insignificant movement. How was I not aware of this?
Everett I don't know. It's pretty cool, though.
Andrew Were you aware of this? Was this like something like in the consciousness?
Everett You know, not, not specifically, no. You know, these, A, I think these are very expensive movements and, and B, I'm not sure this is something that we, it's not going in watches that would have caught our attention, but yeah, very cool. Yeah. And you know, before CAD or CNC or whatever.
Andrew Yeah, before all of it. It's a hundred year old movement. Fuck you, Bulgari.
Everett Well, Andrew, I've got a watch I'd like to talk about. And it's a bit of a callback to last week's episode. So last week... Is this like an amendment? It's not an amendment. Okay. It's not an amendment. Last week, we talked about the best field watches under $1,000. And we presented a list, as well as some honorable mentions, a list of five, nay, six watches. On that list of five, nay, six watches, We discussed the Hamilton khaki titanium automatic field watch. Yeah. And you had lamented during the episode that that watch doesn't come on a bracelet and that's a bummer. And it's a big bummer. I agreed with you. Well, the folks in Hamilton heard our episode and they decided to amend their catalog for the year. with a really quick response. That is pretty quick. I was actually super impressed when I talked to the guys at Hamilton. My wife doesn't respond that quickly. I was like, Yuri, do you really think you can pull this off? So Hamilton, in response to our episode, has released the Field Automatic, the Titanium Field Automatic in four new watches, really two new watches in two sizes. The Silver Cased. Titanium Cased. braceleted blue dial titanium field automatic in both 38 and 42 and a PVD black dial. Stealth. Also, yeah, what they're calling the stealth in 38 and 42. So essentially we've now got four new watches from Hamilton in direct response to the 40 and 20 watch clicker podcast. Pretty cool shit. Yes. So just off the top, there's nothing special about these watches. But everything is special about these watches. That's right. These are what you know. These are 11 and a half-ish field watches that are just like the titanium khaki field automatics that you could buy before our episode, except that they now come with a full titanium three-link folding clasp oyster bracelet.
Andrew And they're also 21-6, very much like the JLC-101. That's right.
Everett That's much bigger. That's right, Andrew. It's a little bit bigger. And ADR is a power reserve. So these have the Powermatic movement, or the H-10 is Hamilton's version of the Powermatic movement. The dials are beautiful. You've got a black dial with orange accents on the PVD and a really rich navy blue dial on the silver.
Andrew It's it's actually a couple, a couple blues. It's two blues. One is like closer to midnight. So the hour ring is like a midnight nigh on black blue and the chapter ring and the 24 hour ring, the center portion of the dial are a really good Navy. And these work together to create almost like a sunburst. Yeah. feel the way those colors blend and distribute throughout the dial.
Everett It's unclear to me if those are different blues or if the sheen is different. They've got to be different. I think it might be a sheen difference. I think it's a little bit matter on the chapter and the center ring. So this is kind of a sector dial.
Andrew I think they're different.
Everett I think it's probably a texture difference, but we'd have to see one in person. Either way, it definitely gives you a bit of contrast there. It's a tiered coloring at the end. Yeah. And this is these are these are really pretty straightforward. I mean, this is what you would expect from this watch. There's nothing really out of the ordinary.
Andrew It is this watch and it is for the titanium. 11.95 euros for the 38. For the silver. Yeah, in the titanium, the non-PVD. 12.95 for the 42. 12.45 for the PVD 38. And 13.45 for the PVD 42. I did earlier check the exchange rate between the US dollar and the euro. These are priced in euros on this article. Which means you're going to pay less in dollars. So do, you know, get after it right now. This stealth is calling to me. If you buy like today. Yeah. Um, you know, and this will air in two days. So, you know, maybe the exchange rate will be, be a little different.
Everett Yeah. Uh, what do you got Andrew?
Andrew Ooh, what do I have next tab? Oh, this is a watch that I'm interested in speaking to you with. Vero has released a new watch in the way of a smoky bear themed field watch.
Everett Why do you want to talk to me about this?
Andrew Well, because we're on a podcast and we talk about watches and you're the only person to talk about watches with.
Everett And because I have one of these in my possession.
Andrew So they have released two iterations of this, the Smoky 44 and the Smoky 64. The difference being the dials, the Smoky 44 in honor of the introduction of Smoky the bear and the 64 being 20 years later.
Everett 20 years later when Smokey gets his own zip code. Yes. Because the U.S. Forest Service was getting so much mail. And so they they got an address for Smokey to get mail. Yeah.
Andrew Because, you know, Smokey needs mail. The the 44 is a really gothic-y numerals. It has a spade hour, a syringe minute. Smokey the bear in his like grumpy ranger hat at the 12 and just south of the hand stack pinion. A pine tree white. 1 to 12 red 13 to 24 really classic field watch 120 meters of water resistance. Really great sizing at what 38? Thirty nine.
Everett Yeah. Thirty eight. Thirty eight. And the size on these. Yep. It's 64 by 12 by 12 millimeters thick.
Andrew The 64 is the one that really does it for me. It's a really classic 12 24 hour ring with an inverted triangle at the 12 and really subtle, not novelty dial. On the and there's a track inside the 24 hour ring that hosts the at the 12 o'clock, a pine tree in honor of Smokey and text ring, only you can prevent wildfires. This the 44 is much more novelty to me, right? It has Smokey the bear icon at 12 o'clock. This 64 is doing it for me, right? We've got a 10% profit share to the US Forest Service. This is a brand that I really like because they're really leaning into that Northwest, Pacific Northwest kind of lifestyle brand, but still keeping their watch shit cool. I'm here for it.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. I think you nailed it. So you've got more of a dirty dozen 44 with the cathedral hands. Um, you, you know, this is a pretty straightforward watch. I had a choice of which of these to review, and I picked the 64 because for me it's a little bit more straightforward. You've got more of a 60s military field dial aesthetic on this watch, and it just to me feels like a watch that you might buy to wear every day versus the 44 with Smokey's face, a bit more novel, as you said. Um, they both share sort of a red railroad track and these are no shit field watches. I've had this for about a week now and just over a week. And what I can say is that it is, um, a really fricking good watch. So the use of the NH 38, and this means two things. One, it means that you can get this watch for under 500 bucks. Yeah. Four 50, four 50.
Andrew With 10% going to the Forest Service, so, you know, 400 bucks.
Everett That's right. That's right. The second thing it means is that it's a thick watch. This is not a thin watch. At 12 millimeters, it's not obscene by any means, but it's got some weight to it. And it's got some thighs. What do you want? In addition to being chunky, they've gone with a Tudor or Rolex-esque slab sided case profile. We don't get Christopher Ward watch Spanx here. We're getting the full, the full Monty displayed prominently.
Andrew So I really like like the BB 63 or the 36 is like somehow like super thin, super comfortable, but also rocking a big old ass in that, in that slab side.
Everett That's right. It's an aesthetic decision, and I'm not going to criticize it at all because I like it too. But it is a prominent watch, you know, compared to, say, my Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical. It's just a more substantial watch. With that said, everything works so well, and they've paired this thing with an appropriately thick leather strap, and it comes with a nylon passer as well. Um, I think it's great. The, the, the two things that are sort of most on my mind with this watch, or I'm going to say three things. One, the dial is perfect on the 64. The dial execution is fantastic. I love it.
Andrew Um, it is the perfect combination of novelty without being novel, right? It's not, it's not Kermit. It's not Snoopy.
Everett It's you are the only one who knows the pine tree almost stands in for like a broad arrow. It's just a terrific dial. The case thickness, it's a substantial watch. So that's the other thing that I've noted. Like, okay, I'm wearing a watch. The third thing that really calls out to me is the bezel. It's got a bit of a triple bezel is what I'm gonna call it. I don't know if that's a real term or not.
Andrew Hot take, we've coined it here, the triple bezel.
Everett But essentially what you've got is these three different surfaces as you approach the crystal. You've got the mid case, you've got bezel one, you've got bezel two. In this instance, bezel one is highly polished. So you've got the brushed satin brush mid case, highly polished bezel one, brushed satin bezel two. And it creates this phenomenal interruption and attention gathering that kind of pushes your eyes towards the dial.
Andrew It almost acts like the light catcher from the outside.
Everett That's right. Yeah. Looking at this thing in photos, I didn't know what I was going to think it. In fact, it looked a little cheap in some of the photos I saw in person. It doesn't at all. It looks really, really good. And because the model is wearing the strap one hole too small, he's looking squished and the balance of the polish on the bezel with the polished crown in practice, this works really, really well. It's a, beautiful watch, but also an incredibly simple and pragmatic watch. I'm a huge fan of this. I've been wearing it. It is not a leap in horological significance by any means. It's a simple, affordable, really fun, really good watch. I think it's a hit for Vero. I like what they've done here. I hope that they use this watch. I hope that they use this case in future watches because I think it's a winner. I think this is a really, really good watch that they've made here.
Andrew This has kind of been the Vero jam, right? Vero did this huge pivot. They went from being all in house manufacturing, wildly expensive because of just the nature of one dude running two CNC machines to pump out every case. And then one person doing the painting like Vero's original business model was amazing and destined to fail. And Chris recognized that and did this huge pivot and really leaned into the Pacific Northwest roots, the active lifestyle roots, and has done this really cool combination of like, I'm a watch guy and I like making watches for watch people, but I'm also a lifestyle brand. And I like making things for people who want to incorporate watches into their lifestyle. And he's done a really, really cool thing in that. And I'm excited to see what comes next.
Everett Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's terrific. And I'm really excited to see where Vero goes with this thing. Andrew, what's next?
Andrew Or was that mine? That was mine. You're up.
Everett Oh boy. So Everett, what's next? I think next I'd like to talk about a company that we don't talk about all that often, but more in the last year than I'd say more in the last year than in the four years of the 40 and 20 podcasts preceding that. I'm going to talk about a company that when we refer to it, we use naughty words, specifically Tiso. Tits out. So Tiso last year introduced the Heritage 1938 telemeter, which is a multi-scale chronograph we talked about on the show and said, this is terrific. We really like it. I like what you're doing. This is a lot of watch, but it's interesting and cool. It's not the PRX.
Andrew It opens a lot of opportunities and doors and things for you to like spread your wings.
Everett And at the time we commented that it seemed like Tissot maybe finally had developed some some humans or devoted some humans, some human resources perhaps to human capital to, you know, really vibing with the current trends and watches, because it seems like Tissot is always kind of on the outside looking in. And of course, they've got this tremendous hit with the PRX.
Andrew And they've got this huge vacuum with the weird Seiko transitions and they're like trying to fill it.
Everett They're interestingly positioned to fill some gaps in the market. And it seemed like at the time, they had maybe devoted some people to that. Well, they've continued the 1938 Heritage Series with the introduction of two new watches. Some people are saying three new watches, really. It's two. It's two watches. And even then, they're pretty close. But what we have is the introduction of one new watch, a three-hander in two different dials, and the same watch, but instead of being a three-hander, being a small seconds with a date. They're calling these the Give me a moment. It's out heritage. Heritage 1938 chronometer for the three hander. And it's spelled the heritage small seconds. Metra. Heritage small seconds 1938 for the other version. One of these is a 2824 based three hand 39 millimeter by like just over 11 millimeter, very simple, kind of a railroad feeling watch. And it's terrific.
Andrew Kind of like, like evolution of the pocket watch.
Everett Yes. This is like you like to say, Andrew, this is a watch. This is like the watch, right? This is it. This is we've got a terrific onion crown, which is gorgeous. Uh, we've got great dimension 39 by 11 one on the chronometer. We've got a 28, 24 dash two, which has been chronometer certified. Um, which feels like a bit of a cheat, but whatever, that's fine. Um, at about 900 bucks for the three hander. And then we've got, and then we've got a 28, 95 dash two small seconds, 27 jewel. really, really lovely small second styled version that comes on a shark mash for just over a thousand euros. As between the two, these are really similar watches. The three-hander being attractive in that that's chronometer grade, the- At 875. The small seconds be, yeah. Which I think you had said earlier that you thought that might be the most affordable chronometer grade. I don't know that for sure, but it's definitely up there.
Andrew I can't think of anything under 875 that's chronometer certified.
Everett The small seconds being interesting in that it's a very nice movement, much nicer movement. You've got the small seconds. What do you think? What do you think of these guys, Andrew?
Andrew I am for it. And so the small seconds, usually I am a Sucker for small seconds. Uh, I don't, I really like the texture dial on it. I could go for some loom. The sword hands are beautiful. That kind of power matic because Tiso uses two logos and they've got, I'd call these glaive hands, right?
Everett They're, they're those really thin like stick glaives.
Andrew Okay. But, but Tiso uses a couple logos and this has that power matic classic Not not parametric like the VisoDate. Yeah, VisoDate, not parametric. The VisoDate logo, I sort of retro logo. Yeah, I have some reservations with the small seconds. I think with their other logo and no date, the small seconds with the kind of mirror, like the the white versus black minute track, because it's got a white minute track. I'm I really like the design. I think it's just kind of a miss for me.
Everett But the two three hand dials, one of them in a salmon with black accents, one of them more of like a matte black with gold accents.
Andrew Yeah, I accept gold. I'm I'm like closer to tan on it. Yeah. Like sort of a gold brown. Yeah. These these are doing it for me. And I am here for it. This is this is Tiso very much exploiting a strange vacuum kind of in that $5,000 to $1,000 space in the big brand world, right? You know, we saw Seiko almost, you know, abandon that space, right? They've put a bunch of ass into the $700 and below space with just a couple of things.
Everett That's Seiko 5 Sports. Yeah, right.
Andrew The Seiko 5 Sports range. and they put a bunch of ass into the thousand and above space. They've really put a bunch of ass into Grand Seiko, which is doing some weird things to, or excuse me, King Seiko, which is doing some things to compete with Grand Seiko. And it's just kind of a strange like infighting there.
Everett And there's an interesting, I think, I think you've, you've developed a narrative there that I'm not sure exists, but I hear what you're saying.
Andrew No, you see what I'm saying. There's an interesting space in that five to $1,200 big brand space that Tissot is, is dipping their toes in and trying to figure out what works. And we see other brands doing it. And I'm, I'm here for this kind of exploration because it demonstrates a acknowledgement of the deep catalog. And right now we're in a space where we like to see where we watch people want heritage. We want to see that deep catalog reissue. There's this huge vintage inspired resurgence, this re-release resurgence that people want to see. And this is that. This is an imagination of that space. And I'm really digging it.
Everett Yeah. For me, I think that these, I think they're terrific. I priced slightly prefer the small seconds, but it's pretty close. And I do like the idea that you can get these in chronometer grid. You know, I think that these provide, you just don't get chronometer. So that's, and that price, these provide a nice compliment to the, um, to the visa date, which with its twisted lugs and sort of polished hands is a little bit more dressy. These are maybe a little bit less dressy. compliment to that range of watches. What's the water resistance on these? I think that it's five atmospheres.
Andrew So, which is a bummer because if you could get these even at 50, this could be the one watch.
Everett Yeah. Well, and I think for most people, this could be the one watch anyway. I don't think that there's anything, I don't think there's anything wrong with five bars unless you're swimming and then you might want something else, but I wouldn't shower the five bars. Yeah. Well, I think there's some arguments for why you shouldn't be showering in your watch anyway.
Andrew But how was he supposed to clean it? I've been ridiculed for not cleaning my watches.
Everett Yeah. Publicly on air. You guys have heard it. You know, I think it's, it's interesting.
Andrew Um, Frank licked one of my watches just so we're clear about how clean my watches are. Andrew, what do you got next? Okay. So since we're on the tits out, uh, thing theme, um, And we talked about the PRX, we've got two new additions to the PRX 35 line. And, you know, I sort of thought they were already there, which kind of bums me out. We have a gold on gold on gold PRX 35, and we have what they're calling ice blue, what I'm going to call Tiffany-esque blue. And they are perfectly boring additions to the PRX line that honestly, if they hadn't announced that they now exist, I would have assumed that they had always existed.
Everett Yeah, I don't think these are actually, I don't think either one of these are new color-wise. I think that the What's happened here is they've introduced the ice blue and the gold in the 35 millimeter size. So for a lot of people, I think the full size Tiso is maybe just a touch too, the 40 millimeter PRX is just a touch too big.
Andrew Well, especially with the K shape and the integrated bracelet. Like I totally get why a 35 is more appropriately sized for this style of watch. But if they hadn't announced that it had been released and I had just been like looking at PRXs and seeing the gold and the ice blue, it would have been like, oh yeah, duh.
Everett So nothing special about these, right? You've got Powermatic 80s, you've got, uh, 35 millimeter, 35 millimeter cases, the Tissot PRX that you know and love, a hundred meters of water resistance, nothing, nothing more to say, but they're continuing to expand that. You made a good point earlier when we were, when we were pre, pre-gaming, which is that the PRX is sort of the money driver for Tiso right now. And so it makes sense that they'd be filling all the gaps. They clearly are selling a bucket load of these.
Andrew And it's not to us watch people. It's normal people who don't listen to the show. Which is the dream, right? Who would make fun of you for listening to the show. That's
Everett So these are really fun releases in a different size, not moving the needle for us watch nerds, but I think it is a significant release for the regular world. You can now get the 35s and the 40s in just about any color you possibly wanted. The PRX is running the world. It does. I got something I'd like to talk about. Is it okay?
Andrew Just a quick interruption. I work with a guy who's like an... He's a watch guy. I'm going to air quote that. He's an Invicta watch guy. He's... I've never seen him wear the same watch twice. Which... And he's also a weird guy. Right. He's a straight geardo. He's not a real cop. What does that mean? He's a bailiff, which means he's a he's a corrections officer who works for a police department and transports prisoners to and from court and stuff.
Everett Is he a white shirt?
Andrew No. Oh, he works for us. But he is he's got dozens and dozens of watches, and I pretty early on in working with him. I noticed that he was wearing a different watch every day and which like piqued my interest. So I was like, I increased my proximity or decreased my proximity to him to see what he was wearing. And I was like, Oh, I see what you're wearing. Okay. I understand what's happening here. Yesterday I was walking or not yesterday. Well, I'm my last work day. I was walking by him before I was ready to go to work. And he was scrolling through his camera roll of like iPhone pictures, like shitty iPhone pictures of his shitty Invictus. to post to Instagram. I could tell he was on the Instagram app. He was picking Invicta pictures to post. And I was thoroughly amused by his Invicta collection because I saw like watches that I'd never seen him wearing.
Everett You know, we're kind of anti-snob on this show. And so when people are into watches, I'm always curious about.
Andrew I want to know what got him there. What they're interested in. Is he down with the good deal? Does he truly appreciate the weird like diver face mask cage over the dial? Because I have seen him wear that watch. It's like a bronze or brass watch case with a cage over the crystal. It's very big. And like, I wonder if he likes it because he got such a good deal on it because Invicta is always 80% marked down from MSRP. Or if that's like that interesting dive face mask dial does something for I always want to ask, but he's also the type of person that you don't really want to engage in conversation because you can't get away from it. You just walk away. Like when you're done, you just walk away. He continues talking. And somebody else gets trapped in the web.
Everett All right, moving along. Yeah, we should. Handheart is a company that I'm not super familiar with. My friend Blaine walked me through his Handheart watch last summer, two summers ago, I guess now in San Francisco. And I was really blown away by the history and the craftsmanship. He had a, I believe, a Pioneer Mark II. Which is this watch with this really rich history. And I think some of it is marketing, but also some of it's real. You've maybe seen this watch. It's got a really prominent fluted bezel, a red. You've seen the logo for sure. A red pusher. It's a very cool watch. One that I don't know a lot about, but I know more about than I did then. Hanhart released a watch this week that I was instantly like, that's fucking cool. So this is a sub $1,000 watch. It's a watch and it's really, really good. Um, they're calling this the pioneer Silva, which is a three hand, which is a three hand Anderson Silva, not the cool way to say silver.
Andrew That's right.
Everett Like Anderson Silva, um, which is just a three hand watch that harkens back to a watch called the Cal 36-39 from Hamhart. And it is, I think, fair to call this a Bauhaus-type dial. You've got a very big void space in the middle. You've got really legible numerals. The even numerals are Arabic. The odds are just dots, which creates more space. Um, you've got really simple minute dashes and slightly more prominent five minute dashes. This is very, very Spartan in terms of what the information, uh, what information is being provided to you. But more than that, it is just a terrific looking watch. The lugs are great, inoffensive. There is so little going on here. Again, glaive hands, much like the Tiso's we talked about earlier. Tits out, sorry. There's so little going on here that it is, it would be easy to just pass over this. But in my mind, I think this is a totally terrific release that's coming in with a fantastic movement. Yeah. From a company with great history that's coming in at a great size. It's using a Salida 200, right? A Salida SW 200. It's 38 and a half millimeters wide, 10 millimeters tall. Two objections to this watch. One, the crown I think is slightly undersized. I think this could do with a little bit more crown. A little more onion, yeah. Two, the water resistance is five atmospheres, which is Not great, but also not terrible. This is terrific.
Andrew I have one question about this watch. Sure. And it's not the white dial. The black dial appears to have. Two iterations of its pips on the odd numbers. In the earlier pictures, it shows full loomed. No, not earlier. One picture in the middle. shows a full loomed odd number pipped marker. But all the others show almost like a just an outline.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Is that a distortion color? Is it a color distortion that I'm seeing in photographs or is that?
Everett I think the renders on this thing showed it with a white loomed. So so again, the odd numbers have these pips. I think the renders showed a white loomed pip, but all the real pictures I've seen are black. So I think they either switch to a black, some sort of black marker or black loom or something. I'm not entirely sure which of those it is. I don't see any reference to loom being used. So I think it's just a black mark.
Andrew I think I liked the white render better.
Everett Yeah, for me, I don't have a strong preference either way. But yeah, that is something to note.
Andrew It's a question. Andrew, what do you got next, man? Oh, next up for me. Oh, this is something exciting. Traska is restocked. Oh, that is exciting. So Traska is one of my favorite brands. They do really well designed, really simple watches. super affordable under 600 bucks with great hardening on their finishing such that I've made efforts to try to mark up my watch and have been unsuccessful. I understand that I could successfully mark up my watch with appropriate effort, but with, you know, wearing it while working on a computer, wearing it to just do normal day to day life stuff, this watch looks Like I just took the stickers off of it. They just had a restock. You're gonna have to get in quick. They've restocked four of their watches. They have... Oh shoot, which one was it that they didn't? The Commuter, the Summateer, the Freediver, and the Seafarer have all been restocked and they're gonna go quick. So if you've been kind of on the fence about Traska, uh, I kind of was, I got the commuter and was totally and completely sold not only on 36 millimeter watches, but also on their manufacturing processes. They're restocked. They're ready to go get in on this because it's going to be a while. They're kind of, they're not quite Hallios. delay for availability, but they're really close.
Everett Go Trasca. Indeed. You know, the only other thing that we have on our list that I do want us to talk about is the La Jeanne Hydro Conquest GMT. So this is a sub $3,000 offering from La Jeanne, I think, 2675 on a, on a strap or 2775 on a bracelet. Um, you know, Longine I think is been on a run of hits, especially with, um, you know, their, their newest offerings, the Spirit, um, and now this Hydro Conquest GMT, which is terrifically sized 41 millimeters, just under 13 millimeters thick, uh, with a really very good sub 50 millimeter lug to lug. So it's a big watch, but it's supposed to be a big watch. This is a flyer GMT using the, um, uh, 844.5, which is an ETA based GMT caliber. I think this is a terrific looking watch. Uh, you actually sent this out. Um, but I thought, yeah, we should talk about this.
Andrew You sent an article about it too. What do you think of this? This is an interesting watch to me because I, I feel like it's, it represents a strange place that Lungene finds itself in. This is not a space that I imagine Lungene What do you mean by that? It's a space that Lungene has existed before, exists now, will continue to exist. This is not where I want to see Lungene putting their efforts into because this is way too saturated of a market. The GMT diver, come on. I want to see Lungene pushing the envelope in dress watches, in three handers, in cool integration of technology. I want to see more moon phases. I want to see more complications. This is not, I understand that they have to exist here, right? They're a business and they need to make money and they need to capture sales. This kind of bums me out that this is where Longines is applying efforts.
Everett You're getting... It could be. I don't disagree with that. You're getting a ton of brand cachet. You're getting a fully specced watch using fantastic materials, manufacturing techniques, etc.
Andrew I don't want dress watches from Breitling, though. I don't want tool watches from Longines.
Everett Yeah, but... And maybe that's a me thing. Yeah, I think it is a you thing because Longines is a tool watch company.
Andrew It is, but it's not where I want them to be.
Everett So when Longine introduced their spirit Zulu time, which is their GMT. So first, I think that's a totally terrific watch. This is a full millimeter thinner than that watch uses the same movement, right? Uh, or, or essentially the same movement and you're getting a no shit.
Andrew You're getting probably the best GMT diver on the market. at under five grand?
Everett I think so. And you're getting a totally underrated dive watch company from a company that has a ton of cachet and bona fides. I think this is great. And there is a very fair criticism to this watch that it feels very Omega-ish, but I kind of don't care. I'm here for it. I really like this watch. And I think if you're a person that wants extremely high quality watch for less than what you'd pay for an SMP.
Andrew Yeah. I mean, this is maybe the poor man's SMP.
Everett This is terrific. And a flyer GMT.
Andrew It's also kind of a poor man's sub, like it, it does all of those things. And that's maybe what disappoints me.
Everett And this is obviously not a review. We haven't seen these. We don't know if the strap is good. We, but it is right. We can't speak to that personally, but we can confirm what it's great. Yeah. It's going to be great.
Andrew Yeah. I just, I size is great. It's more boring than I want out of a brand like this, man.
Everett I'm here for it. I, it's like the type of watch that makes me think maybe I should get one of these. Um, I won't get one because I don't want this watch. I want other things in this spot, but I think it's a terrific release.
Andrew It's, I mean, it's great. But it's also like, it's not, it's not what I want.
Everett Andrew, is there anything else you want to talk about before we move, move this along? We should move it along. Other things. What do you got?
Andrew I got a new thing this week. I know you do. As, as with every week. I, so when I transitioned from tent camping to trailer camping, Certain things changed. Certain capabilities changed. And with that, I realized that I needed to upgrade my cooking capabilities. Not just because, uh, I wanted to, but because I could. I now suddenly had like the space to transport and the power to support cooking capabilities. I did a bunch of research and I like dug deep into the, all of the things regarding outdoor cooking, not just like home grilling, but tabletop tailgating, grilling, camping, grilling, And I settled myself with a Pit Boss Copper Series Tabletop Wood Pellet Grill. And it is all the things that you expect from Pit Boss. Great build quality. Affordable. I paid $227 for this thing to have a total temperature range from Their smoke, my one bitch is that you can't super, you can control in like 25 degree increments, which is kind of the industry standard. I would prefer one degree increments, but I understand for ease of use, you can't have that. So I got this pellet smoker and it is exactly as built. It's a tabletop pellet smoker. It doesn't generate any heat on the feet. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Right. Like you can put it on a plastic table. It has a seven pound hopper capacity and at running, running at 500 degrees, they say you're going to burn about a pound per hour. Oh, so you can run this thing all fucking day. All day. The nice thing is crack it open. You've refilled a hopper. If you're going to have like a nice slow smoke, And, and, you know, I ever, I'm sure every unit has its own little kind of nuances with burn rates and stuff. And that's something that I have to experiment with. But, uh, so I got this thing. There is, is some assembly required, which kind of bugged me. It was super easy. It has a really easy seasoning process. It's like put it together, fill the hopper, start it. and let it run for an hour. And it was so easy that I watched multiple YouTube videos to make sure that it was as easy as the instructions said. I've got this thing running and I've primed it and it's got like a, it's got pellets burning or pushing into the, into the burn, uh, burn cup. And I'm like, it can't be this easy. I'm doing it wrong. I watched one team, one YouTube video. from Pit Boss, and they're like, this is what you do. It's like, of course, you'll say that's what you do. I go somewhere else. This is what you do. I was like, bullshit. And I was proven wrong. It's super intuitive. It's super easy. It's got a cook surface sufficient for like one whole spatchcocked chicken. You know, a bunch of hot dogs, bunch of burgers. It's got a great temperature range.
Everett Could you do like a, could you do like a pork butt on this thing?
Andrew Yeah. A hundred percent. It's big enough. It is 256 square inches of space. So you could do a rack of ribs, but you're going to have to split it. You could do. Oh, it's like a square. You could do a half brisket. Yeah. Yeah. You could do a whole chicken, do a bunch of burgers. You could do a, Tri-tip or you can probably do two tri-tips.
Everett If you did burgers, are there multiple racks you could do?
Andrew There's a small rack, which is insufficient for like multiple racks. But if you're doing burgers, you just slide the grate open and you can grill over direct fire. How many, how many could you do? Ten, probably, reasonably. Does it do, does it do slow and low? Yeah. Yeah. So lowest temperature is 180 ish. That's great. It runs to 500. And then you can slide the flame cover open and grill over direct flame.
Everett So here's a question for you. For someone that didn't want to have a full on home smoking setup, could you buy this and have it be your primary smoker for the occasional, like what are the limitations?
Andrew There are better options. Because this is a tabletop, right? It has no legs. So you'd have to have some kind of outdoor cooking setup. There's better options that are similarly sized, probably 30 ish percent bigger, like 350 square inches that have. For about the same cost. Neighborhood. They're more. Yeah. Right. But if you want to try a smoking apparatus and you're not going to do it very often, you're going to do fairly small amounts.
Everett And maybe you didn't want to dedicate floor space on your patio to it. You just wanted to have something that you could get out occasionally.
Andrew Yeah, there's a bunch that have like folding leg options that you can. They're similarly sized, but you can fold them up and you can stow them away. Uh, this wouldn't, this is like a portable only like tailgating camping. What's our price range on this guy? 230 bucks. That's great. Yeah. 227 is what I paid at Walmart for it. It takes any kind of wood pellets. Like if you, for the trigger blends or whoever takes them all, eats them up. It was super easy, super intuitive. I'm really excited. I almost cooked dinner on it tonight, but I have a, I have a better option for that. And I didn't want to pull it out and let it cool off. Like I have my, my smoker is like, you have a smoker.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Yeah. I have, I have, yeah, I have way too much outdoor cooking equipment on my patio. Well, good shit. Well, Andrew, I've got money and I'm super excited by it. There's, uh, there's two iterations of this. There's the copper version, which has a seven pound capacity. It's a retailer exclusive with Walmart. And there's a mahogany version. That's a five pound hopper capacity. That's kind of the general space. They're the exact same price. Get the seven pound hopper. Get the Walmart version. Don't be stupid. Two extra pounds of hopper capacity is at least two extra hours without having to tend your fire.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to me, the social dynamics involved in, uh, social dynamics involved in like, there's certain things that if you want to get, you get the best version at Walmart, right?
Andrew Yeah. They have weird retailer, exclusive branding and the copper top and also looks better. So I'll show you a picture of the, this is the copper version and it has a copper lid. The mahogany version has a, black lid, just like the rest of the smoker barrel. The copper looks great. The copper looks way better and it's got a two extra pound capacity, which is why I decided to pay like $8 more than buying it on Amazon for two pound less hopper capacity.
Everett Andrew, I've got another thing. Do me. So I am the owner of a Breville barista express espresso machine.
Andrew You would be just based on the, um, size and dimensions and what it appears to be used for.
Everett A Breville barista express is a terrific home espresso machine. Breville also makes double boiler versions that are better, but for, you know, the once or twice a week cup of espresso, the Breville is the barista. It's called a shot of espresso. It's a fucking animal. Tremendous, tremendous machine. So Uh, I use that pretty frequently, especially for steaming milk. My wife does not like steaming milk. She just doesn't like the process. She doesn't want to do it. It's a pain in the ass, but it's worth it. She thinks it's a pain in the ass. I don't think it's that big of a deal, but it's a pain in the ass. That's worth it. She wanted a milk frother. So I want to be able to heat up some milk, froth it, dump it in a cup of tea or a coffee or whatever. And I said, well, Okay, and so I started looking at milk frothers. You can get milk frothers for anywhere from nine bucks on Amazon to 120 bucks. So you got the 120? Some of these are like kettles, like you actually have a kettle that froths the milk. Some of these are wands.
Andrew She wanted a wand, which makes sense because you can do single cup. The problem with the kettle is that you got to do like a bucket.
Everett So, yes. But the wands are just not as good. They're just not as good a device. Correct. She wanted a wand though. And so I thought, well, maybe these are all the same. It's basically just a battery operated handle and a little set of springs or a whisk at the end that vibrates and rotates and whisks your milk. And so I started looking into this.
Andrew Don't you have one of those home massagers? That seems like it would do the trick.
Everett Like a Hitachi? Yeah. Uh, the, um, I started looking into this. I found a couple references to this thing called the subminimal nanofoamer and people saying, this is actually a really good device. Um, and so I, I looked into it. I found that you can get these things for $39, just under 40 bucks, which is a total, like, yes, it's worth it. The people are on a flyer. People are saying this is good. Let's give it a try. So I ordered one of these things. They come in both a double a version and a lithium rechargeable lithium version. I got the rechargeable lithium cause I hate having to look for batteries I can see a world in which the double A version would be better for us. We're going to use this thing in the kitchen. You just plug it in. It's fine.
Andrew How about the lithium? You just plug it in. You have USB plugins in your kitchen.
Everett This thing is terrific. It comes with these changeable screens. Um, you can, you know, get the size of, of screen tuned into your preferences. I've been using the finest one for the art. Um, yeah, it just makes a really like small bubble. This thing's terrific. I would say, um, as between my Breville and this, there's a difference, but it is not a big difference. This thing's faster. It's more clean. It's more convenient. Um, you're not getting the pitcher out and you know, getting your rag to wipe the steam wand out. Like you just, poke this thing in, you start in the middle, get some air in there, move it over to the side, get your bubbles down, tamp it down, pour it, the whole thing. Rinse it in the sink. Rinse it in the sink. Put it back in the drawer. That's right. That's right. And it's terrific. It has worked so well that I'm like in that unenviable position of ignoring my thousand dollar espresso machine
Andrew Kyle, are you going to have to admit she's right?
Everett Because this thing works so good and so easily and does such a good job. Now, I will say there are pictures on the website that show really nice latte art. I don't think you can get latte art quality foamed milk with this thing. It says that you can. But maybe some people can. I'm skeptical. With that said, it is very, very close.
Andrew The only AA battery operated handheld milk foamer capable of making premium cafe quality micro foam milk for latte art at home.
Everett Yeah. Look, it's terrific. I won't deny that it's terrific. And there are people that have posted online images. It's not going to be as good as a steam wand. It's just not going to be, but with all things being equal for 40 bucks, That's, that's, it's terrific. It blew my mind how good it was.
Andrew Four lattes that you have saved getting made.
Everett I've been using it even though I bought it just to appease my wife who didn't want to use the steam wand. I'm like, yeah, this works pretty, pretty well.
Andrew That's a thing.
Everett That's my other thing. That's a good other thing. Andrew, is there anything else you want to add before we get moving for the day? No, no. Well, I just want to thank everybody for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast. This is episode 251. Last was episode 250. What that means is that we are rapidly approaching five years of doing this podcast. I don't know if we're going to do something special for five years or not, but in any event, I'm so happy to be here continuing to do this thing. Why don't you check us out on the website, watchclicker.com. That's where we post every single episode of this podcast. and reviews, articles, etc. It's worth a look. You can also check us out on our socials at Watch Clicker or at 40 and 20 underscore Watch Clicker on Instagram. That's where we post pictures, updates, reviews, that sort of thing. If you want to support us and and we really hope you do, you can do that at Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's how we get all the money for hosting software and hardware that we use in the production of this podcast, and to just keep the wheels turning. And don't forget to tune in next Thursday for another episode of Watches Food, Drinks, Life, and other things we like. Bye bye.